Little books

I’ve been working on my thesis these last few weeks so I haven’t had too much time to work on the clay and I have to say, I missed it a LOT!!! So I thought, I’d try something quick for a break.

I browsed for ideas on how to make miniature books and I came across this wonderful site: http://www.printmini.com. It is free and there is a plethora of beautiful printables for the miniature doll’s house. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a nice realistic touch to their doll’s house. My favourites were the books, so I downloaded some of the book printables from there and I made the books at the end of this post. The shelf was just knocked up to have something to put the books on for the photos.

I had some problems with the pages of the books though. First, I tried to cut individual sheets and put them together in the book, but since i only have craft scissors and no paper cutter, I didn’t end up with very neat edges. The same problem was true for the paper accordion style pages I want tried to put in. Then I thought to make the pages with polymer clay. First I tried a white block of clay but it was really hard to get the little lines on the sides to give a page look. Finally, I made the block with a slightly coloured clay (some left of green clay I had in my case), and then applying a thin stroke of white paint to the sides gave a nice lines page look I’m sorry my camera isn’t good enough to see it properly in the pictures.

Next time though, I’d make the covers with card. Although at first I thought it might be too thick, but the paper was too flimsy. Also, I’d use a different glue. I had PVA glue and super glue, the PVA made the paper soggy and the super glue left dark marks on the printed paper. Having said that, the PVA might be fine with card covers. I am also considering transfering the print out onto a thin polymer clay layer and then using that for the book cover.