How to Make a Folded Book (Part Two)

hi I'm Julia hood the manager of school and family learning that Reynolda house Museum of American Art this is the second installment of our pop-up Studios series on simple folded books and today I'm going to show you a version that's similar to the X book that we made in the last one but this time it's more of an accordion book so it's got a back and forth fold but there's a book maker who also calls it a pants book and you might be able to see why she would call it a pants book and you fold it up and make a book out of it I'm also going to show you a different way that you could do this where you can embellish it slightly by making a hardcover with cardboard and decorative paper so that then it has two boards four ends I'll show you what you need for this project and how to do it

for the simplest version of this book you only need some scissors and a piece of paper the larger the paper you have the larger each page of your book will be I'm using an 8 and a half by 11 inch piece of paper and this will make a little hand-sized book you can use a ruler or bone folder the white tool here to help make your folds sharper if you want to get fancy and put to hard covers on your book you'll need either some cardboard or matte board decorative paper a ruler and a pencil to make measurements and straight lines and some kind of glue I'll use a glue stick today but if you really get into bookmaking you might want to use a pH neutral PVA glue designed for bookmaking if you use this glue you'll need a brush to spread the glue out evenly on your surfaces

to fold the pages of your book start by making a hot dog fold lengthwise bringing one long edge to meet the other crease then unfold now make a hamburger fold bringing one short edge to meet the other folding it with wise crease then unfold so that your folds facing you are kind of like mountains then take the right short edge and fold it in to meet the middle crease repeat by taking the left short edge of the paper and folding it in again to meet the middle crease unfold now you will cut along the long center line between three of the four sections stopping as you reach the third horizontal fold

now fold up the pages on each side and collapse them together using the folds that already exist to make your book

to make a hardcover board you'll need to start by measuring the width and length of your finished book I grabbed a scrap piece of paper to write down my measurements then you'll want to add about a half an inch to each dimension so that your cover will be a quarter inch larger on all sides if you don't want your book covered to be this much larger than your book pages only add a quarter of an inch when measuring cardboard then you'll cut two rectangles with these new dimensions out of cardboard or mat board I'm starting by measuring my length in a few places so that I can then draw a straight line between my marks then I measure the width at two points and draw a line between them cut out here to back tangles

your decorative paper will need to be larger than your cardboard I'm adding an inch to each dimension so that I have half an inch to fold over on each side now measure the new dimensions onto your decorative paper and cut two rectangles I flipped my paper so that my measurement marks would be on the back side next grab a scrap piece of paper to go under the pieces as you glue them apply glue to one piece of cardboard and glue it to the backside of your decorative paper smooth it down if you're using liquid glue apply a very thin layer over the whole surface then fold over each corner of the paper as close to the cardboard as you can get it crease with your fingers a ruler or a bone folder glue down the corners

next fold over the edge of the paper to the cardboard plane it snugly against the edge of the cardboard again crease with your fingers or a bone folder or a ruler glue these edges down if you're using liquid glue apply a thin layer then place wax paper over the board and flatten it underneath sand heavy books to dry repeat the process of the second cover when both covers are dry glue a cover to each outermost page of your book press firmly you can place the book underneath heavy books to help flatten it if need be but make sure there isn't any extra glue in places you don't want it or your pages will stick together and the cover

see the PDF instructions below for written directions with diagrams additional suggestions for what you might do with your completed books and a printable template to use for typing pages of text that will fit in a book made from an 8 and a half inch by 11 piece of paper find these by following the links below