Summer Mini Book Progress #1

So, if you follow me on Facebook you may have noticed that I have been working on a Summer Minibook. Elise Joy on etsy sells these collections of books on binder rings composed of papers of all different styles, shapes, sizes and colors. These are a great little books to aide in memory keeping and scrapbooking. Last month, Elise unveiled her Summer 2011 mini book along with tutorials and blog posts on how she is updating her own book.

I spent a few weeks fawning over these books. I have never been a scrapper so I was alittle apprehensive about purchasing one of these little guys. After seen Elise work through her book, I felt the need to buy one of my own. So I bought one! Yay! And terror!

When this little beauty came, we were in the middle of our move but I was brimming with ideas. Since most of my crafting supplies were packed up I added a simple length of ribbon down the length of the cover. First, I adhered the ribbon using an adhesive roller, and then secured it with two staples. The first page was a smaller blank white piece of cardstock. I used this piece as an experimental page.

First I practiced writing out my journaling for this page, then started on the page for the book when I had all of my words figured out. Its positioning was a little weird so I added some other elements to the page. First was one of my favorite summer quotes added to the edge. The two text sections were separated by a piece of scrap fabric.

The back of the first page was something that I thought of after doing the second page. Elise had given a series of video tutorials on some of the elements she has used in her book. My favorite was how to use PSE to make a photogrid. Following her direction, I made a few including one of BK's photos from the Texas fires. I made it smaller than the 4x6 page and then added it to the green cardstock using roller adhesive.

To make it more cohesive, I added one of Berke's boarding passes from his trip back to AZ on the back of the first page. I thought I would use some stitching to add some different detail. Well my sewing machine isn't feeling happy with the change in material from fabric to paper. The first stitch line went fine. I decided to step it up and use a zigzag. It got a little funky/messy at the end, but it wasn't too bad. It added a little bit of personality. I fixed the tension and bobbin (I thought) and tried another zigzag stitch on the very outside edge of the page. My machine DID NOT like that stitch and ate the bobbin thread!

That stitch and my hungry machine mauled the edge of the page and looked grotesque. I panicked and couldn't think of a way to cover up this nasty looking mess of ripped up cardstock and tangled thread. Then I came across my gold glitter tape! It covered everything nicely. It also tied all of the colors between the first two pages together. To me it gave a polished and finished look to both sides of the first page while keeping it fun and covering the mistakes.