a sprinkle of imagination: Simple book making- part one!

Hello!
I thought I would take a little break from all the painty panels (and tags, ATCs and journal pages!) for a few weeks, and show you something that I really should do more of...book making! Loads of simple and easy ways to create books, and I thought I'd share a few...
Here is part one.... (also to be titled "It's really hard to take a decent pic of a finished book"")

I have kept things simple, only a few pages, and not loads of mess etc on the pages themselves. You can go as detailed as you fancy, of course!
OK... how to do it. Pages first. I've started with a masterboard, this one is a 12" by 12" sheet of card....

As you can see, I sprayed it with dye inks, and then did a little printing, stencilling stamping and splattering over it. Not over much, as we can finish off each page once its cut. I have then cut my card into 10cm by 10 cm squares....

A 12" by 12" sheet will give you nine squares. My book has three double sided pages, so I need six altogether. So, choose you favourite six squares, then sew them to a black 'base' card.

I've done a little extra stitching here and there too, as you can see! Now we have our pages, we can add a little extra decoration. Here is one of mine...

I, again, haven't gone overboard here. A bit of washi tape, white paint dots and a punched out star, along with my main image and stamped word. Once you have decorated your pages (or not, you may rather keep them plain for someone else to add photos etc), its time to actually construct the book. Once the black base card is added, my pages are now 11cm by 11cm. I've cut two more bits of card 11cm by 11cm, and then scored them down the middle, like so....

The card hinges need to be the same size as your pages, so it's easy to work out how big they need to be when you make books of varying shapes and sizes. Now we need to attach the hinges together. I use strong double sided tape, wet glue gets very messy! Like this.....

So, you have stuck one side from each hinge to each other, forming what is beginning to look like a book! If you want more pages, simply make more hinges and keep sticking them to each other! Adding the decorated pages to your hinges couldn't be simpler. Again, strong double sided tape all the way....
Decide which page is to be your cover, then stick the first bit of card in your hinge to it...

As you can see, the card hinge goes halfway down the page, giving a good strong bond. Now it's time to add page two. This gets stuck back to back with your cover, with the card hinge sandwiched in between. Like this...

As you go along, remember to keep checking you are not sticking the pages in upside down! Page three gets stuck to the middle hinge....

Page four to the back of page three.... (told you this was easy!)

One card hinge left. So, page five first....

Then the back cover (or page six!)....

As the page backgrounds and the hinges were cut from the same card, you now have a seamless finish!
Books that have lots of pages need a little extra finishing, as the card hinge will be much thicker and needs to be hidden! The book will also have issues staying closed too... I'll show you next week how to deal with this!
For now, here are a few closeups of my pages...
I've added glossy accents to the stars for the shiny look...