Gifts for Pay it Forward

I am so excited to have finished these books to give to Rosie, Adrienne & Trish, who signed up on my blog for the Pay if Forward game. I'm having lots of fun using my Zutter, and wanted to make little books with images and art quotes. Then in December, Trish posted some gorgeous vintage photos on Next-Generation-Stampers Yahoo group as an Advent Image Challenge. I printed these images to use in this booklet. Then when I opened my gifts for the 12 Days of Christmas Swap, I got a lovely little book from Fiona, which had pages to hold ATCs. So I decided to use her idea, to turn my art quote book into an ATC holder. I used card stock for my pages, which makes the booklet stand open. So now, I think, I've created a star book ATC holder. I hope they like these books (they are essentially the same).

I have placed the pictures from the finished book in this slide show, and show some photos of how I made the book below.

I took 3 different types of card stock that were slightly colored or decorated (like confetti paper) and on one side I played to create fun backgrounds. Sometimes I used water colors and/or color mist sprays. I just had a fun play day, sticking with a blue, yellow & green theme. I left one side of the paper blank, so when I created the flaps to hold ATCs, there would be a nice contrast between the front holder section and the back of the page. I cut the card stock into pages that measure 6" x 7". I folded each page so there were 4 sections. The main part of the page measuring 6" x 3-3/4".

On the bottom section, I trimmed off the corners to create a V shape.

The bottom section was folded up, the page folded in half and placed in the Zutter to punch the binding holes. Because the pages were thick, I punched them one at a time. Next step was to stamp and decorate the pages, once I knew where the holes were placed.

For the cover, I used paper from a shopping bag that I liked the colors.

I made a wash of gel medium and gold acrylic paint to give a shimmer to the paper.

After the paper dried, I embossed it in the Cuttlebug and added a little of Brilliance copper ink to tone down the gold look, just a tad here and there.

For the medallion on the front of the book, I cut some beautiful copper colored paper that was given to me into 2" squares and embossed them in the Cuttlebug.

I ran some Brilliance copper ink over the raised areas, but didn't think there was enough contrast for the look I was going for.

I rubbed some gold Perfect Pearls over the surface, and again ran the Brilliance copper over the top.