Zodiac signs for book folding

I always wish I could track it when I get multiple requests for the same thing.  It doesn’t happen very often, outside of Can I get LOVE in time for Valentine’s day? but when it does I wonder why?

I’ve had both comments and emails recently asking about star signs.  I have to admit other than knowing my sign (cause who doesn’t at least know THAT?) I am pretty clueless about horoscope and star signs.  When I got the first request, I thought they were asking about the more pictographic images.

which I thought was probably a bit ambitious unless done as a cut&fold. Maybe even ambitious in that form!

But I had another look and found the simple star signs, so I made a set of those:

 

There are alternating folds for virtually all of them, but nothing that would be overwhelming.  Folding them, then adding a ribbon to hold the book at the right degree of open-ness, and maybe adding the star sign name in cut letters might make a nice gift.  Something a bit like the way I did the photos on this:

That is a cut&fold, obviously, but the idea is the same.

The PDF is 12 pages and has all the star signs. You can download it here.  Just select the page to print.

I have a cut&fold I am dying to make for a friend – can you tell who it is?

Hearts, hearts, and more hearts!

In antici………PATION of Valentines Day, I am adding a handful of hearts.  Well, nearly.  Four. Three are slightly more stylish than the plain one, but all should be pretty easy to fold.

All but the plain heart have alternating folds, but not tricky ones, so a good first fold, I think, if you are feeling confident.

As ever, if you do fold them I would love to see them, and if the photo is clear, possibly share them so others can see what a finished fold looks like.

So grab the PDFs that appeal:

Odd heart

Heart Balloon

Heartbeat

Plain, simple Heart

All of these should be foldable in a day.  I wonder if any would fit in a copy of The Notebook, or any of the other top 10 romantic novels?

Two days in a row?? Elephant, Blogger and Books

It seems like it’s been ages since I managed to blog two days in a row.  Awaiting the plumber so I thought I might as well.

First, let me wrap up WOYWW stuff. Here is the elephant, finished.  I had to pop to Lidl yesterday afternoon and mine still has plenty of these kits available and they have dropped the price to under £2.  I picked up one I previously passed on, a rhino.

I am super happy with how he turned out.  You can;t see but the tusks are coated with Rock Candy stickles.

I am happy to be trying WOYWW again but there seems to be a problem – is it me or is it everyone or maybe just WordPress commenters? I commented o a number of blogs yesterday and still am not seeing comments from me posted.  Blogger labelled blogs seem to be ok, the ones that ask me to tick from a selection to verify I am not a robot.  But Blogspot labelled ones don’t seem to work.  I get a weird error screen:

How wrong is it that the problem is with Blogger and yet they want me to clear MY cache, and deal with all the problems that creates.  Harumpf. It feels like the equivalent of the IT Crowd folk saying Have you tried switching it off and then on again? 

Lastly, I am still sending out loads of book folding patterns by request.  One of them, requested and folded by Bette, won a prize at her local fair!

Apparently it won First Prize and a special ribbon.  All down to her folding and not the template – her two-line fold looks way better than mine!  Nice job Bette and thanks for sharing.

Another try – book folding DIY

OK, I am still trying to work out a good way to share book folding alphabets that are easy for people to use.  While it us certainly easy enough, with the right tools and knowledge, for you to copy>paste individual letters and build a word you then can print out, past experience has told me that most people don’t have either the tools or the knowledge.  Most people have a printer.  so, sure, it’s a pain if you have to print 5 copies of the vowel sheets (and in future I might opt to put the vowels across two sheets, cause then at least if you have to print multiple copies, the extras will be useful!  Now I think of it, it might be useful to group the consonants according the those you use most often as well. But I digress…

So this is a pretty plain, blocky, no serif font, easy to fold for a beginner and chunky enough to really show up when folded.

Print the count page (page one) and all the pages with the letters you need.

Keep the page count sheet with your extra letters.  As you count the lines, fill in the sheet so you never have to count that letter again!

Cut out the letters you need

Note the * – those letters are ones that are not aligned to the bottom edge. You will have to adjust the placement of them as you will see later.

Get a plain piece of paper and fold over the edge.  This is what hooks over the pages of the book to keep your folds aligned.

Draw a couple of lines, three inches apart.  Bear in mind the height of your book.  you can place the folded edge over the top of your book and mark where you want the top of the word to fall, then mark that on the paper and draw the bottom line three inches from that. The blocks that hold the letters are three inches tall so they will line up within that area.

Now simply use the lines of the letter blocks to stick the letters to the plain paper.

If you like to fold back pages between the letters to create the look of a space, leave a gap then assign that however many pages you like, and five is usually good for me. For most letters, ones that are NOT two uprights next to each other (like “like” for example – the l and the i and the k need space between them) can do without a space, but feel free to practice in a cheap paperback and see what you think. Or cut the letters right to the edge and butt them up to each other.

The *ed letters need to be placed more carefully.

You can hold them up to the light and line up the bottom edge of the body of the letter (i.e. not the tail) with the line you drew, like so:

This will also help you make longer words – provided you can find a book that is big enough!

The letters are pre-stretched by about 50%, all the same amount except the W which was just SO wide it is more like 25% more.  It should be one of the easiest alphabets to try as a beginner and should give you a good result.

Here is the alphabet, upper and lower case, 1-0 numbers, a heart and an &.  That lets you do a couple’s initials, like A {heart} B or Mr & Mrs or 01 {heart} 05{heart} 2015 (like an anniversary or birthday) with ease

Gabo Drive font for book folding (and the fold count sheet)

Calendar folk, come back maybe tomorrow and I should have the Lace design done for Monday to Sunday calendars! The Sunday to Saturday version is here (including a French version)

Book folding – Class Of …

Brandysmom, who commented on an older post, mentioned she thought that a pattern for CLASS OF would be cool, to use in conjunction with numbers, for a decorative item at a class reunion.  Great idea, and so funny she mentioned The Class of 1976, my own high school graduation date! Well, how could I pass on that?

I just quickly did a couple of fonts, Gabo Drive, as it is big and bold, but with character, and Habano, cause people always ask for that one!

and I did the numbers as well.  Gabo Drive

Habano ST

Now I do these for free, so they aren’t as easy to use as the ones you will pay for.  You will have to cut out the numbers and assemble your date, either physically with scissors or digitally with some software. But once you do, the rest is the same as usual.  Brandysmom suggests doing the CLASS OF on one book and the date on another.  Much easier than a multi-line version.

Get the CLASS OF pattern here

Get Gabo Drive numbers here

Get Habano numbers here

 

I know I have been missing in action for a while.  We are still dealing with the house purchase.  That won’t necessarily be a good thing for blogging, as then it’ll be all about the sorting, decluttering and packing, but at least there will be a light at the end of the tunnel!

Another cut&fold with photo

I am continuing to experiment with the cut&fold method and using my lined templates. I am still struggling with the proportions a little.  For example, I designed this one:

but after creating it, the proportion of the fingers isn’t quite right, although the circle did end up as a circle, which is what I was more worried about. I like it, I just wish the pointer fingers were a bit more elongated!

They should be MUCH longer than the thumbs, not just a bit.  Funny, I was afraid they would end up TOO long. I should learn to trust my instincts more LOL!

I am still waiting for a reply from the Bookami people regarding the Mac version but I may have to go ahead and order it anyway.  I am quite interested to see how it works compared to the lined template version.

Oh and just in case the finger length is OK to your eye (maybe you have stubby fingers ….) then you can download the lined template here. I may still go back and stretch that pointer a bit more, and if I do I’ll add that version here.

I think I prefer the books with photos added, like this and the heart and the photo strip one to the ones that just have flowers added.  I have a couple of ideas for finishing off this one, just wonder it is it worth doing….

 

Another share of books

Oh dear.  Just after visiting the Make It! show I threw my back out, trying to clamber out of my friend’s low slung car.  It was bad.  The worst episode ever.  I spent the first 3 days basically taking a strong painkiller, sleeping for 4-6 hours, then taking another painkiller, sleeping, repeat.  Bu day 4 I could just about hobble, and today is the first day I have been able to sit at my desk AT ALL.  So if you requested a template and I’ve not gotten back to you, so sorry.  I will work thru any emails I have as soon as I can.

Just a couple of shares:

Bette did this one for her sister, who loved it.  I love it too!

Dee did two, both styles.  First, the folded version:

That swoopy L looks fab! and then a cut&fold version of the paw print:

Perfect for a dog lover.  I think, with a little effort, you could easily pop a small photo of the dog into the larger paw pad area for a super cute gift.

I have to take it a bit easy for a little longer, so bear with me.  But keep sharing your work – I LOVE seeing what people have done.