Bind It All Birthday Book

I don’t make many of these little Bind It All books because they make me use an awful lot of brain power plus a lot of time to put together, this one over six hours, not including a box.

However this was for a very special friend of my sister and so it was a pleasure.  A book usually starts off with a long list of things about the person …so that I have plenty of scope and themes to work on  (though I don’t use everything) and, if I am lucky, a few pictures too.

I think of it as a bit like writing a story and gradually it all comes together.

….. and I try make it as funny as I can …. it can be a bit tricky, but as I have met Chris myself this was a doddle as she has a very similar sense of humour to me…… daft!

I’ll let the rest of the pictures tell the story …….

I tell you what,  my brain really ached when I had finished!

Bind It All – Old, New, Borrowed and Blue Mini Book

The covers of these mini books measure 4.1 x 4.1 inches and the inside pages, made with ivory linen effect card measure 4 x 4 ins.

I featured my wedding mini books when I first started blogging but as they are all a little bit different I thought I would show you my latest ones.

This weekend I have had two to make, this one is destined for Ghana, where an old colleague went to work last year, met the “one” and is now getting married and settling down there for a while. Being so far from home,  I thought it was important  that she had something very traditional for her wedding day.

I’ve used Papyrus font size 18 for the text in a sepia colour.

And added little charms and bits and pieces to embellish the each page…..

….. as well as punched flowers, tiny flat backed gems and faux stitching.

I didn’t have two sets of ring charms ….

So in the second book I put a LOVE charm instead

On the right hand pages of the book I have added a little pocket for the bride to put little mementoes like small photos, confetti etc.

I don’t have any real silver sixpences, but I do have a pile of old ones bought from a coin shop in Wolverhampton which polish up a treat to put in the tiny organza bag on this page.

I leave the last page blank for messages to be written.  It’s a real labour of love, I guess from beginning to end each book has taken me about three and a half hours to make, including the box.

Date Book with Pockets

I wasn’t sure what to call this little book …. it’s a bit of everything really.  I’ve made it using my Bind It All and have put in twenty pages that I have edged with doodled lines.

On the first page I have put a complete Anita’s calendar tab, but on the next twelve pages I have split the tab up so that I have one month per alternate page.

 

On the other page, I have made a small pocket to put receipts, tickets, etc. in.  I am forever looking for receipts and scribbled pieces of paper with phone numbers on …. I thought  this would be a handy way of keeping them safe.

I’ve then decorated each page very simply with punched flowers etc. because I didn’t want the book to bulge

The back pages are for addresses, birthdays etc. I have just handwritten the titles on them and left the rest of the page blank.

Flip Over Advent Calendar

I found this Advent Calendar below and thought I’d like to have a go at making something similar:-http://www.fiskarettes.co.uk/index.php/date/2009/11

But, when I started making it I didn’t actually save the site or picture (which I have since found again)  so I was working on a vaguish memory of what I thought it looked like, in my head.

Putting it together was a fiddle as I have only ever made small books using my Bind It All before, in fact I very nearly gave up! Please bear with me as the instructions may not be too detailed as I was making this very much on the hoof and was concentrating more on the making rather than remembering to take a picture at each stage.

Each square measured 4 1/4in x 4.1/4ins and I used the width of a ruler to make the bottom of the calendar.  I then cut it out and scored the middle lines, followed by punching both ends using my Bind It All.

The pages measure 4ins x 4ins, and were punched and then very carefully cut in two.

 
For my first attempt  (above) I used 3 coils for each side of the calendar, but it looked wonky, as you can see, so I did it again, this time using just one length of 6 coils.

I created a set of numbers using Publisher on the same colour card as the calendar base and then added a K & Co. Christmas paper as a background. The rest is all the fiddly twiddly bits…….. which included lots of faux stitching using a white gel pen, large holly leaves made with a punch, and red foil holly berries. I tried to  use red flat backed gems for the berries originally, but it made the right hand side of the calendar far too bulky.

I am not 100% happy with what I have made, if I were to do it again, I would make the number panels shorter to give me more space to vary the decoration at the bottom of each page, at the moment they are all pretty much the same. Having said that, it’ll look very nice on my festive desk at work.

Wedding Book ….. Something Old, Something New ….

I’ve shown you this idea about a year ago, but though the words are the same, the embellishments change, so I thought I would show you the one that I finished on Tuesday night.

And I won’t rabbit on …. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

On the left hand pages of the book I make a pocket and add a couple of cards for the giver and bridesmaids etc. to write little messages.

The book is placed in a plain box (made using my box maker from e-bay)

But I like to embellish the top a little.

And this is a view of my desk as I was making the book, while watching “The Great British Bake Off”

A Mini Book for Angela

Sorry this is a long one!

The end of the school year is always tinged with sadness as staff retire or move on, and I have been busy making a couple of little books for the very special people in my departments who are leaving.

This book is for my Line Manager, Angela, who was there at my interview and who I loved straight away. We have cooked together twice a week with our lovely girls ever since and when Year 11 leave to do their exams we have sewn t-shirts together.

I tried to give the impression that I was taking pictures for the girls, but I was really trying to get silly little pictures of the special things in the classroom that made me think of Angela and the happy times we have had.

Now I’ll let the rest of the pictures tell the story ………

And hope they give you as little insight of how I adored working with the kindest, sweetest lady ever.

There were another couple of pages but they are a bit too special for here.