Explosion Book Photo Album

These books are quite fun to make--and have a great surprise inside. They measure 4.5x4.5 and are great little photo albums for the non-scrapbooker.

The first one I ever made was for Rhett, as a late Valentine's Day gift (I think). I filled the pages with some of our wedding and engagement pictures, and then wrote a few poems for him too.

The cover:
The inside pages "explode" open . . .
I love putting a little something on the back cover too:
The second one I did had a Halloween theme. I used pictures from last year's Halloween party of us dressed up like Cap'n Hook, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbell. Here's the front cover:

I also included pictures of us playing the flour game and getting flour all over our faces. The middle pages:
I had to trim down the pictures, and in doing so, I cut off Summer's little feet. So I decided to throw them on the back . . .

For Him/For Her

These books were fun to make. I came up with this idea to give as a wedding gift to the newlyweds. It's a set of mini-books, and to start out with, the boy takes the maroon one and the girl takes the blue one. There are forty pages in each, and the title page states: "Top 40 Reasons I Love You."

The idea is that throughout the first year of marriage, they fill in each of the pages with reasons why they love their spouse. Then, on their first year anniversary, they already have a gift for each other: forty reasons of their love for one another.

Here is a picture of the books. They measure 4.25x2.25 and are filled with the white, 32 lb, watermarked paper.

Here's a picture of the title page. The blue one is exactly the same.

Gift for Hubby

This year for Rhett's birthday, I decided to make a book for him from all the friends that we've made during our law school experience here. I wanted it to be a keepsake from everyone for years down the road. I think it turned out great.

A few weeks before I made it, I gave everyone their pages to work on. Their instructions were to pretty much do whatever they wanted--recall favorite memories with Rhett, thank him for something he's done for them, tell him why he's so super-cool, etc., or just wish him a happy birthday. Then I started collecting the pages--it was almost as fun as Christmas! Each new, unique page I collected got me so excited for the book. I loved them all.

This type of book is not bound with the Japanese Stab binding, like my journals are. It is actually called an Accordion book and can open up so all the pages are visible, or you can just turn them one by one like the pictures show. Because it's an accordion book, half the pages are on the front, then you turn it over and get to see the second half of the pages--a fun surprise for the recipient!

Here is the cover of the book. I used Heather's Cricut machine to cut the letters.


And here are pictures of some of the pages. For privacy, I didn't post pictures of the pages with family photos (but those turned out awesome too). I love the variety from everyone. It adds so much personality.








These are the pages from Summer and me.


And the back cover:

Gifts for Friends

I made this journal for our friend Robyn. She moved about a month before she had her first baby, so we all threw her a surprise baby shower before she left. This book was used as a guest log, a log of gifts given, and a book for everyone to leave farewell wishes and mother/baby advice. The title page quotes Abraham Lincoln saying, "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." I also put other mother/baby quotes every six or seven pages throughout the book.


This is another "farewell wishes" book for Jenny, who moved away a little while ago. Once again, friends were able to leave messages, memories, contact info, and anything else on the pages. The title page to this book quoted from the Bible: "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you," Philippians 1:3. There were also other friendship quotes scattered throughout the book. I love doing personalized books!

Craft Fair

I've been booking like crazy these past few weeks, preparing for the craft fair. It is now in two weeks, and thanks to a new tool I bought on Friday, I still have the drive to keep booking. I did get burnt out for a few days and took a break, but the new hole puncher I got has really livened (and quickened) things up, and has made it a lot easier to finish up the last stages (which are the stages I once dreaded).

I'm posting pictures of my books, but I realize my photography skills really aren't the greatest. I'm hoping to improve that talent too.

This is one of my favorite books. It turned out so elegant-looking. The inside pages are white, watermarked, 32 lb resume paper. The journal measures to be my standard size journals of 5.5x8.5. The insides of the front and back covers have a smaller blue ribbon running along the bottom, about an inch up.


This is another blank journal from my collection. I really enjoyed doing this one because of the Japanese theme. All my journals are bound with the Japanese Stab binding, but this binding seemed to be a little more "Japanese-ey" than the others. And I loved the tree branches coming down onto the cover. I thought that was beautiful. This too is made with white, watermarked, 32 lb resume paper for the pages and measures to be 5.5x8.5. The title page of this journal has the Japanese character "Love" printed on it, and again, there's the ribbon along the bottom of the inside covers about three quarters inch up.
Finally, this is another blank journal with the same white, watermarked, 32 lb resume paper. It is the standard large size as the others, but the thing I really like about this one is that the red prints are velvet textured. The inside cover also has a red velvet ribbon along the bottom.