Through the looking glass?

Hello everyone and a big thank you for all the lovely comments you've been leaving lately.  I was really pleased to hear that some followers are having a go at folding books and I wanted to share my latest creation with you.  This one uses an easier fold which gives a bit more room to add the stamped elements and with this one, I didn't even need to fold the whole book!  Here's the finished book looking down on it to show you the folds and the 3D effect.

I'll show you some more pictures of the book shortly but first of all here are the folds.  If you're new to book folding and want to try it, get a hardback book that's all text (pictures don't work so well), choose one where you like the colour of the pages as well as the size of the print and a reasonable number of pages to keep it sturdy - this one was numbered up to 500 which meant 250 pages to play with.  Opening the book at the centre, fold one page in towards the spine, then the next page gets folded up from the bottom as shown.

Then the same page gets folded down from the top like so:

Thats it!  Just keep making these folds on alternate pages until you get as far as you want to go through the book then turn it round and do the other side the same.  Press all your folds down so you get nice sharp creases and keep that point in the same place all the time - just keep closing the book every now and then to make sure you're keeping on track with the pattern.

Once I'd folded quite a few and was pleased with the 3D pattern in the middle, I decided to cut two niches in the remaining pages on the right hand side.  I did that using two large punches, one square and one round, cutting a few pages at a time and lining the punch up with the top and bottom lines of text on the pages - take your time doing this as its a bit tricky to keep the edges in line.  Once I'd done that, I glued those pages together with glue stick to make them nice and solid, then put the frames around the niches.  I could then fasten my little "Eat me" and "Drink me" bottles inside.

Then the fun bit started with all the images being added to the folds.  This time, as well as the tabs on the sides of the figures, I used a couple of Tim Holtz memo pins which worked really well.

I really  liked the White Rabbit stamp here and just wish I was a bit braver to stamp directly onto the pages - perhaps next time!!

Here's a final pic of my book - hope you like it.  The next one will be a Christmas theme - I'm really fancying doing A Christmas Carol........

Hope you are looking forward to the Bank Holiday this weekend, looks like the weather is going to be good for a nice finale to the summer.  Margie x