Small adventures, small books

With the new year cards finally sent (in the form of a pdf to be folded into a book), I used the same template to make a similar book, documenting a trip into the country at the weekend. To read the words, click on the photo to enlarge it -

The photos are taken out of the car window, with the camera set to maximum zoom - this usually gives a blurry effect, and works best when the sun is both low in the sky and behind clouds.

Here are instructions for making this type of book from a plain sheet of paper. The instructions are also on my website.

Start with an A4 or A3 piece of paper.

Fold the sheet of paper in half lengthwise.

Open it up and fold it in half crosswise, face up. This is the centre (short) fold.

Bring the top edge to the folded edge and fold).

Turn the paper over and bring the top edge to the folded edge; fold. These last two folds are the "outside" folds.

Now you need to make a “hole” in the middle of the paper. It will run along the lengthwise fold (the first fold you made).

To do this, cut from the centre fold, along the lengthwise fold, to each of the outside folds. It’s easiest to do this when the paper is folded along the centre (short) fold.

Refold along the lengthwise fold – which now has a hole in the centre. You will see that you’ve made an empty cylinder in the middle of the paper.

Make the cylinder into a star shape by bringing the uncut folded edges of the lengthwise fold together till they meet.

Now flatten the star shape – lay it down on the table and firmly crease all the edges, then pick up the nicely flattened little book and fold it over at the centre crease – voila!

(If you're a visual learner, there's a short video that shows how to make this type of book at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmPZlFBR6I8 -- same folds, but in a different order.)