Scrapbook Project - 4th of July Mini Book

To make my mini book I used the Starlight Pink Paislee line. I used the alphabet stickers, the element stickers, I used the small patterned paper pack which comes with 6 pieces of patterned paper. The 12x12 pieces are double sided so basically you end up with 11 different patterns. I also used the American Crafts This to That adhesive, which is a very strong adhesive. We also sell refills for this adhesive on our website, www.lemonpoppyshoppe.com. I used the American Crafts Slick Writer pen to outline all of my stickers and I also used the Buttons Galore Patriot buttons, the Elementary buttons and then the Amor Fiesta Felt and then to put everything together I used the Jenni Bowlin 4" chipboard mini book with the star cut out. Ok, I'll go through a few of the things that I did when I made my mini book. First off, I covered the book cover with the blue star paper and then I just added quite a few of the embellishment stickers (the stars, the scallop border and the yellow ticket in the corner). When I adhered the ticket I left part of the edge hanging off of the page, so to trim that off I just flipped the page over and then trimmed the excess using an exacto knife. My next step was to outline everything with the Ameican Crafts Slick Writer pen. You'll notice that I added a bit of writing directly on one of my stickers - that's the great thing about the American Crafts Slick Writer pens - you can use them to write on slick surfaces and dry really quickly so you don't have to worry about your pen marks smearing. I also added a little bit of my own handwriting to fill in space and add a personal touch. One trick I used when writing "freedom" was to make it look like it was a little bit wavy - I just drew a wavy line with a pencil and then wrote "freedom" on top of the wavy line. Once my ink dried I just went back and erased the pencil mark! I started the inside of the book by covering the inside cover and page one with yellow paper. I also added a strip of the red star paper on either edge. I left these pages really empty because I wanted to leave a lot of room for the pictures since the book is so small. This book would be really great for wallet size pictures. You could easily add one to each of these pages and have a little room left for journaling. For the next pages I used the background that actually comes in the book. The lined paper that comes in this book is pretty sturdy so you won't have to worry about it tearing by the holes. I layered at least one side of most of my pages with patterned paper so that helped thicken up the pages as well. For this set of pages I'll probably do quite a bit of journaling since the paper is already lined. For the next set of pages I just covered the right page with star paper and then on the left page I just added a blue sticker strip along the edge. I did cut about 1/2" off of the edge of the left page so that you can see the red paper from the previous page showing through. My next pages I left completely for journaling. The idea for this book is to put it out with my decorations every year so I wanted to list all of the Fourth of July traditions that my family has. The next two pages are, once again, really plain and simple. I decided to use this page for parade photos so I added "the parade" as my title on the right page. One trick I used when I was adding my letter stickers was to make one letter higher than the next - so one letter is slightly above the next letter (which is at the bottom edge of the pages). This helps get those letters closer together so that you are sure to be able to fit your word on such a small page. These next pages are pretty much the same as the others - I've left plenty of room for photos by placing my decorations along the outside edges. For the next pages I just used the background ledger paper. One fun thing to do is to try and make your title go across both pages because it helps connect the two pages together. On the last two pages in the book I just covered those with the same yellow star paper that I used on the front of the book so that it would give the book a more cohesive look. I also covered the back cover of the book with the same light blue star paper that I used on the front cover.