Mini-Book Magic

Hello, I am back again.  Not posting very regularly just now, but I am trying to post at least once a week!
Before  I get onto the Real Subject of this post... Do you remember "Herman the German"? 
Well, if you do - and those who tasted him may well do - you may like to know that Herman has his very own Website!!  Follow this link - or the one in the "Stop Press" column on the right - to take a look!
I don't have a "Herman" just now, but I'd love to try and start one from scratch - I believe the instructions are there somewhere!

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Sooo.. back to the Real Subject!

An Experiment with Miniature Books

There seem to be rather a lot of scraps sitting around my studio.  Strips of paper, trimmed from large sheets, when I cut them into pages; small pieces of bookcloth and suede; decorative paper scraps; short lengths of linen thread, too small for a large book... 

I don't like to throw away nice materials, so I thought I would do a bit of Experimenting and make some Miniature Books.

A Miniature Book is generally accepted to be a book that is less than 7.5cm/ 3" in height and width.  Which is really quite small.  Some people have made ultra-mini books... so tiny you'd need a magnifying glass to look.  Some have written tiny text in their miniature books.  There are miniature bibles, mini photo albums, mini cook-books, mini sketchbooks, miniature artists' books,  mini-book necklaces... all kinds of things. 

So... I thought I'd give it a try.  This is what I've made so far:

Three Miniature books...

The red pencil is a standard-sized pencil...

Teal suede leather miniature book, 5cm / 2ins square

This little book has a Longstitch mediaeval style binding in golden linen thread.  There are 20 pages of crisp off-white Fabriano paper.  It has a wrap-round leather strip to fasten it.

This little hardcover book measures 6 cm / 2, 3/8" by 5cm / 2". It has covers of Liberty Tana Lawn bookcloth, in William Morris' "Strawberry Thief" design, with a quarter binding of damson silk dupioni bookcloth.  There are 30 pages of white paper, with white endpapers to match.  It fastens with a little grey ribbon tie. 

A hardcover book, measuring 6.75cm / 2.5" by 5.5cm / 2.25".  It has covers of hand-marbled paper, by Rhonda Miller with a quarter binding of grey suede leather.  There are 30 pages of heavy-weight white artists paper, stitched with grey linen thread.  The end papers are a dark blue art paper and it fastens with a grey ribbon tie.

My three little mini-books!

These are by no means perfect - they are very much "learning" pieces.  Lots of little faults - such as the two hard cover books refusing to close, once I had added the end-papers (hence the ribbon ties!), and I didn't do the longstitch binding very well.  I still have lots to learn.

Still, I am pleased with them - they're fun and cute and quite pretty.  A couple of hours well spent!