Doodle book

I have been hunting around to find where I learned how to make these dandy little posterboard books & gosh durned it I cannot find it.  I can't take credit for the idea, but I can share it.  

You will need a sheet of posterboard (dollar store, stationary section of most stores...), ruler, calculator, pencil, needle & dental floss.

Measure & divide the sheet into thirds.  It will not come out evenly, don't stress out.  Add the slight extra to one end, make the other two of the thirds sized the same.  The bigger one is the cover.  Boomer says "See how that works out?" If you mix them up just pile them up together, they will show you which one is the bigger one.  The bigger third is divided in half to become the cover.  The other two need to be divided into thirds.  Posterboard will fold much nicer if you score the lines first.  The picture below shows how they are overlapped to become a book.  It does not matter which way you lap them as long as the thirds pages are offset.  Mark each spine fold sheet into thirds, poke holes in each sheet.  Something about thirds makes this easy to remember, hmmm...

 

Start in the centre of the inside of the book & poke the needle threaded with dental floss through to the outside.  It doesn't matter if you go top to bottom or bottom to top.  You will poke it back from the outside to the inside.  Then the inside to the last outer hole & back to centre.  If you picture a figure 8 for the thread path it will make more sense.  Tie a knot.  If you double twist the knot will cinch tighter.  Like you tie your shoes, except loop twice, repeat & no bunny ears.

 

 See how the cover sticks out more than the pages.  Score a line about 1/8" more than the pages & fold them in.

This is how the book looks from the top profile.  If you are like me & didn't measure carefully, its okay to cheat & trim the edges of the book to allow them to fold in.  Dig out your old deckle scissors from the kids craft pile & make the edges funky if you like.

If you need the book to be a little more durable I suggest to poke 4 holes binding for the construction, then picture over & under stitching ending up on the inside when done.  I find the thirds thread construction the pages twist a bit. Now get busy, art it up, doodle, glue in things from magazines, go  have fun playing around.  This is the very same booklet style that I doodled in my earliest blog posts.  I would post a direct link if I knew how to do that.