Hi Crafters, we're delighted to be sharing how to make an amazing Fashion Forward Birthday Book with you. Gather up your supplies and craft along with DT member Sue Tossell to make one yourself. You'll find the full supply list at the bottom of the post:
The first thing you need to do is construct you cover. Go around the large pieces on three sides with the black construction tape and each end on the short edges of the spine. Place the spine and the front or back together (the unbound edges) and place a piece of tape half on and half off of the spine, make sure that these two pieces are lined up and the tape is a couple of inches longer at each end. Keeping the edges together stand the edges onto the tape and then all the way over onto the un taped side. Place onto a flat surface and open these up you will see that there is a gap between the two pieces, this allows you cover to open and close easily. Pull the excess tape at the top and bottom onto the inside of the cover. Place another piece of tape over the gap and fold your front/back to give your cover a nice folded edge. Repeat the last process with the other part of the cover onto the other side of the spine. Clare has made a You Tube video showing you how to do this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QRrVXG54qc
For the next part you will need to cut the following pieces from black card stock:
- 1 – 8 x7 inches
- 1 – 8 x 3 ½ inches
- 1 – 8 x 2 ½ inches
- 1 – 8 x 1 ½ inches
Along the short edges of the other 3 pieces of card score ½ inch in from both edges. You are going to stick your pages to these. Layer these together placing the middle sized piece into the largest, centre this as best you can, then place the smallest into the middle again centre as best you can. Then place this into the centre of your spine.
At this stage I covered the outside of my album with black card.
- Cut 2 pieces of black card 8 3/8 x 8 3/8 inches
- Cut 1 piece of black card 8 3/8 x 2 7/8 inches
Stick these to the front, back and the spine using either wet glue or tape.
Now you are ready to make your pages for the album.
Take 6 sheets of black card and measuring along the short edge, trim your card to 8 inches, and disregard the ¼ inch pieces that you trim off. Along the long edge cut at 8 ½ inches. Save the piece that you have cut off. Now score along the 8 ½ inch edge at ½ inch in.
Starting at the back of the album and using either tape or glue attach your page to the last piece in your spine. Continue until all the pages have been stuck into the album, making sure that they are all lined up squarely top and bottom.
You now want 12 pieces of card 8 x 3 inches, these are going to be your pockets in your album. You can either stick these in at this point or wait until you start decorating your pages. I have opted to stick mine in at this stage.
On the 2 short sides and 1 long side place either a bead of glue or fine red liner tape. And then stick to the right hand edge of your page, either lining up with the edge of the page or to the spine depending on which page you are adding too. You need to do this for all 12 sides of the pages.
Next you are going to make 12 little books to place in the pockets that you’ve just made.
You will need 24 pieces of card measuring 4 5/8 x 6 3/8 inches, once these are cut score along the long edge at 1 5/8 inch on 12 pieces of the card. Pair 1 scored piece of card and 1 un-scored piece of card together and glue just around three edges of the 1 5/8 section of the card. By only going around the edges of this piece you will form a small pocket in the hinge section. There should be 1 little book for each page to go into the pockets created.
You are now ready to decorate your album.
Using the 12 x 12 pad and January (if using Fashion Forward), carefully cut off the borders, these will be used later. Carefully cut out the month name and the square design with the week days underneath it then in the opposite corner cut out the square with the writing lines on it. Using either glue or tape stick these pieces onto the small book you made.
On the front of the small book (this is the part that has the score line on it) place the month and the picture with writing line on. Then on the back place the piece that has the days of the week on. Place on the lower part of the back page, leaving a space to decorate later.
To decorate the pages of my album I have used the 8 x 8 inch Fashion Forward pad, using the reverse side of the pages allotted to each month to decorate the corresponding pages. I also used a border from the larger page to place down the edge of the pocket on these pages. First cut the larger part of the page, this will measure approximately 7 7/8 x 4 3/8 inches, when placing this on you page, place the edge up to the edge of the pocket (do not go over the top of it). Next using one of the borders and measuring 7 7/8 inch in length down the edge of the pocket leave a small border of the black at the edge of the pocket. Then measure the space that you have left, it will always be 7 7/8 inch in length but the width will vary depending on the size of border (these do very from design to design). Remember to cut your papers 1/8 inch smaller than your space to leave a small border all the way around.
Once you have decorated all of the pages using some of the borders that are left, decorate the space in between the pages, I’ve only decorated the piece on the back of the spine, but you could also decorate the black spaces either side as well.
The front, back and spine of the album
The inside front and inside back covers
Before I started to cover the outside and inside of my album, I took all of the pieces of12 x12 papers that I had left over from cutting out the pieces for the small books and set them to the side. I them used 2 pieces of black card measuring 8 3/8 x 8x 3/8 inches and stuck them inside both the front and back of the album, this way I could use up my left over pieces of paper like a patchwork and not worry what was going to show from underneath. I also made 2 small pockets at the bottom of both of these pages. You can make these whatever size you want, just bear in mind if you are using up scraps you might need to see what you have left first. You just need to remember that you are aiming to leave a 1/8 inch border around the outside of your papers and this needs to continue when creating a patchwork page.
Once you are happy with the papers that you’ve picked to decorate your album with, you can stick them in place.
You can also make some photo mats using the picture on your left over papers.
You can finish off the back of your little books with any scraps that are left over, I have tried to keep the papers that same as I’ve used for each month.
Add the days of the month (a bit like a calendar) to the inside of the little books. Remember there is space for adding a small photo mat to the centre of these little books too.
Finally I finished my book by using some dies that I have in my stash and matching the colour to one of the colours on the papers used on the front, along with some alphabet dies I also had in my stash just stating that it’s a birthday book.
I enjoyed making this album so much I made two, one will be used a Christmas gift to a family member.
Supply List
To make this album you will need:
8 ½ x 8 ½ inch album cover set
Signature Black Construction Tape 50m roll
Fashion Forward 12 x 12 Collection Pack
Thank you for following along - Sue
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