Creating One Big Book From Several Paperback Books *

     One thing I try to avoid is too much clutter, too many small things, too many loose things. It's not easy to do when you live with a child, but it keeps me on my toes finding new ways to organize and condense things. A few years ago when I was selling Avon products, they were selling a set of "Dear God" books. I ordered them and found they were all very thin, small paperback books. Needless to say I was disappointed, I thought they would be more book quality. So since then, they've been on my daughter's bookshelf, getting put under other books, inside of other books, in the back of all the other books. I worried they would get ripped up or lost, or just not read because they were getting lost among the other books.

     So today I decided to combine all the books into one big "Dear God" book. What I did was very simple, and not very fancy, but you decorate your combined book as much or as little as you want. First I decided how many holes to put in the books. Our books had writing in the middle so I could only do holes at the top and at the bottom of the spine of each book. I picked where I wanted my holes, and punched holes in one book. I then set it on top of the other books one buy one, and traced inside the holes. I then punched holes in each of the books, and stacked them in the order I wanted them when done. I used metal book rings in ours, just to make turning the pages in all the books easy for my daughter, but twine, ribbon or yarn would work just as well. I put a ring in the top holes and bottom holes and had one big book! :o) I grouped books together that were from a set, but you can group books together that have the same main characters, or by type of books, whatever works for you. It's nice because it keeps paper books together and more organized. My daughter loves it and has paid much more attention to these books. You could even create your own cover with card stock paper and add embellishments to it if you want.