Pop-up Workshop

I recently gave a pop-up book workshop at the Arlington MA library. There were only 4 children (ages 8-10ish) but we had a great time together leaning how to make "on-the-fold" pop-ups, and then combining them to make a small 4x4" book. Here are a few photos of their pages:

And here is how we created the books. Look under the DIY tab to find instruction sheet that you can download.

Using 4x8" drawing paper (grain short) we folded each paper in half and added a pop-up cut along the fold and illustrated the pages. Each child made 4 pages. We then folded two sheets of 4x16" copy paper into 4-fold accordions. Each pop-up page was glued into a valley of the accordion with glue-stick (being careful not to get glue on the pop-up in the center). The 2 accordion were glued together. 

I had prepared covers with a 1/4" double-fold spine, and strips of double-stick tape alongside the spine and each edge. These were decorated with a title and images. The cover was wrapped around the double-accordion pages and edges squared. Center tapes were removed first, then tapes at the edges. Hope these photos will help. It's hard to describe with words.

Here below, you can see two pages tucked into a four-fold accordion.

And here is the other 4-fold accordion. Glue was applied

along the edges of each page, but not in the middle.

Here is the cover, prepared with spine folds and double-stick tape. 

Four folds are scored into the center to create a spine, similar to the spine of a board book.

Travel Books

Tomorrow morning (Sat) I'll be driving out to Chelmsford MA public library to teach a children's bookmaking workshop. We'll be making a 4x4" rubber-band book and decorating them like world citizen passports or travel journals. We'll also make a diamond pouch to hold our books. Then we'll write and illustrate stories about a trip we took, real or imaginary.

Here are some traveling books that I have made...

Sweet Journey--an artists book with see-thru windows, wheels that turn,

a magnet-closure in the bumper, 

and a glove compartment that opens to reveal a mini-book.

Memories about childhood trips to Canada to visit my grandparents.

Car book open 

 Spread with my dad napping in the back of our station wagon while mom drives

Dashboard, with mini-accordion book hidden in the glove compartment (set into back cover)

Fold-out suitcase book with 4 pockets for mini-books, letters etc.

A "museum book" with 4 galleries and pop-ups 

that tell a story about weaving in Guatemala.

Mama is making tortillas for breakfast

museum book folds up

Simple car book -- cut and folded from one sheet of paper.

spread from an illustrated story book about my trip to Guatemala

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Below are drawings from my travel journals to Guatemala...

fountain in restaurant

church

woman weaving on back-strap loom

study of textile art

map of Panajachel, town where I stayed

Passport Workshop

I recently won a give-away copy of a wonderful book called "The Poetry Friday Anthology: Poems for the School Year with Connections to the Common Core" compiled by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. It has many great poems, organized by grades and themes (K-5). There is one poem for every Friday of the school year and many creative suggestions for teachers about how to make poetry reading a regular part of your classroom. The book is published by Pomelo Books and is available here: http://poetryfridayanthology.blogspot.com/

I'm not a classroom teacher, but I do visit classrooms and libraries to share bookmaking with children. Yesterday, I had my first opportunity to share some poetry from the book. I gave a Passport-Journal bookmaking workshop at my local library. I shared some of my own travel journals with the children and some of my illustrated stories of journeys I have taken. Then I shared two poems from the book "No Way!" and "Family Vacation". Both poems are about what we take with us when we travel, and both poems were rhyming verse. The poems were a big hit! Then we made our passport books, decorated the covers and filled our books with words and pictures.

One boy was inspired to write a series of rhyming poems about pigs that fly in his book. Another boy was in the middle of his own journey and he made a book about his adventure. He was from New Jersey, but had no power at home due to hurricane Sandy, so his family travelled to MA to stay with relatives until the lights come back on. Matthew and I worked together to write and draw pictures to tell the story of his journey and the excitement of sleeping and eating and playing at his cousin's house.

One of my travel books about childhood trips to my Gramma's house in Canada

A page from my travel journal -- a fountain in a restaurant in Guatemala

We made a passport journal 

with a rubber-band and stick binding

that fits into a diamond pouch

Brown Univ Workshop

Brown Univ Workshop, a set on Flickr.

A few photos of mandalas created at a workshop at Brown University over the weekend. Great fun!