After making Sammie's custom book, I thought, "maybe I can make a few custom books for a generic type theme that many people would like to put their personal photos in... ?" So, I started drawing up designs to encompass my favorite time of year... FALL :) I started fall with the First day of school, to football season, Halloween, and the grand finale being Thanksgiving.
I used foamboard as my "pages" because I like the thickness of them. I bought black 30"x20" foamcore board, and cut it into 3 pages per board, at 10"x16" "pages". I didn't want to use bendable scrapbook paper. The ideas I had in my head needed something a bit more sturdy than paper. Cause remember, I like to handcraft my own visions. I love the stuff in the scrapbook aisles at the stores, but they can be expensive for me. And the textural look I was going for wasn't going to be accomplished with store-bought items.
I made the trees' bumpy bark by letting streaks of glue dry before painting them a dark brown. For the foliage, I either used synthetic flower petals, cut up synthetic fall leaves, felt, or tissue paper. It was fun :)
I came up with x-acto knifing a die-cut picture space in the cover, and used a hand-crafted school bus flap on the inside to camoflauge the hole (for the interior layout) and place the cover picture in.
I used loose binder rings to hold the book together and tied an array of ribbons, strings, and fabrics on the outside for frill.
They came out so nice... My husband likes the ones where the leaves are blowing across the page. From the outside of the book, the chunky pages can't close all the way, and the illustrations appear to be bursting out from the page. I like it! I think it generates excitement as to "what will i see when I open these books?!" lol... it's like they are bursting at the seams...
Since the boards were so thick I had to limit the number of layouts. And with fewer layouts, I had to get creative as to how to accomodate more picture spaces for wonderful fall memories. I left some areas for flat picture layouts. But I also included some flap options to include more pictures. I say, if you're gonna have an awesome scrapbook, why limit the number of picture you wanna install? The more pics, the longer to enjoy each layout...
I was really happy with the completion of this project. It took my weeks and weeks to accomplish. I'm sure they will make some people very happy. I have some smaller versions to complete as well. They are 10'x8" in size. I will include them in the blog later. On deck to create... different seasons & even an all-inclusive year book! Sketches & designs are in the works!
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