Thursday, July 29, 2010

Star Book - How to

I got the idea for this from one of the middle school teachers in our county – she was nice enough to offer her materials, ideas, samples to the newbies before she retired. I saw this little gem and I snatched it up – she even gave me the stack of astro brite paper to go with it. I have only taught it once – as a little extra at the end of the year to one 3rd grade class... See what you can do with it.

1.Fold the inside pages - 5 pages works best to form the star. This is made with regular copy paper – I used the astro brite neons. Your inside papers should be twice as large as your finished book. I made a large one for this sample. The finished book is 4” so the inside pages are 8”.

 2.Fold each page in half twice so your paper has a + on it with 4 equal squares. Then fold once diagonally. Push in the diagonal folds so they meet in the middle of the unfolded square.

3.Create your covers – cut cardboard or mat board the size of your folded pages – 4” I covered mine with paste paper I had left over from Summer Art Camp. Cut the paste paper about 1/2” larger all the way around. Gluestick the cardboard to the back of the paste paper. Wrap/glue the corners in first, then fold/glue the edges in to make neat corners. Make 2 for the front and back.

4. Glue all the inside pages together. It is important that you have all the closed corners matched up and all the open “mouths” lined up – then you glue the outside of one page to the outside of the next page.
5.Choose a ribbon that coordinates with your colors. Measure it from corner to corner with the covers lined up like the photo below. Cut the ribbon to be 2.5 times as long at this measurement.

6.Glue the ribbon down to the back of the covers, leaving about 1/4” between the two covers.
7. Now glue the top page to the cover and the bottom page to the back cover. The ribbon should wrap around the corner like this:
8.Tie your ribbon – flip the book around to open it into a star! I made this one with only 4 inside pages since I had alternating colors.

I made another one the size of the original one I had and added, yes some zentangles to it!! The inside pages are 3” - final book 1.5” It's so cute!

I did my drawings before I assembled the book – but you could work with it after assembly as well by folding it back and forth to get a flat surface to draw on.
Play around with some fun papers and see what you can come up with.. These would make great little ornaments – put a spin on the giving tree for the holidays!

5 comments (+add yours?)

iHanna said...

What a cool idea, love the books you've done with different coloured fabrics and your doodles - beautiful!

Have a nice day, one creative-every-day-gal to another!

nanke's stuff said...

What a great tutorial and a fun little thing to make and have. They would make really cute Christmas ornaments, wouldn't they! nancy

Snippety Gibbet said...

Nice! I bet they are popular items. jan

Cheryl Hancock said...

That is a great idea- I good way of keeping the kiddies busy at the end of a day. Also love all your filing- wish I had the energy. I need a clever little secretary to help- .
Must get on with my blog again
Cheryl H
http://cheryl-hancock.blogspot.com/
OZ KIDZ ARTS

Mariët said...

Thanks for sharing this, Its so beautiful!

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