Hi everyone – my name is Alison Drummond Jones (Alibri on UKS) and I was honoured to be asked by Maria to take a guest spot here at IACW this week. It’s a lovely cosy place, isn’t it?
I have been scrapbooking and crafting in general for over 5 years, and have been on various design teams and taught numerous classes through the years – and what with keeping class supplies and duplicates – things were getting more and more out of control!
Last year, concerned about my ever growing piles of stash, I concentrated on getting 2 huge projects completed from the supplies I had accumulated, and it is very satisfying to be able to now look back on these albums and flick through the pages, knowing that the execution of them cost me nothing extra apart from adhesives!
At the beginning of this year, I was as concerned as ever to reduce my piles of patterned paper. I love it, of course – but my aim is to reduce it enough to be able to justify a scrapbooking kit every month – that way, I can use the latest and greatest, without feeling guilty that I am still stockpiling it.
How am I doing thus far? Well, actually – pretty good. Not including the 20 or so layouts I have completed this year, or the 100 cards I have probably made, I have used 112 pieces of patterned paper, specifically on the production of 4 birthday books – therefore, each book takes 28 pieces each!
I drive myself crazy trying to remember birthdays, make sure I have made enough cards to send out on time, and try to think where I’ve left such and such’s date etc – so I decided to design a way to combine the dates of people’s birthdays, and specific cards I had made for them. So I came up with the idea of making a birthday book which would also hold cards for every month. Thus far, I have made 4 books, and have taught this in a class– the girls loved this idea, which could also be adapted for keepsake books of some kind or another.
Here are the four books I have made so far:
The first one was using an assortment of miscellaneous heritage papers, and is to be given to a friend for her birthday in a couple of weeks. The cover is 7 gypsies, title cut out on the “Storybook” Cartridge, and completed with gems and stamping. My sister in law gave me a birthday kit from Papermania, which was birthday themed – so that was the basis for another book! I had two pieces of this Basic Grey Lilykate left over, so that was perfect for the covers. I used Basic Grey alphas, completed with stamping, flowers and gems. This third one is about to be posted off for a friend’s birthday the end of this week – it’s a shame you can’t see the sparkly Stickled cover – again using up old alpha stickers. This last one will go out in about a month – and is made entirely from Basic Grey – predominantly Skate Shoppe. I still love the combination of colours!
Really, I am not trying to boast about my productivity, but rather to demonstrate that you could use any type of papers to make this book – as long as they are of decent weight. Let’s take a further look inside: I have made an “envelope” for each month, and you slip the appropriate cards in at the top. Embellish each envelope as much or as little you like! You can theme each page according to the month – here, I stamped the month onto the index card. The idea is to fill in the details onto the card. You can buy a pack of 100 index cards from stationery shops – mine were from Staples, and cost the princely sum of £1.46! They also come in different sizes and colours. Naturally the book gets quite bulky when filled with cards, but if you leave enough ribbon to tie a generous bow, it really doesn’t matter how thick the book is – that is why it is best to make it a fairly decent length of ribbon. I used a 3 inch circle punch at the top, and lined the envelope with co-ordinating patterned paper, so you didn’t see any of the white. It just looks more “finished” that way. You can recycle backs of notebads for the covers, and use bookrings instead of the Bind It All system to connect it altogether. The project is quite time consuming – no doubt about it – but very satisfying to complete. A friend will receive a lovely handmade present – and you will reduce that mountain of patterned paper – good job done! For full instructions …..
Birthday Card Book
You will need:
Wire cutter
14 Sheets robust patterned paper- this needs to be of a good weight
14 Sheets co-ordinating cardstock/plain robust paper (could also be patterned)
Bone Folder
2 A4 Sheets cardboard/chipboard for the book covers (backs of note books will work)
Alphabet & embellishments for the front cover (– I used the Storybook Cricut cartridge above)
Double sided tape, extra strong tape, repo Hermafix AND wet glue (all of them)
Paper Trimmer/guillotine, knife and self-healing mat (all of them)
Bind-it-all (can substitute book rings)
Ribbon to tie the book together (at least 2 ft)
Large BIA Wire to co-ordinate (1 1/4 inches)
Large 3 inch circle punch ()
Glossy Accents – if you want to “gloss” your title letters
Juicy ink pads to co-ordinate with your patterned paper
12 index cards (from Staples or other stationers)
Alphabet stamps
Instructions:
Covers:
- Trim the blank bits of card for the covers to 10 ¼ in high x 8 ¼ in wide.
- Work out which paper to use for the covers, and which plain paper to use on the insides. Adequately cover the front of the cover with double sided tape and stick the patterned paper onto the front cover.
- Mitre the edges of the patterned paper so that the cover is neat and secure, and there is no blank cardboard showing. Use the bone folder to smooth down the paper over the corners.
- Measure the middle of the book and cut two pieces of co-ordinating ribbon, each at least 15 inches long. Secure the ribbon on the front with several bits of extra strong tape taped to the front cover, and on the top. Tape the ribbon on the back in the same way, laying the covers together so that the ribbons exactly match in position.
- Cut two pieces of paper for the inside of the covers – 9 ¼ inches high x 7 ¼ inches wide. Secure adequately with double sided tape, then attach to the insides of the covers.
- Cut out your title using the Cricut “Storybook Cartridge”. “My Book” letters were cut out using 2 inch size, “Birthday” using 1 ½ inch letters. I used the Fancy Corners feature, to change the font.
Envelopes:
You will be creating 12 envelopes, one for each month and these are intended to hold a couple of cards in each, should you make your own, or buy them. You will be slotting an index card “into” the page, so work out if you want the front of your envelope to be plain card or patterned paper.
You can embellish each envelope further at a later date should you wish.
- Work out the order for the papers to go throughout the book, trying to make the colours flow. Arrange so that your choice of patterned paper or card forms the front of the envelope.
- Trim the card for the main part of the envelope to 10 ¾ in high x 10 in wide.
- Score down the left, right and bottom sides, leaving a 1 inch margin.
- Cut the patterned paper to 9 ¾ inches high and 7 ¾ inches wide.
- On the front of the envelope, make two diagonal cuts of 1 inch. Line these up using an index card, so that it will sit square and middle on the envelope.
- Also on the front of the envelope, make two score lines 2 ½ in and 5 ½ in inside the score lines. Punch out half a circle with the 3 inch circle punch.
- With some of the left over patterned paper, cut a piece of patterned paper 2 ½ inches high x slightly less than 8 inches wide. Adhere this piece to the top of the reverse side of the patterned paper, to “line” the envelope.
- Turn in the score lines on the envelope using the bone folder, then adhere the patterned paper to the card by running double sided tape down the left, right and bottom sides of the patterned paper.
Index Cards
I have used 5 x 3 index cards here – other size and colour options are also available. By using index cards, you should never have to muck up your book, if you’ve gotten dates wrong for people’s birthdays. If you do make a mess on one side of the card, simply flip it over and use the other side!
- Using alphabet stamps, stamp the month title in a coordinating ink.
Binding:
The covers are designed to be slightly longer than the envelopes, to protect the contents. Use the largest wire you can find for the project, to allow for expansion.
- Punch a full length binding strip with a scrap piece of card, making sure that the side mechanism is set to continuous punching.
- Measure properly against the binding scrap so that the punched holes for the wires are evenly spaced along both the envelopes and covers and then punch holes in all, ensuring that the envelopes are the right way around.
- With the wire, thread this from the front cover first to the back cover last, so that the back of the wire sits against the front cover.
- Make sure that the bottom pushing mechanism of the Bind-it-All is spaced appropriately for your size wire, then push the wire together. KEEP YOUR FINGERS OUT OF THE WAY!
Finally – stand back and admire your work!
Wow, wow and wow!!!
Thank you so much to Alison for coming to play and for sharing such stunning work.
If you've been inspired to create birthday books we'd love to see them. You know how nosey we are so just leave us a linky dink and we'll drop by.
