Fold a Snake Book From One Piece of Paper

This is one of my all time favourite types of books, and it’s one that goes by a couple of different names. When I was at uni studying book binding, we learned this one as a Snake Book, but I’ve also seen it called an Ox Plough book.

It’s a slightly different take on the accordion book, and is made from a single sheet of paper with no glue or sewing. You can make this from any size piece of paper that you want to, and in the video I fold a few different sizes and orientations of the book; you can see how it works out differently depending on where you place your folds and tears. I encourage you to be experimental with how many folds you place in your paper and where you put them.

This book can be made without a cover, but in the last step I'll show you examples of a few different cover options that could be used with this style of book.

A sheet of paper, any size

Bone folder (optional)

Ruler (optional)

Utility knife (optional)

Scissors (optional)

Fold your sheet of paper in half long edge to long edge, making sure to line up each corner. If you have a bone folder, press it over the fold to make the edge nice and crisp.

Make a second fold in your piece of paper by folding the bottom edge of one half up towards the centre fold, then flip the whole thing over and repeat this on the other side, reinforcing your folds with a bone folder.

Unfold your piece of paper and you'll find that the sheet has been evenly divided into quarters lengthways.

If you're using a small piece of paper, you can choose to fold the paper evenly into thirds instead of quarters. If you choose this option, you may need to measure the first third with a ruler. The third example in my video shows how to do this.

If you're using a very large piece of paper, keep dividing each section in half until you have as many evenly spaced folds as you want. Again, the third example in my video shows how to do this.

Fold the sheet of paper in half short edge to short edge, repeating the actions from the previous step. When you're done, unfold your sheet and you'll find it has been divided evenly into rectangles.

In the example from the accompanying pictures, I have 16 evenly spaced rectangles.

The next step is the important one in this type of book, and it’s making a few strategic tears or cuts in the paper so that it can be folded up. I wanted the book in my photo examples to have a landscape orientation, so I made my tears in the direction that makes that possible; you can also make your tears in the opposite direction to make a portrait style book.

The first image in this step shows where you'll be making your tears. I start by making one tear along the top fold right down to the last segment, then I skipped the next fold, move onto the third fold and make the same tear along it. After making those two tears, I rotated the whole sheet 180º and made the same tear along the middle fold in the opposite direction, stopping it just before the last segment of pages. What you’re left with is a sheet of paper that looks like a snake, or I guess a field that’s just been ploughed by an ox.

If you want, you can choose to cut your edges instead of tearing them. I personally prefer tearing as I like the way it looks and it’s also a bit more forgiving as it disguises mistakes more easily that a cut will. You can make the cuts with a pair of scissors, but your cuts will be more accurate if you use a sharp utility knife and a straightedge or metal ruler.

This book folds up in a simple accordion style. Just fold each page back and forth. There may be one or two folds at the turns where you need to fold back in the opposite direction to the crease.

When all your folds are done, you can reinforce the folds on the whole book by running a bone folder around the edges. The book will be quite spring-like at this point, so I recommend sitting it underneath a light weight (like a piece of wood or a book) for a little while until the folds have relaxed into place.

This type of book can be left without a cover if you've used a heavier weight paper, and it can also work well with a traditional style book cover.

My personal preference is to choose some kind of removable cover for the book so that you can access both sides of the paper.

If you have a box the same size as your book, this will work brilliantly as a cover.

Another option is to make the simple origami book cover in this instructable: https://www.instructables.com/Origami-Book-Cover/

A third option could be to make a simple heavyweight paper cover and hold it in place with some bulldog clips. There are many different options for covering the book, so use your imagination!