My Sister's Book ~ The Tutorial {kind of}

♥

Thanks so much for your sweet comments on yesterday's post about my sister's book.

I figured a few of you might want to know some construction details, but I also know there are some of you whose eyes are already glazing over, thinking, "Ugh. Crafting."

I love how life isn't perfect like that.

:o}

Cheri asked about the size of the pages - they are 3"x3". I made them that size only because I really wanted to use that chipboard "V" square I've had forever, so 3x3 it was.

I gathered up 50 photos of my sis {thanks to Carrie for scanning a bunch of them for me} and I cut 50 pieces of white cardstock and 50 pieces of patterned paper. Oh, and a bunch of wax paper squares too.

Favorite paste ever for making mini-books? YES! It's awesome. I put it on with the end of a credit card and then use the credit card like a squeegee to remove all but just a thin film of paste. Slap your pieces together and roll with a brayer {ok, so you don't have to use a brayer, but if you do invest in one of these tools you'll love how pressed your pages will look as a result}. I stack all my pages with wax paper in between and put a heavy book on top of the stack. Then the hard part? Walk away for a day or two. The longer you leave them pressed under the book the better because the paper kind of shrinks with the glue and can sometimes curl on you. But I love YES! paste because when it's dry the pages are really stiff, and I find that the edges stay bound much better than a glue stick would.

For this book I glued the photo to a piece of white cardstock, then I glued a piece of patterned paper to the back of that. So, each page was 3 layers thick, and I must that they were nice sturdy pages. I rounded three corners, punched a hole in the fourth, and used some black ink on some of the edges to blend that center core piece. Then I started embellishing with punched shapes and a few flowers {most fun part}.

Yeah, so, about that 3-layer sturdy page I'm so proud of... Turns out that makes for a hefty stack of photos! I had in my mind from the beginning that I wanted to bind it with a wire spine but it ended up being too thick for that - plan B was to put it on a ring instead.

In the end I was actually really happy with the look.

I think it made it a bit more girlie. ♥

This was a fun and fairly simple project, and I can see that it would be fun to do these photo books for other milestone birthdays as well - 21 photos, 30...

Rinda wanted to know if my sister cried when she saw it.

:o) Yes she did. In a good way, you know?

♥