The third creative-play video is how to make a tiny folded book out of a single piece of paper, with no stitching at all – just a magic bit of folding. These tiny books inspire all sorts of uses: writing flash fiction, a series of haiku, a week of daily doodles or tiny poems, pretty to-do lists for a particular week or as a regular reuseable reminder, and if you turn them inside out, they become a dual perspective on something, or a secret story underlying a story. These aren't part of the Creative Play workshop's optional prep, but I highly recommend them as a way to bring creative play into your days. The video shows you how to make them and the written instructions are underneath.
How to make a little folded book
Some people prefer written instructions, but for this one watching the video is going to be much easier! When my mum first taught me these, she tried to explain it to me over the phone and I nearly lost my mind with bewilderment before we had the bright idea of switching to video. So if you're struggling to follow the instructions... switch to the video above.
You'll need... an A4 piece of paper; scissors.
- fold the paper in half vertically, then open it up
- fold the paper in half horizontally, then open it up
- turn the paper over
- fold the short sides into the middle fold, then open it up
- fold the paper in half on the short middle fold and cut horizontally to the first set of folds
- open your paper and gently tug on either side of the cut to open it like a mouth
- as you pull, the folds you made earlier will slide into place to create a star shape with four spokes - those are your pages
- sharpen all the creases
- fold all the pages onto one side and press down to sharpen the creases some more
If you'd like to find out more about the Creative Play workshop and the other Summer of Writing workshops this August, you can read about them and book here. You can also subscribe to the blog for future creative and writing suggestions, on the side / beneath this post.
Details about each of the workshops and how to book are here. The first workshops start this weekend, on 1 August.
