Day 41-Welcome to Arizona-Perfect Binding

Today's book is a Perfect Bound book. A "perfect binding" is what you're used to seeing in any magazine with a flat spine and in most paperback books. Instead of the pages being folded over and sewn, the individual pages are cut and stacked and the spine edge is glued several times with strong glue. Then the cover and/or spine is added over the glued edge. The book opens flat and none of the page is lost in the spine, as you can see in the 3rd and 4th pix below (random pages from the opened book). But it is not nearly as strong as a stitched book--as you know if you've ever had a paperback fall apart in your hands.

The materials for this book were easy to come by. We have an official Arizona Tourist Information Center in our store, full of brochures, maps and other info. I went through the rack and picked out a selection of 4"x9" rack cards from places all over Arizona, mostly in the north, where I am. Then I just used those for my pages, designed a cover in PhotoShop & PageMaker, printed it out on good heavy glossy photo paper and glued it all together. Then I covered the raw glued edge with some Japanese decorative masking tape to pretty it up.

Day 40 - Extra Extra - Bubble Gum Package Book

This is another one of those "putting out merchandise in the store and I see a book" days. You may recall, my partner and I own a market/convenience store/tourist shop. Today, I was opening a box of packages of Extra bubble gum to put on the shelf and I noticed the graphics on the box. Nice! Could be a book. Lately, I see books in almost everything I look at.

So I took the box that once held 10 packs of gum, cut it apart and made another cross-structure binding. I'm really getting to like this binding. It's easy and it makes a neat spine on a book that still opens flat.

Day 39-Accordion Book-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

This little accordion book would make a nice gift--anniversary, Valentine's day, engagement. It's only about 3" square so could even be tucked into a card.

Two pieces of lightweight book board are covered with a very pretty hand decorated paper. Inside, a single sheet of lavender paper is cut and folded into a snake book that has been printed with the stanzas from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "How do I love Thee?" A pretty pink ribbon was glued between the back page and back cover to wrap around the front and tie the book shut.

Day 38-A Nice Little Notepad

This would be a handy little thing to keep in your purse. First I made a notepad by stacking plain white paper and cutting the whole stack at one time with an Xacto knife to get nice clean edges. Then I used padding compound--a special type of glue that will turn a neat stack of paper into a tear-off pad--to glue the top edge. Bulldog clips held it in place until the compound dried.

Then I cut a template from card stock and cut decorative paper to cover it on the outside. I scored the fold lines, folded it into a book shape with a front flap, glued the notepad to the center back and added a piece of velcro in front to keep it closed.

It will be interesting to explore this idea some more.

Day 37 - A Scroll for the Dalai Lama

For awhile I've been saving the little plastic tube-like rolls that make the center of a cash register tape. Since we have a store, we end up with a lot of these and I always thought they looked like something I could make something out of one day. Today, while I was changing the tape yet again on the machine, I realized I could use one to make a scroll.

Also today, the Dalai Lama posted a quotation I really like to his facebook page (Yes, the Dalai Lama has a facebook page.) I used the quote to lay out paper strips with text on the computer, cut the strips, carefully glued them together to make one long strip and glued one end to the plastic tube. I rolled it up, added some decorative red paper and a yellow cotton floss tie, and there it was... a scroll for the Dalai Lama.

Day 36-Pride & Prejudice

Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite books. And I'm not alone, in loving it and all of Austen's work. There's even a name for us; we're called "Janites." So today's book is a little treat for Janites everywhere.

The covers show two Regency England figures, a woman on the front and a man on the back. To me, they are Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. The front says "Prejudice" because Eliza was prejudiced against Mr. Darcy before she truly knew his heart. The back says "Pride" since Darcy almost let his pride get in the way of marrying the woman he loved.

The covers of doubled cardstock were printed on the computer and cut by hand and the pages punched with a tag-shaped paper punch. There are approximately 40 white pages interspersed with about 20 pages punched from the pages of a copy of Pride and Prejudice. The pages are then hole punched at the top and connected with a binders' screw or chicago screw--a tube that fits through the holes and screws down onto a smaller tube. I added a cotton floss loop and a hand-made tassel at the top.

Part of the fun of this little book for true Janites is to try and figure out what part of the story the pages were cut from and/or which character is speaking a visible snippet of dialoge.

I plan to make more copies of this and perhaps sell it on etsy.

Day 35-spring Training

It's almost here. Spring is coming! There are actually white blossoms on one of the trees in my neighbor Lori's yard. So, even though we had snow less than a week ago, I am proclaiming it spring in NW Arizona.

And to celebrate, I've made a little round baseball book in honor of Spring Training. It's a simple little thing. an accordion book. I printed an image of a baseball onto cardstock (doubled) for the covers, then lightened the opacity of the image and printed it on regular white text paper for the pages. I punched them out with a 2 3/4" hole punch, hinged them together with tiny round white label circles and glued the accordion book block to the covers, sandwiching a piece of ribbon between to wrap around and tie it all together.

The book has 18 pages for notes--maybe keeping track of statistics at the ball park.

Day 33-Quotation Book Pin

More on a small scale, a little book with a pin back so you can wear it on a lapel, a scarf, a hat. It's a real book with accordion pages glued in with the words from a brief inspirational poem glued onto the pages. The words read... "Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal."

The outside is covered in an Italian marbled paper with accent paper and a ribbon to tie it closed. The front is decorated with a piece of melted copper and a twig. The book measures 2" x 1 1/2". A pretty little book and pin.

Day 32 - Back to Childhood

Is there anyone out there who didn't make a "Cootie Catcher" as a kid? I must have made hundreds of them. After we'd folded them, we'd take a pen or pencil and make little specks on the inside folds...the "cooties" we could show as proof that the contraption worked.

Today's book is a good old-fashioned cootie catcher fold, using a decorative piece of text-weight paper imprinted with red lips. I'd forgotten how to fold one, so I had to find a video on line to remind me. After it was all folded, I wrote words on the inside folds. One way, it reads, "Yes," "No," "Maybe," and "We'll See." Open it up the other way, and it reads "In Your Dreams,  Sucker!"

The final photo shows it partially unfolded to show the structure. A fun little project to remind me of the past.