Seeing the Miracles

Ultimately, aside from lots of fun, I create these books because they can be personalized and meaningful gifts to loved ones. This book was so neat to put together. It was a collection of letters from April to her parents while her parents were away on a church mission in Mongolia. April was pregnant at the time, and so she decided to record the events of the family for her parents to read about when they returned.

I had a lot of fun designing the name plate. April suggested the title, but I chose the fonts and a layout.
I also used a cursive, handwritten font for her signature. I thought it personalized it a bit more.

Thanks, April, for letting me be a part of this!

Another Wedding Album and Gift

I had another order for a wedding guest sign-in book. It turned out quite similar to my sister's, except for a different print of paper for the cover (which was the same print used on the bride and groom's wedding invitations) and the ribbon which is orange instead of green. I didn't put any of the pictures in this one--the bride didn't have them yet--so she decided she would do that part.

As a gift to the bride and groom, I made these two 52 Reasons books for them.

Anniversary Gift

Just a few weeks ago, my husband and I celebrated our third year anniversary. As a gift to him, I made this book. But this isn't just any book I've ever made--this is Second-Year Law School Letters.

It all started on a dark and stormy night. Oops. Wrong story. It all started last year when I read Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright. My sister loved the book more than I did, but I did love the idea--write weekly letters to your spouse. In the book, the husband would give each letter to her after he had written it. But me, I decided to keep it a surprise. So last year, during the first week of his second year of law school, I wrote a letter to him. And each week after that. The letters became a record of each week--almost a journal entry--of what we had done that week/weekend, new milestones our daughters were reaching, and then an expression of love and appreciation for the little things he had done for me that week. Time passed through Halloween, the birth of our second daughter, Christmas, travels home for the holidays, Valentines day, law school competitions, Mother's Day, and then the summer. I'm a little disappointed to say that I missed two weeks out of the whole year, but I guess that's okay.

So for our anniversary, I compiled the letters into this book and titled it Second-Year Law School Letters.
The front title page:
The second "title page" had all the dates of the journal entries.
And a few sample pages of the letters. I kept the letters to a half page, which was nice because I didn't feel like I had to spend hours writing a lengthy letter.


And oh how embarrassing to notice typos in my journal entries! Don't look too close!


Ways to use this idea:
*Engaged? Write weekly letters during the engagement of all the preparations, stresses, and excitements.
*Pregnant? Write weekly letters of the anticipations of the labor, becoming a mother, weights and measurements, etc.
*Parenting? Write weekly letters as journal entries. I've started doing this as journals for my girls. I record cute things they do and say, their milestone progress, and anything else I think they'd like to know (and I'd like to remember). Here is a link to a journal I made for a friend's baby shower with this idea in mind.

Wedding Guest Book

This is the second project I worked on for my sister's wedding. She wanted a guest sign-in book for the reception with their engagement pictures on the pages. The book turned out to be 8.5x11. I was nervous about it because I'd never done one this large, let alone one with pictures (which means I needed to tweak the binding), but I think it turned out nice.


I used a quote about love from one her fiance's emails in the front cover, and then filled the book with 25 of their engagement pictures--one on each page. We found metallic sharpies for the guests to sign their names or write a brief message to the bride and groom.

On the back inside cover, I put their wedding invitations as a remembrance for their future kids to see.

I was excited with how it turned out . . . and sad to see it go!

Catching Up

It's amazing how life seems to move in fast forward when your computer is down! I have so much to catch up on--and I think I may be laying my trusty laptop to rest soon (which means not-so-trusty anymore). For now, I'll try to update on my husband's Mac (yuck). :)

I had an order from a friend to make a mini-journal for her niece who would be traveling a lot this summer. Her niece's name is Wren, and she's just a little toddler right now.

It would be more of a coloring book than a journal, so I put in a variety of pages as well as white pages.


Plus I added a page of stickers that my own toddler absolutely loves. Yes--they seem quite boring for the older generations, but my little girl has so much fun with them.

Coming next . . . "Marriage Manuals" I created for my sister's bridal shower--full of pockets for lots of advice from the attendants.

Another College Survival Guide

I got another order for a College Survival Guide, and seeing as how this order was from some friends back home, my husband wanted to put the text together for them. The mother mentioned Paige's favorite colors were purple and green, so this is what I came up with. The purple on the binding edge was textured paper, and the inside cover was a green textured paper. It was so much fun to do. I hope Paige enjoys it as much as we did!
The table of contents:

A sample page of the text:
And I'm still working on the exciting project I haven't posted yet. It got interrupted with a move, but now that we are almost settled, I'll be booking again soon!

Nameplates: II

Here are some other options for nameplates . . .

Custom Name Plates

As some have requested, here are close-ups of the "Custom Name Plates" you can have done for your journal. I think you can tell which ones I did at the beginning of my book-making, and which ones I have done more recently with more experience. Either way, you can get an idea of what I mean when I say "Custom Name Plate."