Making Mini Harry Potter Books
At my work, I am fortunate to be humored by my boss and co-workers with my Harry Potter interest. I have a mini Christmas tree in my office in my “Hufflepuff Corner” that I’ve decorated with mini ornaments and I’ve always wanted to make some mini Harry Potter books, so one day I finally got to work!
I searched Pinterest (where else?) for inspiration and found this blog. She had created these book covers to American Girl doll scale, but I wanted mine smaller. I used her printables as a starting place and then scaled them down in Photoshop to be 2” tall. I folded one “book” and then cut strips of cardstock paper 2”x3” and folded them in half to determine how many pages each spine could hold. I determined each book would have 10 strips folded in half, so 20 pages total!
Since they were just going to be displayed in a mini tree, I wasn’t worried about the pages being blank, but I did want that feel of pages and not a solid piece (some other blogs had the books made out of clay and then the cover glued on - I didn’t want that!).
I used binder clips to keep my 10 pages tight and then used tacky glue along the folded edges (Elmer’s glue would work, too. Even using hot glue). I let the glue dry and then applied another coat to the folded edges and set the spine of the book cover onto the folded paper. I wrapped the book in rubber bands to keep the cover tight to the spine while the glue dried!
Some of my folding/re-folding on the covers created some creases in the artwork - I like the finished look as it gives the appearance that these are well-loved books!
I had to do a little bit of trimming to get most of the white pages to be smaller than the covers. As a graphic designer, I was a little displeased with how the titles on the spines were laid out, but again, these would be hidden in a tree so I decided to let it go. If I was to do it again with more time and care, I may have scanned in my copies of the book covers to get an accurate image. These books would be great as ornaments in a bigger tree, or even on a bookshelf in a dollhouse!
The only thing I think I want to add to my Harry Potter tree is some kind of topper - I’ve thought of a little Hedwig, or maybe a mini Fawkes, or perhaps a Sorting Hat. I’ll keep looking!
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