This book is 8"x8", but you could easily adapt the size of the layout to work with any size cardboard, chipboard or other material you have at home. I always save the chipboard packaging from cereal boxes, mailers, etc., to use in my books and other projects. I store them in my scraproom so that there is material on hand for whenever I want to make a mini album. Plus, I'm saving money and helping the planet by using what would just become trash otherwise!
I started with some 8" x 16" cardboard packing material that I cut down into 8" x 8" squares. Then I marked where I wanted my holes to be and punched them out using my crop-a-dile.
I made my first hole in the center of the book and then the other two hole were about one inch from either edge. I think that you will need to use a crop-a-dile for this project if you go with a corrugated cardboard -- a regular hole punch probably won't have enough oomph to get through all those layers of paper unless you are Superwoman. Or maybe my hands are just really wimpy.
After I had prepared my book pages (you need five altogether, including the covers), I got my letters ready. I popped them out of their holder & filed the edges smooth. Set them aside, because you'll use them later.
After my letters were ready, I started gathering my scraps. I knew I wanted two of the squares on each page to have a background that read more blue than red and then I wanted the other two squares to be the opposite. I cut out sixteen 4" x 4" squares of "blue" paper and sixteen 4" x 4" squares of "red" paper. Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, but there are only 26 letters in the alphabet -- why do I need 32 squares? Well, that is because you are going to use four of the squares on the outside of the front cover and four of the squares on the outside of the back cover. That leave 24 squares for the inside, which is all you need because I combined "XYZ" together on the last square.
I then arranged the paper squares on the page in a grid, alternating the colors. I put like colors diagonal from each other so that they were only touching in the very center. Then I glued the paper to the cardboard using my ATG. Once the paper was down, I arranged the letters on their grids and then inked them. If the letter was on a blue square, I inked it red. If the letter was on a red square, I inked it blue. Once they were dry, I adhered them to the page with GlueDots (I love Glue Dots and buy them by the bucketful -- I don't know how I survived before I discovered them).
Once everything was glued down, I inked the outside edges of the page in a dark brown ink to tie it all together. Next it was time to embellish the page! My original plan called for each letter to have a representative object (like an apple for A -- that sort of thing) but the page quickly became too cluttered, so I settled on having one object per page. It was fun to collect my odds and ends and use them creatively on the page.
After all the interior pages were complete, I decorated the inside and outside covers and used some ric-rac to bind it all together. If you were planning on giving this book to a child to be able to touch and explore, you might want to use binder rings instead to make it more durable.
After that, I just stamped the color with "ABC" in dark brown ink & then outlined the letters in white gel pen to make them pop off the super vintage paper. That's all there is to it! The book came together very quickly and was so much fun. I hope you enjoy making one for yourself!
1 comment:
cute little mini.
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