Christmas Book for Rhett's parents

For Christmas this year, I went with something sentimental for my in-laws and made them a memory book from the grandkids.

Using ideas I got from Tasheena for a book, here are some photos.

There are probably many different ways and different ideas to make these, but this is what I did.

1. Divide your pages: I figure out how many pages I'll need and divide up the book setting aside 3 or 4 pages for each of my finished pages. Depending on the size of the book, this leaves a lot of extra pages that you don't need--this book only needed 15 pages. So I would set aside 4 pages, then cut out 5 using an Exacto type knife. Cutting out the pages in between your pages allows the binding to have room as you add & embellish your pages. The first book I made, I didn't cut enough pages out, so by the time it was done, it couldn't really close.

2. Glue your pages: Using spray craft glue, I glue the 4 pages of the book into one thick page. The spray glue is in an aerosol can and it can take a whole can per book I've found.

**With this book I took pages from the stack I cut out, and spray painted them green, red, and silver to go with the Christmas theme, then glued them to the thick pages. So the last layer of each page wasn't obviously in the binding of the book, just glued on, but it worked really well. The reason I did this was because in previous books, I would paint the pages and the moisture of the paint would make the pages buckle and they'd be wavy and make the book thick. Only spray painting one single layer allowed the pages to stay crisp.

3. Drill Holes & Binding: This idea is completely Tasheena's. Using a drill, with the book shut, I drilled four holes down the binding. Right after I remove the drill, I threaded thin twine through. After all four holes had chunks of twine hanging out I opened the book in the middle as wide as it could go face down. At this point I tied each twine in a knot and secured it to the back binding with Elmer's glue. *It's important to open the book as big as you can when you tie the binding to allow it to open later, maybe that is obvious

4. Cover the Book: I chose to use a scrap of red broadcloth to cover the book--the book by the way was actually a text book of Rhett's written by the president of the school, so free book. I cut little stars in the fabric and spray painted the cover of the book silver, so when I covered the book, silver stars were all over. Also, the title is a rectangle cut into the red fabric book cover. To attach the fabric, I just poured a Elmer's glue on one side, smoothing it out with my fingers to one even coat of glue, and put the fabric on and pushed it on evenly. Glue came up through the fabric, but it was secure. I didn't put glue on the binding, just the front and back covers. To deal with the edges, I opened the book and using a hot glue gun, glued down the 1" border I had trimmed. Around the binding I just cut the fabric short enough to buck up against the pages and hot glued it in place.

5. Ribbon Tie: This idea I saw first from Melody. I drilled a hole in the back cover and one in the front cover. I laced ribbon through and tied a knot in the back and hot glued it to the book. These two ribbons wrap around the book to tie it shut. I originally was trying to think of making an elastic tie on the back to come around and hook around a button attached to the front cover, but maybe on the next book.

6. Inside Covers: I made collages of all the grand kids for the inside covers. I printed various sized photos and backed some of them with a chunk of foam board I had, you could also use some layers of Styrofoam paper plates too. The few pictures backed with the foam stood a little taller off the page and added dimension to the collages. I glued these all down with the hot glue gun.

7. Decorate your pages: I went through and tore small pieces of the colored top paper off, revealing jagged chunks of printed text underneath. Shoe polish: this was also shared by Tasheena: using a stipple brush and a tin of show polish, I "antiqued" the pages before I put anything on them, and the used it on all the paper embellishments I used too. There are different colors of shoe polish, I've only worked with brown to make it look worn and aged. I even shoe polish the cover on top of the fabric.

I tried to make the pages interactive, well I guess I should explain how my book went:

This book was about the grand kids. Rhett's the youngest of 6 and so there are 16 grand kids age 15 and down. While we were there at Thanksgiving I had each kid tell me their favorite story/memory/characteristic about both Grandma and Grandpa. I typed it up as they told me and they were pretty funny and cute. So in the book each kid got a page and each page had 1.their name 2. their picture 3. grandma's memory and 4. grandpa's memory.

To make the pages interactive here are some ideas:
I had a lot of pockets/ envelopes and the memory was printed and folded up to go the in pocket

• Glue only the top or bottom so it folds up/down to read the message underneath
• Ribbon holders for the folded memories
• Lots of different layers that unfold in different directions
• Using staples to secure things to the pages **I knew I would be doing this, so I didn't glue the pages completely together until the very end. So that way when I started attaching stuff, I could staple and not worry about stapling the opposite side, but it only went through half the thick page. After both sides of the page were finished, I glued it together in one thick page, concealing all the staple backs inside.
• I pretty much stuck with paper, staples, and ribbon to embellish but those who scrapbook (I do not) I'm sure there are much more fancy ideas with those metal things, stamps, punches, stickers, etc.

It was a lot of work, but they really liked it. It was a fun way to document all the grand kids and how much they love their grandparents and some really funny stories/ insights from the little guys. On the back cover I printed a poem on velum and we even put in a page for our son, Rhett Jr. and put an ultrasound picture on there with a note from us.

Good Luck making your own!!