Jelly Bean Books

I recently received this comment on one of my blog pages:

“Hi Paula
I have come across a copy of an article Jelly Bean Books by you, which looks like its been published in a magazine. Unfortunately, I only have step 1, and steps 5 and 6, so cant quite work out how you get the book folded and utilise all the lines you make in step one. Would you consider sending me a link to the instructions for these little books please? I love papercraft, specifically book binding and card making, and collect any new ideas I find.
I look forward to hearing back from you
many thanks
Bronwyn”

My Jelly Bean Book instructions were written up for a book Making Books and Journals, published by Lark Books 1999. Constance E. Richards collected projects for this book from eleven different book artists. It’s a charming book, full of fine projects, well presented. Constance had asked me to come up with some simple book making projects. Since the request came close to Easter, and since the books are meant to be small and colorful, I called them Jelly Bean Books.

Something about them being small invites playfulness. I make them using all sorts of papers, with snippets of decorations.

Decorating the inside is fun too,.

Print out this template, then copy it on your printer at 115%

Here’s template for making the cover of the Jelly Bean Books. Start with a strip of paper 2 inches x 9 1/2 inches. Score sections according to the template. Fold and glue the two shorter sections together. Fold in the corners of the end of the other side of the paper to make a point.

For the pages, fold and nest four pieces of paper that are either 4 1/4 or 4 3/4 inches. Attach them to the spine of the book (refer to pictures). Attach in with sewing, wrapping or rubberbanding. Cut a slit into into the folded pieces for the pointed end to slip into.

The Making Books and Journals, book was published over ten years ago and can bought, used, for nearly nothing . This being the case, I am going to assume that it’s okay for me to scan the pages for of the book for Bronwyn to print. Here are links to the First Page and the Second Page of the directions published by Lark. These directions are more thorough than what I have written here.

I want to mention that it looks to me, from her email address, that Bronwyn is from New Zealand,. This fact inspired me to take the time to scan in these pages as I am smitten by the fact that the internet allows people from all across the world to easily connect with each other.

And, surpirise, surprise, whilen searching for a used book supplier for Bronwyn, I found this site in New Zealand which announces that this book is going to be republished in March 2011. I couldn’t find a thing about the republishing of this book on Lark’s website, but Amazon‘s site also has the same announcement. If Amazon says it, I guess it must be true….

Folder Book for Making Books about Countries

This post is about giving anyone who is interested the specs on how to make the Countries Folder Book that I wrote about in my last post, Making Books about Countries for Third Graders.

This book has many different pieces to it, which makes it a dynamic project, but requires that the teacher has a good grasp of many techniques. I’m supplying as many tutorial links as I can to help the ambitious tutor through this ambitious adventure.

I use a cover weight paper for this book. The size is important: 17 1/2″ x 23″, so that when it is folded in fourths, as in the illustration above, the inner pocket is big enough to store full size sheets of paper. These papers are the students raw notes, which they refer to when they are making their little books.

On the upper left side of the folder there is a color copy of Brazil’s paper money, attached to the page on a paper spring

Lower on the page is a little rubber band pamphlet book. This one was made from half sheets of copy paper, folded in half, nested together, then held together on the spine with a #19 rubber band. There are some lovely examples of these in the previous post so be sure to take a look.

The pamphlet book is stored in an origami pocket.

There is a 3″ x 6″ heavyweight paper “hook” in the middle of the right side of this folder. Take a look at the drawing to see the hook: in the photograph it is hidden behind the book. This heavy weight strip of paper is only partially glued down. The upper third is not glued down: a book hangs by its rubber band spine on the hook.

The book on the hook is made of two sheets of paper folded together so that its pages reveal the pages below. They are bound together with a .#19 rubber band. This is often refered to as a graduated page book.

Here are some great examples of some of the graduated page books made by these talented third graders.

These pages were made from regular copy paper, cut in half. Notice that we photocopied lines on to the pages.

The energy in this child’s writing and drawings makes clear his enthusiasm for this project.

The drawings on these were made from the backs of cut up pieces of filing cards.

The last thing I want to write about is the flag and the v-shaped pop-up that it is attached to. First, the flag.
What I generally like to do with flags is to provide the students with colored paper with which they “build” the flags. For Brazil this meant cutting a green rectangle, a yellow parallelogram and color copy of the center of the flag. Most flags can be “built” fairly easily with colored paper (the USA flag is the great exception!). The Canadian flag can be tricky: I provide the color strips, and an outline of the central leaf, which students color in.

Next time I do this project I probably won’t use the v-shaped pop-up, Instead, I think I would try a simpler square. You’ll have to search out your own directions for this one!

Making Books about Countries: a project with third graders

    Here is a project that debuted with third graders this past spring, as part of their Countries of the World unit.

The teachers wanted the students to be able to present their work in a format that would help to motivate and reinforce reasearch.  We weren’t able to get started on this project until mid-May, so it was important that it could be finished by the end of the school year.

The covers, above, included the title, as well as a the outline of a world map (complete with compass rose). Students decorated and labeled the compass rose, and colored in the world map, highlighting Brazil.  

The inside of the book, which is really a folder, has room for smaller books.  What’s also nice is that there is an opening on the right side to slip in full sheets of paper.  This is both a storage place for research that is awaiting placement in one of the little books, as well as a spot where other research can be found.

On the left side of the spread the students pasted in an origami pocket.  This pocket is the home of a little book which contains information about Brazil.  The book is made of a folded piece of copy paper which contains half sheets of folded, lined notebook paper.  The pages and cover are held together with a thin (#19) rubber band.

Some students drew illustrations right over the lines,to go along with their writing.

Other students drew on separate pieces of drawing paper, then, with a glue stick, attached them onto the pages of their books.

Some students chose not to draw at all.

 They seemed to have a great time with the covers.

This is enough for one post….more about this book in a couple of days…

Necklace Books and Beltloop Books

I recently found directions, MY directions, for these books on-line (more about that later), so I felt inspired to do on post of them. From the perspective of instructing, these miniature books are a big crowd pleaser. They are created out of small strips of paper, folded, then bound together with a double loop of a thin rubber band, size #16 or #19. I originally designed this project for a Girl Scout Jamboree. They wanted me to make books with 750 girl scouts in one day, in groups of 125. Because of the big numbers, I felt that it was impractical to use scissors or glue sticks. I packaged up strips of colored papers with rubber bands, stickers, yarns and beads. The girls loved making and having these little books. They wore them around their necks and used them to exchange phone numbers with the new friends they had made that day.

Why I call these “Necklace Books” or Beltloop Books”
I nearly always ask students to tie a piece of yarn, about 36″ long, around the rubber band that binds the pages together. Six wooden or plastic beads are then strung on to the yarn. Students then wear the books as necklaces or loop the yarn through their beltloops.

Students seem to delight in the novelty of using different colored and different size papers for the books. Even if all their pages start out as the same size, I encourage students to cut into the pages to create decorative effects. Students love cutting into the pages of their books. Sometimes they overdo it and their books fall apart. Since these books are made up of such small papers, I have no problem pointing out the results that come from too much cutting, then I hand them some more paper.

A number of years ago I wrote up directions for how to make necklace books and beltloop books. I submitted the directions as part of a contract for a book to be published by Scholastic. I didn’t hear anything about this book for years. I thought they had forgotten about it. Somewhat recentlyI happened upon it! If you want to look at the directions, follow this link: http://teacherexpress.scholastic.com/belt-loop-logbook-social-studies-bookmaking-project Scholastic has put these, and other, directions on-line in a window. There is even an option to purchase pages of directions in PDF for $1.50. What a cool idea. BTW, I am quite sure that I won’t see any of that money, but if enough people show interest in the book maybe I will get an opportunity to work on another one…..

Yes, this is playful book arts….