Benjamin Franklin House activity books

A4 Portrait Books

4pp Cover onto 300gsm Gloss, full colour double sided
Gloss Lamination to outer

20pp Text onto 150gsm Silk, full colour throughout

2 x 4pp printed full colour single sided as Sticker Pages standard silk sticker stock – laser kiss cut
(these pages are bound in as the two centre sheets the centre 8 pages)

Four colour print throughout
Trimmed, collated and wire stitched

Activity books for Franklin's only surviving home

Benjamin Franklin House, on Craven Street near Charing Cross, is the world's only remaining home of Benjamin Franklin, who lived there for nearly 16 years between 1757 and 1775. The museum runs a free education programme for schools and families, and in January 2019 we printed 500 activity books for it: A4 portrait, 32 pages, stapled, with two sections of peel off stickers bound into the middle.

Eight pages of stickers at the centre

The clever part of this build sits in the middle of the book. Twenty pages of 150gsm silk carry the activities, and the two centre sheets are a different material altogether: 4 page sections of silk sticker stock, printed four colour on one face and laser kiss cut, so each shape lifts away while its backing stays bound in. Putting the stickers at the centre is no accident on a stapled book. The middle spread is the one that opens completely flat, which is exactly where a child needs to be when peeling and placing. Each group of stickers is labelled with the page it belongs to, starting with the kitchen on page 6, so pumpkins, period costumes and shelves of books all find the right scene.

Redrawing every sticker outline

Kiss cutting needs a cutter path, a separate line around each sticker that tells the laser where to cut through the face and stop at the backing. On this job the outlines needed redrawing before the laser could follow them, so we did that ourselves before printing instead of returning the file to the museum.

A gloss cover over heavier silk

The cover is 300gsm gloss, printed on both sides, with gloss lamination on the outside. Inside, 150gsm silk is a step up from the 130gsm we use as standard, so the activity pages feel sturdier in small hands. Every page is printed in four colours, then the book is trimmed, collated and wire stitched.

Back for more in April

Three months later the museum ordered the sticker books again, and this time the job included testing for CE certification. Repeat orders like this are simple at our end, since your files and specification stay on record here, so a reprint starts with a single email.

For more activity books we have made, see the Vlad and the Great Fire kids' books, or watch our video guide to activity book printing for children. If you are planning a book for a museum, school or charity with stickers bound inside, our children's book printing page explains formats and prices, and a quote can cover the activity pages and the sticker sheets together once we know the count of each.