Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Tools Rule!!

I made my first mini book this month and it was a fun and easy project, thanks to having the right tools - my Scor-Pal and my Crop-o-dile. I started out with a 12" x 2.75" strip of cardstock and scored it with my Scor-Pal...every inch on the inch up to 6", then flipped it over and scored it again, every inch on the half inch up to 5.5"...does that make sense? Here's a visual to clear things up:
Using the Scor-Pal, the lines were even and exactly where I needed them to be.I made the accordian folds and then, using my Crop-o-dile, I punched holes through the first 3 folds which was (6) layers of cardstock...yes, I said S-I-X layers...and it was a piece of cake (which is why I love my Crop-O-Dile)! Using one fold as a guide to make sure all the holes were lined up properly, I punched through the next 3 accordian folds (See photo at right). As I added pages to the book, I just used the holes I had already punched in the accordian folds as guides to punch holes in the pages.

When it was finished I used brads to hold it all together. I put one brad through the front of the book and the first 3 folds. Then I put a brad through the back of the book and the last 3 folds. Finally I glued the spine together where the brads met.
Obviously, the number of pages you have in your book would be limited by the length of the "legs"(?) on the brad. I had 6 pages, plus the thickness of one layer of cardstock at the front and back.

The other limiting factor is the length of the cover. My cover was 6" long, and since I was using a 12" piece of cardstock, the maximum number of 1/2" folds I could create for the spine of the book was 6.

I don't know if the double brad thing is a new technique because I made it up as I went along...but it is new to me!! Oh, I will post the actual pages of the mini-book tomorrow.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love my cropodile too! It's great that it can even punch through metal, chipboard, just about anything!

Very cute book... can't wait to see the inside! If someone wanted to make it thicker, you could use some extra posts from an old post-bound album.