2020 #16 Life with EAB {by Jennie Atkinson}

 2020 Topic 16: Hinged

More clever hinging tonight, this time from Jennie. The humble washi tape becomes the hero and works wonders on keeping an exquisite little book together.

~ Keren,

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live the Dream) here sharing a tiny little book made using washi tape for hinges and using my dies to cut a little hinged door for the front. I am a great lover of little books and have spent many hours researching different types of binding. I have found washi tape to be a really great way of pulling together small light pages and pockets. It is extremely strong but allows the pages to flop open for great viewing.  

However, when you start using Alison's wonderful quotes the book has a tendency to get a bit larger than intended but as long as you have an even number of pages and/or pockets, the system works.

I have used quotes from two of Alison's Collections -  Life & Living  and Magic & Wonder.

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I love using my dies to make small books as it means everything can be uniformly cut and will all glue together perfectly. I have used Smoothy Heavy Cardstock to cut three single pages and three sets of pockets with a tag.

The system I use is one that many crafters and bookmakers have shared on Pinterest and Youtube, but I have shown the individual steps here. I have used a fairly wide washi tape, but it needs to be small enough to allow three strips to be placed on the side of the book. I have used two pieces on the first page and one on the second, two on the third, one on the fourth ...As each page is added (working from the front to the back) the tape is stuck onto the new page. I hope the photographs make sense! The large photograph shows how easy it is to open the pages.

The spine looks very neat.

Sometimes I leave the washi tape showing and make it part of the decoration, but for this little book I have covered the pages with Gelli Plate prints made using Fresco Finish Paints (Cloud 9, Willow, Cheesecake, Turquoise and China) and a selection of Texture Plates.

There is a video on my blog showing how I made these prints (under Videos on the top bar).

Using the die allowed me choose the area of paper I wanted to cut, particularly useful when you want to stamp a quote directly onto the page.

It also allows for a bit of a production run ! creating all the pages before they are stuck into the book. I have used a selection of Ink and The Dog stamps to compliment the quotes.

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Each double spread page has a small collage with a title word isolated from the associated quote.

I have also used my die to cut the hinged door on the front cover. I have made a fold in the Smoothy Cardstock ½" deep and then aligned the die so that the fold is on the inside of the cutting line. This is a really good technique to get to grips with as it is extremely useful for cutting fancy shaped cards and flaps for books.

Again using the die it is easy to decorate inside and out with beautifully cut shapes! 

If you are a lover of small books the washi tape hinge technique is certainly one to try. It can feel a little floppy when  you first start to construct the book, but by the time the pages have been decorated it has a lovely feel to it. My book measures 2½" x 2¾" which might have been a bit fiddly to put together without the help of dies. So do look through your dies to see what you have as some of the little used shape dies will result in a lovely book.

As always thank you for joining me  and happy crafting!

Jennie x

Blog: Live the Dream