**New updated 7/9/16 with new photos**
I made a new book using my printable shibori patterns kit as the photos on the old article were looking a bit small and dark (I must have learnt more about taking and editing photos since then!).
This is going to have a lot of photos. You have been warned!
Some of my equipment all ready for use
You need:
- Two pieces of mountboard. Mine were 8 cm square. I used the cardboard back page from an old sketchpad.
- Two pieces of painted papers, fabric, handmade paper or similar, slightly larger than the mountboard, to cover it.
- Six pieces of painted papers (or however many you want). Mine were 14 cm square. I printed out the papers on A4 paper double sided though actually they would be okay single sided as half the paper gets glued to the next page so you could glue the white sides to each other. The kit is 12″ square but printing on A4 or letter size will just crop it automatically.
- Gluestick.
- Scissors
- Old magazine or similar to do the glueing on.
This is what it looks like inside
This shows how a concertina book is constructed. It has a cover at either end and six folded pieces of paper in between. I used my printable shibori papers, both to cover the mountboard for the covers and for the folded paper.
The covers of the book
I cut a square of mountboard (thick card) about 3 inches square – see below – and covered it with paper.
Here is the mountboard and the paper cut to size for the covers – you can see that I’ve cut the corners off the one on the right to make it neater when it is glued down
I cut a piece of paper slightly larger than the card and cut across the corners, glueing the paper to the card and over the edges. The paper needs to completely cover the inside edges but it is not necessary to cover the very middle because the folded papers will be glued on here.
The back of the cover all glued down with a ruler to show the size.
As you can see, this is just over 3 inches square, but the exact size doesn’t matter. You can make them bigger or smaller as you wish. The inside folded papers, when folded into four, should be just a little bit smaller than the covers – mine are about 0.25 inches smaller all round. So my covers are 3 and one eighth inches square (8 cm) and the folded paper when laid flat is just under 5 and a half inches square (14 cm)(this will be folded into four). (I obviously used the metric side of my ruler when I made these!)
Paper folded lengthwise and diagonally
Take a square of painted paper. This shows the folds.
Paper folded in half lengthwise
Fold this paper in half lengthwise, open it out, turn it 90 degrees and fold it lengthwise again. Then turn it over.
Paper turned over and folded diagonally
Fold the paper diagonally, press the edge well and open out. Just do this on one diagonal, not both.
Paper folded correctly
Turn the paper over again and push the corners with the diagonal folds towards each other so it looks like this (above). If you have done origami, this will be easy. When folded flat it will be a square that is a quarter the area of the whole piece. Repeat with all six pieces of paper.
6 pages folded correctly and lined up ready to be glued together
Put the papers in the order you want to glue them together.
Glueing the paper
Put glue all over one square side of the paper. Try not to get any glue along the edges or it may make them stick together. Wipe any excess off.
Paper being pressed down on to cover
Place the glued side on to the wrong side of the cover centrally and press it down. Press down hard so that it sticks! If you use a gluestick it should stay in place fairly quickly.
Add another page to the book
Put glue on to the second piece of folded paper and position it on top of the first the same way round (ie. so that the corner with the ‘flaps’ is towards you). Turn the whole thing round 180 degrees so that the folded corner without the flaps is towards you and the corner with the flaps is away from you.
more glue
Put glue on the next piece of paper and position it on top of the rest with the corner with the flaps towards you (ie. the opposite way round from the rest of the pages). Do the same with the next piece of paper and then turn it 180 degrees again and put the last two pieces of paper on top so that they are facing the same way as the first two you did. (If you don’t put them the right way round, don’t worry – it will just stand up differently to mine but still look fine – in fact, I did a couple where I did the first three pieces of paper one way round then I put the next three the other way, rather than two:two:two as I am showing you here). As you glue each page on, press it down well so that it sticks and doesn’t move around too much when you put the next one on.
Three pages glued together and opened up
Here is the book with three folded pages glued together, one the opposite way round to the other two.
Book with cover waiting to be glued on
Here it is with all the pages glued on, ready for the cover to be added.
Put glue on the top page, line up the cover level with the bottom cover and stick it on, wrong side on to the paper.
Pressing the whole thing down well
Now press the whole thing down well to stick it together nicely.
Checking pages are not stuck together where they shouldn’t be
Then open it up carefully and check none of the pages are stuck where they shouldn’t be. If they are, prize them apart. This should be fairly easy if you haven’t been too wild with the glue. It is important to do this now, before the glue has dried hard. If there are any gobs of glue on any of the edges, wipe them off carefully with your fingers.
Concertina book all opened out
Hey Presto! A concertina book!
All finished!
I decided to use my hexagon die cutter to cut out a quote from my Inspirational Words printable to decorate the front cover.
A pile of little handmade concertina books that I’ve made
Here are several books which I have made in this way. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. Happy glueing! If there are any points you are confused about, let me know and I’ll try and elucidate.