Book From a Box

Try using an empty soda-bicarb box, raisin box; any small box. If you get a box that is too big, the binding will be so wide, it will take too many pages to fill it up.

Any box will do if the side of it is not very wide. Open up the box and cut off one narrow side, leaving three sections: two wide sides and the middle for the binding of the book. It will similar to the three ring binders.

Pages can be made from construction paper. If you have them ready, they can be traced on to the cardboard. Put the edge of the page up to the edge of the little section, called the back binding. Cut to fit, and repeat on the other side.

The book binding should now look like this. Gather up your spare papers to cover the outside and inside of this binding. You might have to piece some of it to get them to fit, if your book bigger than the paper. Smaller boxes fit just fine on regular sized papers.

Cover the outside. It is beginning to look like a book now.

Have your pages ready and punch holes in them. These holes will have to match the holes in the binder, so you may want to punch your book jacket first so you can line up the holes with the pages.

Using glue, cover the inside of the book. If you have no white glue, it is easy to make a paste with flour and water. Paint it on the cardboard with a pastry brush.

Punch two holes on each end with your hole puncher, like this.

Pull wired ribbon, string, cording, rope, or anything you like, through the holes in the pages, but do not tie them. Shown is narrow wired ribbon.

Lay the pages inside of the book. Then pull the ribbon on each side of the pages, through the two holes of the inside of the binder and tie them into little bows on the outside. Shown here is wide wired ribbon in silver. It is easy to get wide ribbon through the holes when you twist it first and insert it.

Using your decorative edge scissors, make edgings for the inside and outside of your little book and paste them down.

To make pages, just cut out things you like from catalogs and magazines that you might discard. Then cut pieces from glitter paper or any kind of colored paper you have. For the dark green border on the inside cover, I used the paper from a green envelope.

Some of the scraps on the inside pages.

This is the inside back of the book.

Click on for a larger view. Decorative scissors were used to cut borders of glitter paper for the edges on this book.

These little books can be what you want them to be: Primitive, country, romantic, seasonal, thematic, and personal. They are great for children's projects when they are learning about a particular subject, and they are relaxing to do if you just want to cut and glue. When we were young in the 1950's, cutting and gluing and creating was something we did when we were recovering from illness, snowed in, or for an activity to fill a lazy dazy day of summer.