Early Example

I started to look on a bookshelf that has collected some older books (OK, yes, and dust,) I created at the beginning of my minibook interest.  At the time, I spent a LOT of time on each, but thought each looked pretty primitive now.  I think the three below are the oldest of those that I still have.  You'll notice that all three have cloth covers and the largest of the three has "stuff" sticking out of the top like more recent minibooks.

The book below, the oldest, is made very differently than the new ones.  In addition to wearing a cloth cover and binding, all of the pages inside are made from one piece of very large paper that has been carefully measured, then folded.  This folding technique limits the number of pages constructed in this way to 16 pages.  I also think that over time, this type of binding, particularly internally, wears out with repeated use - it's just a matter of friction and folding, unfolding, folding, unfolding - just like the process you use to tear out a coupon, on the spot, in the checkout line, or the folding method you used as a kid to make that perfect square to make an origami bird or "catcher."  (yep, I am assuming everyone across the country did that kind of kid stuff when they were 10....)

I actually created all of the pages for this book while the sheet was one big piece, then folded it up into pages after all of the images were complete.  Before creating pages, I had to not only figure out how each page would land (i.e., which of the sides in THAT square would be the TOP,) and add little cues to remind myself during the image-creation process.

Many of the images were created with handmade stencils, so learning the process of "free-form" stenciling (or is that WAY TOO opposite terms/???) was new for me as well. 

As you begin to look through the page images, you'll notice a theme emerge.  Also, unlike later books, the tags I created fit in pockets created by two back-to-back pages.  In the big picture of durable and sturdy, this is a definite design flaw, but makes for a cute image....check it out!

Notice the line between the pages is actually just a fold in the paper....makes for frequent image carryover.....by choice!!!