Simply Curious

I explored a few ideas today in regards to making fake mini books.  Well, faker than the mini books I've been making.  I guess I'm making mini spines?


I have a big box of wooden coffee stirrers that I bought some time back to use as flooring.  The width is about right for books, at least bigger books, and easy to cut with my hand-held strip wood chopper.  Then I conducted a few experiments.  Above are pictures of the mini books I've been making.  Below that, I have the mini spines, covered in paper, paper leather, painted, or shaped.

The shaping appears to be a must, which is easy enough to do with a nail file.  Painting them looks ok, although I need to look up how make a fake leather look.  They definitely need a coat of gesso or something else to make them shiny.  It turned out to be very frustrating to attempt to glue the paper to the rounded strip, but it IS possible.

I can get 8 book spines from a single coffee stirrer.  This saves me a ton of money because I think I paid maybe $10 for that box of stirrers ages ago, and it seems to be neverending.  It would certainly save space.  However, I'm not so sure it would save me any time, especially if I have to fuss over getting paper around the curves.  I can't seem to find any half rounds narrow enough for the project, so I'll have to round off each stirrer.  I may also try gluing a narrower strip of cardstock or some other thick substance - string, maybe? - to the center of the stirrer to force the paper to curve without having to sand.  I suppose if I do the painting and shellacking before cutting it would be, if not quicker, at least less messy.

I'm not actually sure if I've accomplished anything yet.  I haven't figured out if I want to glue the spines to a block to make them booklike, or just glue them to a flat panel made to look like a bookcase.  I suppose it depends on how consistently I can cut them to size.