Miniature books

One of the things that I enjoy more than anything doing for the dollhouse is books.  The first instructable book about miniatures that I bought taught me how to make books with real paper pages and clay covers.

I know that some people prefer "dummy books", which are books that do not open, either because they have clay pages or wood pages, so they look more realistic when placed on libraries or tables.  I do not like those for a reason.  When I was working in a vintage car foundation (we had cars from 1899 to 1930) we had some visitors that asked my then boss if all the cars we had worked.  I will never forget what he answered: "Of course they all work!  If they did not, they would not be cars; they would be statues".  To me, dollhouse books are the same: they have to have pages, or they would be just sculptures, not books.  I do not mind that the pages are fixed in place, but they HAVE to have pages.

Books offer such a vast range of subjects!  Science, literature, pictures, children's stories, cookbooks... Antique editions, manuscripts, journals, diaries, coffee table books, ledgers, notebooks...

They can be copies of real books (your favorite book!), or they can be made-up books.  Or they can be books that appear in your favorite movies or TV series.  They can have blank pages or illustrated pages, or written pages.  Anything is possible!

So I love searching for miniature books to fill my shelves with.  These are my favorite places to buy books from:

- For DIY books:  I absolutely love Ever After Miniatures!  Their books cover a lot of subjects: science, literature, music, children's stories, wizard school, fictional creatures, cookbooks... All their books have illustrated pages, or are "written" with illustrations.  They sell collections of covers if you prefer dummy books, and they have filler pages too if you are like me and like books with written pages.  My dollhouse has two floor-to-celing bookshelves; it is probable that I run out of space before I run out of books to make.  They also sell other stuff, such as scrolls, shadow boxes and shopping boxes and bags.

Some of Ever After Miniatures books

- There are a couple of other places from which I have bought DIY books, and those were lovely as well: A Lavender Dilly and We Love Miniatures.  For permanently open books, Gothic Miniatures's designs are the best I have seen.  I have a custom-made bat book from her.

- For ready made books: Tree Feathers Miniatures.  These are the books with the best-looking covers you will ever find.  Most of them feature copies of vintage editions covers; they also offer modern sets such as the Game of Thrones collection.  They have blank pages.

I also love making books designed by myself.  Many times I use Ever After Miniatures templates to make my life easier.  Here are some of the books that I have created from scratch:

From top to bottom:

- two Agatha Christie's novels: Murder on the Orient Express (that one is for my mother, who is a huge fan of Ms. Christie's) and Death on the Nile.

- three books related to Egypt: two guides to learn to read hieroglyphics and a coffee table book.

- The Necronomicon, a copy of a prop used in the TV series Ash vs. the Evil Dead.  I also have in my back burner the books from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Vampyr and Darkest Magick).

I have also made several vintage editions of Dracula, Frankenstein, Ivanhoe, Carmilla, Arabian Nights, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and The Man in the Iron Mask.  I also used to sell copies of the Handbook for the Recently Deceased, from the movie Beetlejuice.

The making of books is awesome, but it can get tiresome if I do not do anything else.  So I make them in batches, and when I have had enough, I start a different project.  My next project is going to be a Phantom of the Opera shrine.  More on that very soon...