A full house! Twelve ladies had an exciting time making a selection of journal books to take home to fill in their own time. They started first by exploring ways of using stamp blocks to colour the edges of the torn pages before using these papes to learn and make a simple one signature book with a decorated paper cover.

The tiny bit of maths was explained to get the correct comparable sizes of pages to covers before they were let loose in tearing up a large piece of cartridge paper to make the pages and colouring with walnut ink to 'age' them.

At this stage it was time to stop for a break as there was nowhere to work - having a coffee break was more fun than watching ink dry!

The pages dry and put aside, it was then time to concentrate on the covers. The book they were making was based on three signatures attached to a concertina cover which in turn was covered with decorative paper. At the end of this section of the day there was more drying to happen and as it wasn't the warmest of days, it was taking a long time to dry so time for a lunch break.

After lunch, the covers were still damp so they explored ways of making small booklets by folding and cutting paper creating a collection of interesting stuctures with hidden pages, secret appendages and soft covers without the aid of glue.

Hooray the covers were almost dry - well, dry enough to work with so the signatures of pages were attached and ways to hold the concertina together were explored.

The photos show some of the results from a hard day's work and a close up example of one I did before, Blue Peter style.

The comments at the end were of having a lovely informative and productive day in a fun and relaxing environment.