twig books

We love books around here. Our love of books borders on craziness sometimes. We buy them, borrow them, lend them, check them out of the library and we make them too. Here's a quick and easy way to make a book. You'll need: some heavy card stock for the front and back cover, paper for your inside pages, a hole punch, a rubber band and a twig. Cut all the paper to the size you want your book to be when completed. Ours is 8 1/2 by 5 1/2. Punch holes in one of the short sides of all of your pages. Make sure your holes line up when you stack your papers together. We scored our top cover page just so it would bend easily when the book was being worked on. Now, insert a rubber band from the bottom of the book up through one of the sets of holes. Slip your twig in the rubber band (this keeps it from slipping out while you bring the other end of the rubber band up). Now, thread the other end of the rubber band up through the second hole and loop it over the other end of the twig. Ta da! You have a bound book. Make sure your rubber band isn't too tight or your book pages will bend....if it's too loose, the twig won't stay in. Now the fun begins...decorate your cover and have fun filling up your book. John Samuel's book is titled: Celebrate Autumn. Everyday he's writing some sentences about what he enjoys most about this season and then he's illustrating them. Here's where it gets fun....You can make these books for yourself or your kids can make them for presenting a school project or keeping a journal. Use a pencil for the binding instead of a twig and make a book to keep your lists in. Or, use a chopstick for an Asian themed book...or a short ruler for a book about measurement...try a miniature flag for a book about flags....see how fun this can be? Enjoy! If you're as crazy about books as we are, a great resource for making your own books is: The Ultimate Lap book Handbook. I don't own it...but I've borrowed it!