How to Make an Instant Book

Learn how to make a mini book from a single sheet of paper in an instant! These fun books are great for mini scrapbooks, holiday newsletters or cards with multi pages.

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welcome to another hero arts video today
i'm going to show you how to make an
instant book I think instant books are
really neat because they can truly be
made in an instant
here's one that I made of a recent
vacation i first learned about instant
books from this book called how to make
books by esther k smith this is a really
neat book conditions you how to make a
whole bunch of different kinds of books
be solid just instant book
ok so now let's talk about what supplies
you will need you
optionally need a boom folder and a pair
of scissors and the only thing you truly
need is a piece of paper so I like to
save paper from maps or menus these all
work great for instant books but for the
book that i showed you i use this plane
is kind of piece of scrapbook paper you
want a piece of scrapbook paper that
lets you stamp on it so you want to look
for a pattern that its kind of pushed
into the background or isn't very busy
but to show you how to make instant book
i got this paper because it's two-sided
and it's really obvious the differences
between the two sides so you will to see
it what we're doing the book
ok let's get started you'll want to
start out by deciding which side of the
paper you want to be the outside of your
book and then put it facedown on your
work table then go ahead and fold the
paper right in half if you have a boon
for water you can go over the little
fold with the bone folder but if you
don't just press it with the back of
your fingernail now open up your paper
and fold it in half the other way
here's a little tip from Esther's book
if your paper is thicker the way the
scrapbook paper is you can leave about
an eighth of an inch on the edge instead
of forwarding it exactly in half
this will make it where your pages will
all line up when it's finished now go
ahead and fold it in half again and do
your boon for her or your fingernail
decrease it
ok now you have a decision to make
see this hole right here we're going to
want to open that up to this forward
that we just created and so you're going
to want to either Tehran that forward or
cut it with scissors
personally I like tearing it because i
think it gives it a nice distressed edge
plus it's really easy to tear since we
made the good crease okay now for the
moment of magic when this piece of paper
will turn into a book haha don't worry
if you didn't exactly catch that because
i'll show it to you again in slow motion
ok let's see that again in slow motion
or as slow as I can make it
ok here's the part where we tore it out
or you could have used scissors if you
wanted to
now i'm going to open it back up so you
can see it from the top
just grabbing the sides and pushing it
in and then you fool the one side around
the other and there's your book hope
that helped it really is an instant book
it's hard to do it in slow motion is so
fast now you can get your bone folder
and go over all the creases weekend just
to make it nice and there you have it
okay now i thought i'd share some more
tips before you make a book on good
paper
go ahead and make it on just copy paper
that's been printed on and then you can
write the page numbers on there is you
can kind of get a feel for how the
bookwork and here's another little tip
if you make your book on eight and half
11 size paper then when you're finished
you can take it to a copy shop and make
copies
this is perfect for holiday newsletters
ok now for another tip remember how we
tour the top of the book part instead of
using scissors want to make the rest of
the book match you can use one of these
distress tools just go around the edge
this one is by tonic for Tim whole if
you don't have one of these distress
tools that we can still distress your
edges just using regular scissors just
be extra careful that you don't cut
yourself when you do that
now I thought I'd share some books that
Esther students me
the first one is by poly fast and i'll
just love it she used scissors to cut
the top of her book so you can see how
that looks
and i also want to show you how the
quotes background stamps it's perfectly
on a book if you make it out of eight
and a half by 11 size paper this write
your message stamp is another one that
fits perfectly and then i thought i
would open up her book so that you could
see what it looks like when the whole
thing is stamped thanks Polly now here's
a book by jen Kane I just love how she
used the big owl and all of her pages
and I especially like how she stamped
him sideways too cute to and here's
another incident book by another one of
Esther students Laura Carmelita belmont
love that one too
finally I thought I'd share some tips i
learned i was making my vacation book i
started out by making your prototype on
eight-and-a-half by love and copy paper
and here you can see the difference
between that and the 12 x 12 i wanted to
have lots of room for journaling and
lots of room for photos so i stamp the
journaling block on part of the page and
then i use the rest this base to make
these little accordion full booklets
where I add the photos and that's just a
little pool made with the our new
antique Brad's and ribbon and then I
wanted to share how i stamp this
limited-edition stamp on the back of my
book i just use memories inc and its
staff to write on the photo just fine
and that's it thanks for watching and
hope we've inspired you to create your
own instant book