Welcome to my blog today, and Happy Valentine's Day! I hope your day is sweet as a Valentine treat.
For Valentine's Day, I've made a little stitched book that is perfect for holding small photos and little notes for someone you love.
This book is made using Club Scrap's new Love Ink kit. It's a smallish book, measuring 3.75 inches wide, and 5 inches tall. It is embellished with cutouts and dimensional stickers from the kit.
Here's a glimpse into how I made this little stitched book:
1. I had an idea (almost always a helpful place to start!) so I started sketching it out in my composition book, and planned how many pages I wanted, what size they should be, and how to cut them out of the 12x12 papers. I also worked out how to stitch the spine and add in both the dimensional heart stickers and some beads.
2. Next I cut the papers down. They are nested into two types of signatures, the pages themselves, and some spacer signatures. The spacer signatures are both decorative, and serve the function of balancing the spine after photos and cutouts are added, so the book will be the same thickness at the spine and the outer edge with the ribbon tie. The signatures of pages are graduated as well, so there are decorative spine balancers in the middle and a smaller piece nested inside a larger. This makes every page colorful, and inner pages of each signature don't extend past the outer ones. After the pages and spacers are cut, they are all scored in half vertically.
Sometimes it's nice to have a friend guard the cut papers while you're scoring!
3. Next, the spacing of the holes from the stitching plan are marked onto one of the spacers.
4. Once the holes are pierced into the spacer, the spacer is used as a template to pierce the holes in all of the other pages. You might want to get a nice relaxing cup of tea before starting this process, because this is a LOT of hole-piercing!
5. Now it's time to set up all the materials for stitching: a needle, waxed linen thread, the dimensional heart stickers, a paper piercer, beads, and the signatures to be sewn together. I also have the stitching guide, so I know the placement of beads and hearts for page signatures. The spacer signatures are sewn onto strips of ribbon, without extra embellishment.
6. I added the dimensional stickers to the spines as I went along, as they aren't super-sticky, especially when trying to get them to stay right on the fold. A paper piercer was used to make holes in the stickers to line up with the stitching holes.
7. After the signatures are sewn together, the covers need to be prepared. Cut the bookboard to the size of the largest (outside) pages, 3.75 x5 inches. When cutting bookboard, I use a bit of tape to hold the ruler in place so if I need to take a little break, the ruler stays in the correct location.
8. After the boards are cut, they are covered on one side with patterned paper. The ribbons that are part of the binding are glued down with a wee bit of bookbinding glue. The ribbons that will tie the book shut are also glued down to extend on the edge of the book. Next, apply a conservative amount of glue to the entire back side of the cover, and adhere to the back of the book, over the ribbons and thread end; repeat for the front cover.
9. All that's left is to add a little embellishment to the front cover, and place the cute cutouts throughout the pages!
Here are a couple more views of the completed book. When it's open, it will pop open into a circle standing up. You can see when it's closed and you look down at the top that there is plenty of room to add photos and other embellishments without worrying that the book won't tie shut properly. It makes all that hole-piercing worthwhile!
And here's a final look at the book, along with spine detail.
I hope you've enjoyed this stop on the Club Scrap Valentine's Day Blog Hop!
If you have any questions about the project, please don't hesitate to ask.
Your next stop will be with Anne Marie at her blog Artfully Balanced.
If you haven't seen all of the blogs in the Club Scrap Valentine Hop, you can start at the beginning!
Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a LOVE-ly day!
~cat