book printies of the two books from my last post

since you were so happy with the info on dpi, kind of paper etc I used with my minibooks, I suddenly thought that I could also share my pages and covers, I hadn't even thought of that! So you can make tiny doublesided printed books for yourself, without the hassle of figuring it all out!

the decal of the left book was a bit ruined (or actually it was the magic coating) by not doing something properly, but I will change that cover sometime, or not ;)

so here are the links to the pdf's* for the pages:
PDF Animal Farm A4
PDF Animal Farm LETTER
PDF De 100-jarige man die uit het raam klom en verdween A4
PDF De 100-jarige man die uit het raam klom en verdween LETTER

it's two pages per book (front and back pages) and as you can see in A4 as in Letter-format for whichever it is you're using. And it's no mistake part of the page on the left or right is so far on the edge of the page it 'falls' off. It's because they were double pages and the part that doesn't fit entirely just doesn't make the 'cut' :D.

PRINTING
to print doublesided** I print one page, then feed the printed page back in my printer to print the back (how you should do this is different for each printer), selecting the second page in the printingscreen. Makes sense?

important: when feeding your pages, best to always have a stack of papers, so you can position this best, always make sure it can go through your printer as straight as possible. Printers are different of course, but if I'm not mistaken they should all have a way of assuring that, like this (as it's done in mine, but it will give you an idea how to do it in other types):

source: HP

for anyone who hasn't read my previous post: the paper I used is Clairefontaine Smart Print paper 50g/m2. Tip for feeding the printer: because it's so thin you can't just put a page in your printer as with regular kind. But I just put a page on top of a stack of regular paper and put the whole lot in the printerdrawer or -feeder, so it's easily solved!

COVERS
and here are the covers***. I realise one of them is in Dutch, but I thought all of you who are not Dutch but like realistic mini-books, might think it's nice to have a foreign book in your collection :D

I'm not sure what happens with the size if you save my image and put it in a drawingprogramme to print. If it keeps my size or if it will resize for some reason. And if not: adjust in an image manipulation programm (like Coreldraw, Photoshop or Gimp) like mentioned in my mini-bookpost about dpi's not to loose quality. And then resize a bit if you want your book to be slightly bigger or smaller.

I've just guessed what it's measurements should be, not having access to the information on the real book, so you can also decide what size you want it to be if you think I'm way off ;). But if you think it's fine or for reference: 'my' Animal Farm cover is 2,38 cm wide and 1,65 cm high (0.94 inch wide and 0.65 inch high)

for this book it's the same principle, but then I've guessed it will probably be a bit bigger. I made it 2,7 cm wide en 1,9 cm high (1.063 inch wide and 0.75 inch high)

SOME POINTERS
for the cutting of the pages you can see I've used helplines on one side of the pages. First I cut the vertical lines of all the pages and then the horizontal ones. For the simple reason that doing it the other way around would mean you wouldn't have the vertical lines anymore :D. I use a veneercutter with a raizorblade to get straight edges and you can use something similar, but you can cut with scissor too. Both ways are best done with magnifying glass(es), but if your eyes are okay, maybe you can do without.

sorry I have no pictures, but books are fortunately fairly straigtforward to make. What I do is after stacking them as neatly as I can and holding them with officeclips (make sure to put firm cardboardpieces between them not to dent your pages!) is glue the spine. I used tacky glue, but because it needs two layers, it becomes too thick actually, so for a next book I think I'll try superglue. But then I should make sure the spine is held really tight, otherwise the glue will seep through into the pages too much.

and make sure you glue the right side! I had to cut open the other side of Animal Farm because I hadn't.. And after that's dry, keep it together tightly and carefully sand the edges so it gets as straight as possible. And then glue the book in the spine of the cover. And make sure you have everything the right side up too! Seems logical right? Although thinking about that I've managed to get that wrong one time too...

when you want to yellow the pages, you cut the whole strip of the page you printed on both sides. Then put some strong tea on a flat plate that has slightly sloped sides so fluids don't go over and let cool. Then only put the page in the tea for as long as needed to soak it (few seconds) and then carefully lay it on a flat surface until it's dry. And do the same thing once more (or as often as you like to get it the shade you like). Because it's so short and as long as you don't touch it, the ink will stay on. At least mine did and with a previous test I've had it in tea longer and my ink had dissolved, so I'm pretty sure it's okay as long as you keep the 'bathing'time short.


well, if you're gonna make one or both books: ENJOY! And don't hesitate to ask me if you need to know something you don't get or have a problem with and I'll try to help you.

*the reason I only have bookpages on the top of the pages, is because further along a page it will shift slightly. So you can only print the top when printing doublesided pages (especially when it's for miniatures). You can cut that part off, after you've printed both sides and then just use the rest of the page for a next book, since the rest of the page is then like the whole page and will print the top of that etc.

**my printer can - in theory - print doublesided through a certain setting, so it prints, then takes the page back to print the other side etc, but that never works well. From what I can remember when I tried years ago it either doesn't do what it should (and still prints two pages) or it will always come out more shifted than feeding it again. 
  

***keep in mind that monitors and printers have their own way with colours (my laptop makes everything much more yellow then I can see (haven't been able to correct it.. making prints ridiculously yellow too, and I always have to adjust coloring accordingly, very annoying), so it might be necessary to adjust them. You can print them on regular paper first to see how the colours turn out.