How-To: Plate-like Pages

I was trying to produce this book as cost-efficiently as possible while still making the pages feel like "Plates", so initially I wanted to use card stock. I also wanted to save money by printing the pages on my laser printer at home for 3 cents per page as opposed to 9 cents per page elsewhere. I had to abandon this plan because I couldn't get card stock into my home printer, nor could I afford the cost of card stock or the time it would take to cut the pages.

My daughter came up with a brilliant solution! She suggested I print one side of a piece of plain white paper, fold it, and punch holes along the non-folded side. This made laser printing so much easier, the weight of a double-folded piece of paper was "plate-like" enough for me, and the weight of the entire book did justice to the priceless weight of the faith of ward members contained inside.

Folding 61 sheets of paper per book was the most time-consuming part of the production. A dear retired couple volunteered to do the folding for me. I am so picky that I made them audition for the job! When they returned the first set of perfectly folded pages, I trusted them with more. They ended up coming back for more until they had folded enough for 90 books--almost 6,000 pieces of paper in one week!