Bookbinding Technique

Did you ever participate in an exercise in which you close your eyes and proceed to fold a piece of paper based upon the oral instructions given to you?  At the end, when you open your eyes, you discover your piece of folded paper does not look anything like your instructor's.  The participants burst into laughter when they see how each of them interpreted the directions differently and no two pieces of paper are folded the same.  And then there's always the one who did it perfectly......  

Well, that's what last night's little art activity reminded me of.  Although I must say all of us Prairie Art Stampers were able to master this paper folding technique.  Our member, Ann, brought us a fantastic book binding technique that she learned in a book.  She is a master crafts(wo)man at making German stars so it didn't surprise me that she would know lots of other paper folding.  No glue.  No scissors.  No tape.  Just fold and assemble and you have a book. 

Here are some photos that I took during my assembly of my little book:

As you can tell, we had color coded papers to help us learn how to assemble.  When I got home, I pulled out DD1's Heidi Grace papers and a matching sticker and popped on a new cover that matched the yellow and pink.  The cover now is heavier card stock( but I was still able to crease it)--and no need for a cardboard insert.

You can cover the spine, use beautiful patterned papers, stamp, embellish, etc.  The examples Ann brought were all stunning.  I immediately determined this is a great way to use up all of those left over papers and stickers sitting in my craft room.