The book is made of 6 inch x 6 inch fabric scraps. I bought 14 different kinds of ceramic beads that were representative of things you would find in a child's picture book: cats, dogs, apples, etc. Next, I took digital close-ups of each bead, cut them out in Photoshop, and added text to the pictures.
Each page was printed onto the iron-on fabric transfers that are made for ink jet printers. Honestly, if I were ever going to make a second book I would use a custom fabric printing service like Spoonflower, because transfers are a pain. If you go the transfer route, cut the transfer the same size as the square, so you can't see where the iron-on stops once it's tucked inside the seam allowance. Iron on the transfers and sew the pages back to back, leaving the left edge open for binding.
For the back page, cut a small plastic window (Hint: I cut up the packaging that bed sheets come in) and insert it into the back cover. Fill this back page with Poly Pellets and the ceramic beads before you sew it shut. Kids (and grown men, apparently) hunt through the pellets for each ceramic bead by squishing the book and watching through the window.
Update 9 May 2010: There was some debate about how best to translate the more uniquely American names, especially for the dessert items. I swear, "A Doughnut Taxonomy of Human Cultures" is an anthropology thesis just waiting to be written. However, it turns out that the German word for "cupcake" is... "cupcake". (We had previously settled on das Törtchen.) Thanks for clearing that up, McDonalds!
