Tip-in how tos and examples

Since some people need visuals, it might be helpful to know HOW to tip a page into a book. Below you'll read how I tip pages into a book:. However, the examples are already tipped in, so you'll have to use some imagination.

There is some debate over how to tip a page into a book. "To tip in" is an old phrase in book binding, and means to run a thin bead of glue along the gutter side of a page. It is then inserted into the spine of the book, where it becomes a new page.

When pages are altered they become heavier, due to the addition of embellishments. A thin bead of glue isn't strong enough in this case, so the page must be reinforced in some way.

What you need:
Exacto type knife
Small cutting mat
Steel ruler with cork bottom
Red-liner double sided tape

Place cutting mat next to gutter under 2 consecutive pages. Place ruler about 1/4 to ½½ inch away from the gutter side of the page. Cut pages with knife held firmly against ruler, creating little tabs. Place a strip of red-liner tape on both inner sides of the tabs. Remove protective strip one side at a time. Insert your tip-in page,one side at a time, and smooth flat.


The page on the right is the FRONT of a Mardi Gras tip in for a swap I hosted in 2005. I used rather heavy CS and the embellishments made it a bit heavy, too. You can see the flap is about 1/2" wide and the mask is not centered on the page, but IS centered when I made allowances for the flap.



This is the back side of the tip-in. You can see the placement of the elements is reversed. I chose this page because of the high contrast between the book flap and the backgrounds. My scanner doesn't have great depth scanning capabilities, so you have to use your imagination. I think you can tell where the book flap begins, though.




I should explain that below is my tip-in for a 5 for 5 Junk Mail swap. The rules were that we had to use JUNK MAIL only. I made them all the same, except for the colors and the center photo on the front page

The photo to the right of this text shows an example of the front of the tip-in. You can see I cut my window slightly off center to make up for the flaps. When installed, it doesn't look as offset as it does before it's tipped in. Also note the flaps are narrower because the tip-in didn't have any embellishments.

The photo below shows the backside of my tip-in. Note that the doll and other elements are offset enough to compensate for the flap.

Also on the right, you can see that the facing page (blue background, not my tip-in) flap is jagged. This shows why you MUST keep a fresh blade in your knife at all times. There was less contrast between the flaps in the book and the background on this tip-in. It all depends on what you want to accomplish or the look you want to achieve as to whether you make your background bold or white. However, like with the Mardi Gras tip-in, your theme often dictates your background color or technique.

Click on any of the above for a larger view.