Got Memories

Mother’s  Day was fast approaching and I was in need of a unique gift. My daughter and I were stumbling around the library one day, looking at craft books and we saw one we liked making memory books. So I set out making one for my mother and one for my mother in law. Although these are Mother’s Day themed, memory books make great gifts for birthday’s, graduations, anniversaries or thinking of you.
For this project I used:
Heavy cardboard cut to 4 x 5
Decorative scrapbook paper
Ribbon
Photo stickers
Glue
Scrapbook stickers
Rhinestones
Cardstock
Instant coffee
Pictures

Begin by cutting your decorative scrapbook paper about 1 inch larger than your cardboard. Glue the cardboard to the white side of the decorative paper so that the print is facing outward. Cut corners on the diagonals. Fold the corners inward and glue down.

For my end papers and pages, I coffee stained white card stock. To do this, place about ¼ cup of instant coffee on a cookie sheet. Pour boiling water into cookie sheet about halfway to the top edge of cookie sheet. Allow to cool to lukewarm. Place your card stock into the coffee water making sure to coat both sides with coffee water. Remove and place on a clean cookie sheet or to get the polka dots like I did, place on a pizza tray. To dry, you can use 1 of 2 methods. You can dry with a hair dryer or like I did place in the oven. Watch you papers carefully as you do not want to start a fire. Place in a preheated 200 degree oven for 5 -10 minutes again watching carefully and removing as soon as dry. There are several good YouTube videos on this if you need more instruction. Once your papers are dry, cut 2 pieces slightly smaller than your covers for your end pages. Cut 2 pieces of ribbon about 17 inches long and sandwiching the ribbon between the cover and end paper, glue the end paper to the cover. Next I used an accordion fold to make the pages, again, just slightly smaller than my covers. I glued 2 accordion pages together to get my 6 inside pages.

Next I put my photos on the pages using acid free double sided photo stickers, scrap booking stickers and rhinestones.

Here is a close up of the last page and you can see a bit clearer the rhinestones adding sparkle to the stickers :
 

Allow to dry completely and then tie up with the ribbon.

Sparkling memories to last a lifetime!
 
Rhinestones are available from:
 
www.RhinestonesEtc.com

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