FO: tiny book necklace!

I made myself a necklace! One I'm really, really happy with, even. A book!

Earlier this month, I told you about the adorable tutorial I found on The Perfect Pear for a mini book necklace, because I had fallen in love with the idea. I wasted some time contemplating looking for some leather to buy to make one, until I realised that there was an old wallet lying right next to me. The zipper had broken, there were scuffmarks, and I had found plenty of reasons besides those to justify buying a new wallet, so I didn't need this one anymore. It was perfect to do a little test run! I cut off the back of the wallet, cleaned off all the interfacing and filler material, and got to work.

The prototype

The result was.. Not what I had hoped for. Because the glue I used was less than perfect for gluing a stack of papers together, the whole stack had started to wobble. As you can see, so did the cover. I still loved the idea, but some more work was in order before it was the way I wanted it to be.

For necklace #2, I decided to go the sturdy way, and added some thick paper (an old business card) that I cut down to size and glued to the inside of the cover. This way, it wouldn't be influenced by the pages as much. There were more things that bothered me about the prototype, though. The tutorial for the necklace was to create a purely decorative necklace, but I liked the idea of an actual book far better...

So #2 did not get the stack of glued pages.

#2 is fully functional!

I love my new necklace! The pages are simply a stack of cheap, A4 printer paper, cut into rectangles slightly smaller than the cover and tied in the middle with the same tie that is used to keep the book shut. Simple but effective, and I love the effect of the lighter brown cord on the dark brown cover.

But not only does it look nice, it's also part of its functionality. I liked the idea of carrying around a tiny book that I could write down quotes in, or let friends doodle or write something. When the pages are full, I can simply undo the knot, take out the pages, cut new ones, and add them to the cover without having to cut the binding.

I'm planning on writing down a little tutorial for this in the near future so you can make your own little book! And think of the possibilities! I'm thinking cutting up old books to use for the pages.. Or print out some tiny illustrations... Or make themed doodles... Or make it a one-sentence journal..