How to Make a Simple Stick Book

hi I'm Julia hood the manager of school and family learning at Renauld a house Museum of American Art for our pop-up studio today we're continuing our idea of simple books and how you can make simple books at home today I'm going to show you a way of you making a book that doesn't require any glue or any sewing this is what you might call a stick book because you can use a stick as the binding but you can also use any other kind of straight material a skewer a popsicle stick a spoon you can figure out something that you may have that will work for this purpose I'll show you what you need and how to make this very simple book for this book you will need paper to serve as the pages of your book cut them all to the same size you could also use large index cards or envelopes as your book pages you will need cardboard or paper to serve as the cover of your book thick paper is better but you can also use the same material as your book pages if need be for your tools you'll want a pair of scissors a pencil and a ruler as well as something that will poke holes in your book a three-hole punch or a single hole punch will both work well finally you'll need rubber bands or yarn and a thin sturdy object like a stick a skewer or a popsicle stick

one simple way to make pages for your book is to take computer paper and fold it in half and a hamburger fold then rip or cut along the fold line here I'm showing you you can use the straight edge of a ruler to help you rip pages but if you want crisp edges use a pair of scissors stack your pages together and set aside while you prepare the book cover pages for my cover I'm using a page for an old wall calendar I could measure my book pages and then Mark that out on the back of my cover paper but I'm choosing to just use the page itself as a guide place your book page onto the back of your cover paper and make a mark where the corner is it should look like a wide V then mark the other corners with a small light mark repeat this process as you mark out your second cover then use your ruler or another straight edge to draw a straight line between your marks creating lines for cutting then cut out the covers in bookmaking the binding means how the pages are kept together for this books binding we need to punch two holes in the side of the pages and the cover if you have a three hole punch and a thin book and covers you can punch both holes all at once stack your pages and put your covers on each side of your stack making sure that the back cover faces out the way you want it to tap the pages and cover together on their edge on a table or flat surface to line them up then place the stack carefully into the three hole punch so that you're only using two punches and that the pages are evenly distributed between those two holes with the holes lined up you need to next feed a rubber band through one of the holes working from the back of the book to the front watch how I fold it in half and put the folded end through the hole then insert your stick or skewer into the loop that was made by the rubber band hold those in place while you push the other end of the rubber band through the second hole stretch it gently and reach it over the end of your stick or skewer adjust and straighten the rubber band as needed to complete your binding now if you don't have a three-hole punch you will need to use one cover or a page as your guide to punch the remaining holes for the pages and the other book cover it's important that the holes line up so take your time here I'm placing the cover over a few pages and getting them lined up then using the guide on my hole punch I'm lining it up over the existing hole on the cover then make a punch repeat for both holes on all pages and the back cover then bind it in the same way as we did for the other book below find a link for the written version of these instructions with additional inspiration and suggestions for what you can put in your book then check out the other book making tutorials and other art activities on our Channel