Print Mat Book

Overview: This book is similar in concept to those folder photo holders you were given with your prom pictures. Since the book is primarily about the pages that hold pictures, there is no specific way to bind the book, which means you can choose to bind it anyway you like. I chose to do a French seam with a hard cover.

Materials: Heavy Paper, Scalpel, Ruler, Glue, your choice of binding materials and cover, and a pencil

Instructions:
1. To begin this book, choose your own size of paper depending on the size of photos you wish to include in your book. I used 12x12 inch cardstock sheets.

2. Fold your paper in half both ways to form an “x” with the folds.
3. Cut along one fold to the middle. You can also cut additional sections from this fold to create more space at the valley of your pages. I cut one inch strips from either side of the cut fold. (I later used these as spacers since the book gets thick quickly). The pictures show the cutting lines as dashed and the folding lines as solid.4. You should now have two flaps (A & B as shown in the image above). You can choose to fold both of them forward or one on each side depending on how you would like to arrange your photos. I folded one of mine forward and the other back.

5. On one of the flaps, measure how thick you would like the paper to frame the photo and draw lines that form the square you’ll cut out to let the picture show.6. Cut an “x” from the middle of the flap by connecting one inner corner of the square you drew to the inner corner opposite to it. This should leave you with four triangle tabs.

7. Fold these tabs back along the sides of the square you drew.8. Then fold the tabs back toward the center of the now empty square to fit around the picture you plan to place on the page. You then have to choice to cut the tabs so they don’t show through the picture window. I left the tabs since the picture will cover them anyway. 9. At this point you’ll also need to decide how you want to get the photos into the window. You can do this by leaving one side of the mat unglued to slide the picture in, or you can place the picture by fitting it through the window.
10. You’ll now glue down the tabs by folding the flap down on the uncut half of the paper. I also glued the edges to keep the halves lined up. Repeat these steps for each of your pages and bind how you wish.

-Jenica Sparks