How can I fan out my magazine tree more evenly?

Question

There was a Martha Stewart catalogue in my office that I made into a "tree" over the course of several lunch breaks. My co-workers have turned it into the local menu holder.

I know that these things need a large number of pages to be successful and mine was just under 300 pages if I recall correctly.

The problem is that the back end of the tree, where the first and last pages of the magazine would meet, has less uniform pages distribution.

Sure I would have to glue or tape the first and last page together but that would not fix the issue. The spine of the book pulls the pages back. If I break it I would expect the tree to fall apart.

Any suggestions on what to do with this if I intend for the whole tree to be seen? I am not looking for perfection just something better then what I have pictured. It is possible that I would need more pages or just picked a bad magazine for this. It's my first day.

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How I made mine

I created this from visually from looking at one in a display. I did find some images to help with the explanation. It is basically folding each page twice. First grab the top right corner to the inside and crease.

Fold again from the outside so that the fold you created in the previous step comes to the inside making a triangle.

^{Images from RD.com}

A small triangle section will stick out from the bottom. That can be optionally folded up (I chose to in mine for a flat bottom tree). You basically just need to repeat those steps for every page.

I have seen mention of removing the front and back cover pages. Doing so would not have changed my issue here.

Answer 1

The spine of the book pulls the pages back. If I break it I would expect the tree to fall apart.

If you are working with a single magazine that would be the source of your issue. The spine is holding the magazine together. You need to break it. If not done with excessive force the back of the cover should still hold the magazine as one piece. Multiple breaks might be required if the magazine is large. The instructions from Martha Stewart on making these lists this as the first step.

1. Open magazine and bend to break spine.

Consider more than one magazine as well

If you have at least two magazines with a similar number of pages you can put them back to back. You don't necessarily need to break the spine on it either for this to work. Although it might be better to do it before you work the magazine. Using two, or more, will help give a "full" appearance.

Answer 2

If you are willing to do the whole tree one more set of folds, you can fold the pages into narrower triangles which will each be thicker and as such will fill out the tree more.
It might be best not to do all pages but skip three and do it a second time for the middle of the three left if more work is needed.

This will alter the look of your tree, making it narrower, or making it less even all over.

An alternative that does not change the part of the tree you see is to add a trianglar block in the back, to fill the hole.