Upcycling Book Crafts from an un-crafty me

I am not much of a scrapbooker or crafter.  But every now and then I get the urge to create something with my hands.

My fourteen-year-old sister is at the Wyoming state county fair this week, showing her lambs.  I found a retro children's book called Frisky at the Fair and immediately thought about the cool upcycling books that I've seen around.

I've taken apart the book and cleaned it up a bit, inserted scrapbook pages to hold photos of my sister at fairs with her lambs and created some neato envelopes to glue inside.  Now I just need to get ahold of some recycled blank paper to put in-between the original story pages.  I'll have it bound and my sister will have one of the only crafty things I've ever made as a keepsake.

I'm entering this craft into a giveaway from a friend I know from high school.  Head on over and check out Candice's Artsy Challenge. She's way more artsy than I!

What terms of Endearment do you use for your Children?

I'm working on a picture book in which the mother uses words like "sweetie pie" and "monkey-doodle" face while talking to her daughter.  It got me thinking.  What do all of you call your children when you aren't using their names?

Why should a picture book be 32 pages?

Happy Birthday to the infamous Dr. Seuss who did so much to stir imaginations!

Some people look at children's books like Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat and say, "I could write a picture book.  How hard can it be?"  True, the word count of a picture book is much less than an epic novel, but few people understand how much work goes into such a small amount of words. 

In doing research for my own picture books, I ran across an excellent article that details the process of putting the physical hard cover picture book together.  Because of the way a book is made, there are restrictions when it comes to the amount of pages the book can have. 

Read the article here.

Basically, a book has to be bound in large sheets of paper that, when fastened into a book becomes the front and back and takes up 4 pages when read as a book.  The sets of paper are usually bound in groups of 4 papers which equal 16 pages (called a signature). Books are often bound in 2 signatures which equals 32 pages.   Adding a different number of pages requires more money which the publisher does not want to pay. 

When I write a picture book, it helps me to know that after the title page and copyright, etc.  I will have a certain number of pages in which to write my book.  It's helpful to have restrictions so that I can plan accordingly and envision what the book will look like in a spread with illustrations.

Amazing what goes on behind the scenes of anything we do!