birthday wishes....artful thursdays #2 tiny book tutorial

welcome to artful thursday no. 2. i have a new artful thursday button designed by rachelle and a new list of regular artful thursdays blogs for you to check out on the left. stop by and see what Hope, Elise, Michele, Lilia, Tammy,and Jennifer made today.


i have had the papers to make one of these little birthday books collected and stacked on my desk for an entire year now. today is the day, especially since my baby sister kris and i are both celebrating our birthdays today! she was born on my 10th birthday. when i got home from school for my party that day no one was home. my nice (but scary) next door neighbor came over and said i could sit in her front room until someone came home for me. mrs. lewis' front room was not for kids. i sat there without swinging my legs against her orange floral couch for maybe hours. it was definitely a tragedy. but now i have this amazing sister. she is a true kindred spirit and a cunning planner just like myself. it was worth it to miss out on one little birthday so i could share so many other birthdays with her.

i thought it would be fun to have these little birthday books all ready to mail out to friends and family on their special day this year. (ok, look surprised if you happen to get one of these this year and you are reading my blog)

get started by collecting 8 tiny scraps of paper 2 by 3 inches from your stash. i used vintage papers from old ledgers and thrift store notebooks and journals.

the set up for this project is the only tricky part. if you are sloppy with your measuring and cutting your little book won't fold up and look right. the pages will overlap in the folds and drive you crazy.

1. fold a piece of white printing paper in half for your template. measure off 1/4 inch along both long sides of the paper and along one end. these are the red lines. this will give you a little wiggle room for printing.

bring the middle fold up to the top red line and crease the paper. this will divide the paper in half for the pages of your book.


2. the next step is to fold the paper in half lengthwise and crease. you now have 4 rectangular sections shown divided by the black lines.


3. now fold in half each of the four rectangle spaces by bringing each red side line to the center and fold and crease your paper. these folds are the green lines. do they look green?


well now you have your 8 sections ready to fill in with paper. cut and glue in each page so the edges are nice and straight. this is my birthday book with the 8 pages and cover decorated.


i numbered the pages to show you which way each page should be facing. the cute red labels are from lilia and are in her shop. when you are designing your book pages 1 and 2 are facing pages, as are 3 and 4, and 5 and 6.




after decorating all 8 pages your book looks a bit like this:


take it to the copy center and color copy your book, ask for '2 up', this means each full page will have two books printed on it.

cut out around each book and fold along the lines. this site shows how to cut the center slit and fold your book up. I like to use a glue stick to hold the pages together and add a few touches of glass glitter to add some sparkle.

voila! i have a ready to go stack of little birthday surprises to mail. i left some space on the back cover to write a little note.



hey, this is going to be my first swap of the year. make a tiny book, copy and fold up 24 copies, mail them to me and i will send you 24 tiny books back.
and check it out mine is already done.... i'll figure out the swap details and post them next week. or if you just want a copy and don't want to swap, send $2 for printing and postage to my paypal @ juliecollings2003@hotmail.com and i will mail you a tiny copy of birthday wishes. don't forget to include your snail mail address.

happy artful thursday, julie