70th Birthday Book

I had been commissioned by one of my work colleagues to make a special book for her Step Mom's 70th Birthday. Karen has asked me to make a few things for her recently and each item has surpassed the last and I've got a reputation to uphold now!

I had the idea of making it a book with photo's of the people it was from and a space for them to write their own sentiment alongside.

The 6" square mini scrapbook started life as brown and pink and as the recipients favourite colour is purple that just wouldn't do. The trouble was, I didn't have any paper big enough so I used self adhesive irridescent film for the main cover, and used a strip of some gorgeous silver and lilac glittered wrapping paper that I bought from the NEC last year. Through out the project the only glitter is from this paper, I was absoloutely covered by the end !

I used some ribbon to cover the join of the 2 papers, and the sentiment on the front is Papermania peel offs.

The main pages are a photograph of family member with partner and a plain section to write on. these are all matted on various purple papers and embellished with Prima flowers.

In the middle of the book there are 2 poems to celebrate a mother.

I had intended to use gems for the middle of the flowers, but the book was getting so fat that I had to reduce the thickness. I had originally inserted lengths of ribbon between the covers of the book to tie it, but they were straining against the thickness so much that they would not hold it. The box had already been made and the thickness was as big as I could make it with A4 card so I couldn't make another so I came up with the idea of using a long length of ribbon to double wrap the book and this kept it together and small enough to go into the box. The box was embellished with peel off and I used a length of lilac organza ribbon to tie a bow for presentation. Karen was delighted with it and they were having a get together at the weekend for her birthday. I told her if her Mom doesn't cry I haven't done my job properly!

Below is a slideshow of the all the photos of this project