Saturday, January 6, 2018

Folded Book Heart

Those who know me, know that I LOVE (no pun intended) decorating for Valentine's Day.  I think part of it is that the house looks so bare when you take down the Christmas decorations.  The other part for me is that living in the Midwest, January can be a terribly dreary month so the bright reds and pinks help to cheer things up a bit.  Here is a simple project that can cost you nothing if you have an old book lying around to use.  I have a bunch of these little, red, French books that are not antiques so I don't mind using them for projects.  Any book will do but a hardback is best and one whose pages are not so old they are brittle.
You'll need a metric ruler and a pencil.  This clear ruler is the best one I had but because you are starting to measure from the left edge, I had to use it upside down.  The best and easiest instructions I found were in Instructables (click HERE to go to the full instructions).  One thing they don't tell you is WHERE to begin your folded pages.  Here's my formula for this pattern:  The pattern is 40 pages.  My book had 167 pages.  167 minus 40 is 127.  127 divided by 2 is 63.5 so I began by folding page 63 is page 1 in the pattern.
After you mark all of your pages, you begin folding. Make sure you are folding at a straight 90 degree angle.
This is what the first page looks like after you've made both folds.
Another tip: I used a clothespin to hold the pages as I folded them to keep them from falling down.  It made folding each page much easier.
Here's what it looked like after I'd folded a few pages.
And here's the finished product - pretty cool! I wanted to 'dress it up' a little bit though.
On the inside of each cover, I added some Valentine paper and sandwiched a piece of ribbon in between as well.


Simply tie the ribbon and you're finished!  A quick, inexpensive project for Valentine's Day although I could see this as an Anniversary gift (maybe for year 1 which is "paper").  Instructables has quite a few free patterns and I'll be trying the Heart Inside a Heart next!  Check out this site for a TON of free patterns for different holidays, names, etc.


On any given week (depending on how busy I am!) I love to participate in Link Parties.  These gals put a lot of time and effort into hosting these parties so I always want to show my appreciation by directing my readers to these blogs. 

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21 comments:

  1. Hi Lauren wow this is beautiful and so clever,well done my friend 💋

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  2. I have seen these and wondered how they are made. Very unique! I love your embellishments too.

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  3. Oh, how pretty! You never cease to amaze me with your creativity and ideas! Such a bright spot to visit with you, sweet friend. Have a wonderful New Year!

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  4. my my my this is beautiful!

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  5. I've seen this done and have always wanted to make one. Yours is darling! I love Valentines as well. But then, I have a boy that was born on Valentines Day. Thanks for sharing with SYC.
    hugs,
    Jann

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  6. I don't decorate for Valentine's, but if I did, I would love to make one of these. Wonderful idea to use up old books.

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  7. That is so cool, Lauren, how clever. : )

    ~Sheri

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  8. I'm a little slow on the uptake so I had to stare at the book for a few seconds (like those Magic Eye illusions) to see the "heart". Heh. Your book heart would be a great way to use old encyclopedias.

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  9. What a fun project for the upcoming Valentine holiday! I would never have thought to do such a thing, it really looks like a lot of work, but you've made it look easy! Hugs to you today :)

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  10. This is adorable. I'll have to give it a try. I popped over from Jann's blog.

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  11. I have often seen these kinds of things...very cool to know how you made yours!

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  12. I admire your patience and tenacity in making this project. I've seen these on Pinterest, and while I'm normally up for a challenge, I just can't bring myself to try one of these! Wonderful tutorial, though, for those with ambitious fingers. Oh, and I love the XO paper you added, so cute!

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  13. GREAT idea for an old, un-used, already read book..
    Would love to have you come share at my weekly party: http://www.jodiefitz.com/2018/01/08/reader-tip-tuesday-weeks-craft-recipe-party-14-2-2-2-2-2-2/
    Hope to see you there xo

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  14. This is so awesome! Thanks for sharing it, it's lovely! :)

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  15. Wow! I love your Valentine book. Fun and different!

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  16. So pretty! I made one of these last year and sold it at my space that I had at the antique mall!

    Tania

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  17. Lauren, this is a book page craft I haven't seen before and I really love it! Thank you for sharing at Vintage Charm--pinned!

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  18. I love your book heart, it is so pretty :) Thanks for sharing over at Creative Mondays last week. You are one of my featured blogs this week.

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  19. I noticed on the instruction site that the heart sat much higher on the book. Is that due to length and width of pages? Such a nice project. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. I didn't notice that but maybe it has to do with the size of the book? I haven't made another of that single heart yet. It will be interesting to see what it looks like with a different size book!

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