Creativebug 
As a bookmaker, I love a reason to make a special kind of book and Valentine’s Day presents a truly irresistible motif: a heart. These scrappy little books are a lovely format for a long-form love letter, a teeny sketchbook gift, or a more sculptural project.
After making the book once, you’ll see how easy it is to customize the size and paper content to the materials you have on hand. For this project you’ll need two sheets of printer paper, two pieces of lightweight cardboard like a cereal box, and two pieces of lightweight decorative paper or quilting cotton. You’ll also need a glue stick (I prefer the purple kind), scrap paper, a pair of scissors, a mechanical pencil, a marker, and card stock to make a tracing template. A bone folder is always handy, and my favorite “specialized” bookmaking tool is a common brick wrapped in decorative paper so I can dry things flat.
Begin by cutting your printer paper into quarters and then folding each quarter in half longwise. Use your card stock to make a half-heart template and trace around this on each fold of paper using your mechanical pencil. You may be tempted to hold the template up to the fold and cut around it but let me warn you that it’s easy to miss-cut this way! In a real do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do moment, you’ll see later how this can negatively affect your book.
Keeping the pieces folded, you’ll begin by sliding some scrap paper between the folds of one piece, gluing up the half, then adding another fold of paper on top. Get a new piece of scrap paper and put in the new fold, glue up the outer sheet, and add another fold on top. Repeat until all pages have been attached.
Then trace your template onto your cardboard using the marker. You’ll want to cut just to the outside of the marker line, making the covers approximately 2-3mm larger than your pages. Then, cover the entire surface of the cardboard and glue down to the fabric or decorative paper. Flip it fabric side up and use your bone folder to rub it down firmly, making sure there are no bubbles .
Next, snip off the fabric at the point of the heart. Cut around the heart so there is approx. 1/4” hanging over the edge. Snip out tiny triangles on the curved portion of the heart. Then, glue the overhang and fold over gently. If any fabric peeks out at the point, carefully cut it off. You’ll want to run your bone folder over the edge to flatten out any lumps, then I like to let these dry under your brick or a few hardcover books before attaching the covers.
Attach the covers the same way you glued the pages to each other: insert scrap paper in the fold of your top page, cover the page in glue, then place the cover on top. Open it up and use your bone folder to press down on the page, making sure it’s firmly adhered. You’ll see in my sample that the paper doesn’t entirely cover the fabric – that’s because I tried to cut it without tracing first and the template moved. Learn from my mistakes, folks! Repeat the gluing process to attach the other cover, then let dry under weights.
And there you have it – the cutest, tiniest, sweetest little book to give on Valentine’s Day! Experiment using different types of paper for the interior – unusable sheet music could be interesting, upcycled vintage books, security envelopes – your ephemera stash is the limit.