Wearable books! (with a twist)

Finished product first right?

Final image :) I'm happy with it, and I'm excited to make them better.

Tl;Dr OP saw something cool on the internet and thought he could make it better.

Now for the longer one. So about a year ago, I saw all those little charms online where people made a miniature version of their favorite book as charms. I thought it would be a really cool idea to make for my girlfriend, so I went to work and made her a bracelet with 6 of them on it and a necklace with one on it where are all the charms were interchangeable, meaning any of the ones from the bracelet could be moved on to the necklace. I followed a guide and it went off very smoothly, but I had an idea about how to make them a bit cooler.

Base supplies

I went to the hardware store and bought the smallest hinges I could find, and then went and found the leftover supplies from when I made the original charms. I used dollhouse sized model books that can be found at any craft store. That Harry Potter book was made using the dollhouse books, but I've since made several by hand cutting the pages and I think those look nicer.

Xacto knife time

I took two of the model books and cut holes in them so that the hinges would sit flush with the pages. Pretty much everything is done with Superglue. I'm hoping to regain feeling in my fingertips sometime next year once the build-up wears down.

I used to little mini paper cutter to make sure all of my edges were crisp. I also used high end cardstock just for durability's sake. I cut the cardstock to size with a hole where the hinge is so that you can't see the hinge itself. Sorry for potato.

The blank

I've been calling these blanks. At this point you have the base model to make any book.

The devil himself

Fuck this printer. It's name is Dave. Fuck Dave. I had to clean the heads 6 times, which wasted damn near all my ink. The alignment was off on it too, and it kept trying to fax things. I literally have nothing set up on it to be able to fax, but it really wanted to fax things. I think of fixing this took longer than the rest of the project combined

Gluing the little clippy thing on to the hinge for stability

The cover

I tried to do something new with the covers as well. I thought if I dipped them straight into the clear coat, I could avoid the brushed on look that I normally get. This was a terrible idea. It took hours to dry, and it was still so thick that the image was distorted underneath. Brushed on look it is then. That white part around the cover is important. That gets cut into tabs which fold down to secure the cover on to the blank.

Sizing

This part is just straight-up trial and error. You can measure it as many times as you like, when you put the dimensions into a computer, it will not print out the same size. When I was making all of the charms for the bracelet, I had a template worked out where I was able to get it on the first try most times. This one only took me 3 and I felt lucky with that.

The quote

Next I printed out the quote, cut it to the right size and exacto knifed the hinge hole out. Add super glue and tada!

A blank with hand cut paper

For those curious, this is what a blank looks like with hand-cut paper. I'm not sure if the picture really shows it, but I really think it looks nicer.

I've never done anything particularly crafty like this before, so I'll take it for a first attempt (second I guess with the bracelets that I followed a guide for). This was the first one, so I definitely think I can cut down on the time they take to make and improve on quality. I've never done anything with Etsy before, but if the interest is there... I really don't want to get ahead of myself, but I truly enjoyed this project and wouldn't mind making a buck or two doing more. I hope you guys enjoyed and let me know what you think! If you want more details for making your own (or you're not feeling the couple of hours that it takes and want to buy one) shoot me a PM and I'd love to help!