Ink Stains: Circle Book Template Ideas

When I got the March Club Scrap Kit - Bookshelves, I knew I wanted to make something different for this month's CS Blog Hop rather than just the usual cards. Don't get me wrong, I love making cards ~ they are one of my favorite things to make. These papers and designs are just so beautiful and well, I LOVE books so I figured what better to make with a "book" related kit than a book. Now it couldn't just be an ordinary book/album so I thought and thought and decided since one of the main images for the Bookshelves kit is a globe why not make a circle book!

Origami Circle Book Page Instructions:

Back in my scrapbook days I made many mini albums and a circle book was one of them ~ this isn't a book with round pages, it's actually a book made from circles that once the album has been opened the pages form a circle as well. That book was an origami type book which used a circle folded a particular way to make the pop out pages.

In order to create this circle book you will need to first cut several circles out of cardstock. I used this tin lid for my circle template. It's approx. 10" across which is about the largest circle item I could find in my home.

Once you have cut the circle out of the sheet of cardstock you will need to fold it in half.

Then rotate the circle and fold it in half a second time.

Now you need to rotate the paper just a bit ~ fold the circle in half mid-way between the quarter folds. You will now have a circle with the following creases:

In order to form the pages bend and crease the 4 smaller panels towards the center so they meet in the middle....

Here's what it looks like when closed....

Open the folded page back up ~ by adding a dab of glue to the upper small folds so you are left with a quarter of a circle. This is how a page in the Origami Circle Book comes out. In order to make an entire album using this pattern you would need to cut and fold at least 4 of these pages.

Please note there are several things to keep in mind when constructing this book/album:

The pages should be decorated prior to gluing the center top fold together.

When decorating each page do not cover the creases with cardstock, embellishments or other decorations.

Assembled pages should be closed while stacking and gluing the pages together.

Now, that book is perfectly fine and I've made several in the past but I have two issues with this type of album.

First, it wastes so much paper....unless you have a 12" circle object laying around it's hard not to waste paper. I know I could use the scraps for smaller projects but if you're like me you already have a heaping scrap basket and don't need to add any more to it.

The second thing that really bugs me about this book is the hang-y down part in the center. I find it so distracting!!! I know it doesn't bother everyone but for some reason it drives me nuts so I really wanted to make a book without that darn dangly part!

SO - I decided to try and find a solution to both of those problems...

Improved Circle Book Page Instructions:

First things first ~ the issue of the circle size. I was thinking about other projects that use a full sheet of cardstock and how most of those are created by first folding the paper into quarters. Well, I already knew I needed quarter folds in my cardstock so this was a great start.

So I folded a 12" piece of cardstock into quarters then using the same tin lid I positioned it so that it was as close to the corners as possible to use up as much of the paper and create the largest circle I could.

I cut the circle from the cardstock and check out how little waste there is! Just 4 tiny corner pieces is all that was left from this larger circle page.

Next time to get rid of the hang-y down part! I knew from making fold out cards and foldable 3-D Gothic Arches that part of the circle had to go. Below is a cut away and fold lines which were added to the existing folds from when the circle was created.

And here is what a single unassembled page should look like:

And here is what each page looks like side by side:

Fully opened ~

And partially closed ~ I don't know about you but I LOVE how the new book page looks compared to the origami style page plus the larger size is more opportunity to embellish!

Now that we have the page style figured out I thought it would be cool to make templates for the decorating part as well. I created these templates the same way I did to make the original but substituted an 11" piece of cardstock instead of a 12".

After I had the circle cut out I simply snipped apart the 1/4 & 1/8 circle pieces. 1 can be used for both the left and right side of the upper portion of the page and 2 & 3 will be used on the smaller portions.