Brace yourself...

This is about to be a very long post. As promised... a tutorial for the little book. And if you manage to hang on to the very end... a giveaway too! I should say that I first came across these books on Little Paper Bird and have since found the instructions in "The Penland Book of Handmade Books" so I cannot claim credit for the design.

You will need the following:

• 14 sheets of postcard sized paper for your pages
• A roll of decorative paper - the owl paper came from Paperchase.
• Stiff board for the covers
• ribbon for ties
• PVA glue
• brush, ruler and knife or scissors.

To start you need to measure your postcard pages - the height is the important measurement. Mine is 10cm high. You will then need to cut a long strip of your decorative paper that is eight times the height of your pages by twice the height plus about a cm. This makes my strip of paper 80 cm x 21 cm. Accuracy in cutting and folding is the most important part of making these books.

You then need to fold your long strip of paper into 16 equal size concertina folds. I find the easiest way is to fold it in half and then in half again etc. If you try to start at one end and work along the strip it is very easy to get the folds out of alignment.

Mine folds up into rectangles that measure 5 cm x 21 cm

Next you have to fold the corners of each of the rectangular concertina folds by lining up the corners with the centre crease.

You have to do this top and bottom all the way along the strip.

Until you end up with something that looks like this.

Now open out all the little triangular folds and fold them back in the opposite direction so they move easily in both directions. Open them out again and this time reverse fold the triangles - sort of tuck them in the other way. This is much easier to do than explain but the photo should help.

Once all the little triangles are tucked in, the large triangles that are formed are folded back down into the centre crease. Do this top and bottom

Keep turning over each concertina fold and folding these big triangles to the centre until they are all folded in.

And this is the centre of your book finished.

This is what the reverse should look like.

To make the covers, cut two pieces of stiff board to be slightly bigger all round than your finished book. Insert one of your postcard pages into the folds to find out how big it will need to be.

Cut two pieces of your decorative paper about 5 cm wider and higher than your cover boards. Brush the cover sparingly with PVA glue (always apply glue to the thicker surface where possible) and glue the cover paper to the board.

Mitre in the corners and glue in the edges.

Now you need to attach the ribbon ties. Cut two pieces of ribbon about 20 cm long and glue to the centre of each board as shown. Make sure you glue them to opposite sides.

Almost there.... Cut two more pieces of decorative paper slightly smaller than your cover boards and glue to the inside of the covers.

Now take your folded piece of paper. Slip a piece of scrap paper under the first fold to protect the rest of the folds and brush glue over the first fold as shown.

Stick this down onto one of the covers - at the opposite end to the ribbon tie!

Brush glue onto the folded paper on the other side (remember to protect the other folds) and stick down onto the second cover.

Leave to dry and then insert your blank postcard pages into the folds.

And voila... you have a book! If that all sounds far too garbled and complicated and you really can't be bothered with all that then fear not...

For I am going to give this one away! Despite the snow keeping me in all weekend when I've not finished my shopping... a minor disaster with some indigo dye (a story for another time)... the fact that my washing machine has broken and there seems little chance of it being fixed this week... and a recurring eye infection which has returned to plague me... I'm feeling festive and generous because I got my marks back for my latest module which far exceeded my expectations... and so I'm feeling very happy!

Just leave me a comment between now and Christmas day, all names will be put into a suitable Christmas container and I'll get one of my drunken revellers to pick out a winner!