so, last night (i think) i glanced over the photo album idea for sammo while he's away...you know the photo a day album? well, i threw it together this morning and i have a feeling that i'll be making loads more in the near future. anyway, here's the deal, i'm taking a photo a day of bri, printing it out (hopefully daily, but at the very least every other day) and popping it in the mail to the boy...once he gets it, he can add it to the album.
note: i used my 'se7en' album as inspiration for this one, just tweaked it here and there to make it faster to make :]
i wanted to make it as masculine as i could possibly bear, ha! naturally, this elliminates the possibility of using my pretty gaffer tape...had to come up with a suitable replacement that was totally devoid of any and all cuteness so i thought, 'why not masking tape?' if masking tape and gaffer tape are not viable options for your photo albums, you could also use duct tape (which i'm planning on doing next, ha).
so here we go with the step by step:
put the book together...
cut (2) pieces of chipboard to measure 4 x 9 inches and (1) piece of chipboard that measures 1 x 4 inches.
bind it...
the binding is going to depend on the width of the tape you are using. mine was 1 inch wide so i measured 7/16 of an inch in and drew a light pencil line down the left edge of one of my chipboard cover pieces...do the same on the other piece and then for the 1 inch binding chipboard piece, measure in from both sides (you'll have 2 pencil guidelines on this piece). this helped me with the spacing so that the covers will close properly.
tear off a piece of masking tape about 2 feet long, using the pencil guidelines, apply tape to one of the covers and one side of the binding piece. wrap it around and around. repeat process with the other cover. optional: stitch the tape down for extra stability. i handstitched a zig zag stitch on the front and back covers and a straight stitch on the binding.
using a crop-a-dile, punch a hole approx one inch up from the top and bottom edges of the back cover...this will hold your pages so it's a good idea to use one of your page protectors as a reference point. optional: i added two grommets for more sturdiness.
using some baseball card protector pages, a metal ruler and an x-acto knife, cut the protector in thirds so that it creates a row of 3 pockets and be sure to leave the little binding strip connected.
on each protector, tear off a piece of masking tape approx 5 inches long and adhere it to the binding strip of the protector, fold excess over to the back and then do the same on the other side. trim excess tape on the ends with scissors or trimmer.
now, using the holes in the back cover as a guide, line up one of the protectors and trace the holes with a pencil....punch holes with a crop-a-dile and use as a guide for remaining protectors.
thread the pages onto a piece of ribbon and tie in a knot on the top to hold pages in place.
this is the inside front cover decor, i did some handstitching on the outer cover and wanted to hide the mess, so i used patterned paper (4 x 3 1/2 inches), circle punches from leftover chipboard and alpha stickers.
et voila! c'est finis! [you should know that i sometimes exclaim things in french...it's so much funner than english right?]
ok, so now that that's done, let me know if i skipped any vital steps or if i've managed to just confuse the dickens out of you (sincerest apologies) ha!
hugs and happy monday (boo)...kins
