Mini book ornament how-to

Author Cheryl Rainfeld posted on her blog how she made book ornaments for her own books. This gave me the idea to make mini books of some of my favorite books to use as ornaments. My goal is to eventually have most of the ornaments on my tree be literature related.

After looking at several how-to blogs for making the mini books I decided to try my own way.

1. Scan the dust cover of your favorite book. I laid it out flat so that the front, spine & back are scanned at one time. If you have a paperback, you can open it & scan the whole cover that way.

Because the dust covers are sometimes longer than the scanner, some of the edges will be cut off.

2. Open the scanned images using a photo editing software (I use Photoshop Elements). Print on white cardstock at 2in x 4in.

3. Cut out the covers & fold into book form so that you can see the spine. Lay out flat & paint on a thin layer of ModPodge. This will help seal in the color & make them shine more.

4. For the inside pages I used a beat up extra copy of Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire. (It almost killed me having to tear up a book, btw) Cut the edges off the sides using a paper cutter then fold the page in half twice. Cut these strips & fold them into thirds & cut. One page is enough for a mini book.

5. Once the modpodge is dry, squirt a layer of hot glue into the spine. Make sure all the pages are turned the same way and stick them in the book. Tap them in place to make sure all of the pages get in there.

6. Trim off any excess. Punch a small hole in the back. Tie a string through the hole & you have an ornament.

OF COURSE I had to make an entire Harry Potter collection.