A long awaited project

I wanted to share with you today a very special project that I just finished. This is a date book for birthdays and anniversaries. I took this class at The Owl and the Pussy Cat in Fort Myers, Florida when I was down visiting my friend Carol. It is fabric covered book and it does take a bit of time and some concentration when putting it together. Here are a few more pictures.


The Front Cover




This is the inside cover. You can see the title of the book and the tabs that indicate the months. I used VersaMagic - sugarcane on the image at the bottom. I wanted to keep it subtle. The paper I used to line the inside cover is a textured Japanese paper from the Owl and the Pussy Cat. It is very durable and will hold up better than ordinary card stock. It comes in many different colors that would match any material you might choose. After I had finished the book, I wished I had thought to put the ribbon under the Japanese paper for a cleaner look. Lesson learned for my next one. At the Owl and the Pussy Cat they also sell packages of the pre-printed inside pages that contain a full year. All you have to do is cut them in half and round the corners if that is the look you want.

Each month has two pages of regular card stock with the appropriate number of days. I just have to write the names next to the date for an easy quick glance at the special days. I used my Hero Arts -Fantastic Flourishes stamp set in SU mellow moss ink at the bottom to add a little flair. The tabs were created using a SU- Round Tab punch.

In between each of the months I added a blank page to write gift ideas that I might come up with long before the date, or hobbies of the receiver that might help me with ideas in my purchases when the time comes.

The back cover is the same material as the front. These are actually upholstery samples that is plenty large enough for the front and back cover. This book measures 5x11 and I did trim down the inside pages about a quarter of an inch so the edges were protected by the edges of the cover. I used red tacky tape to hold down the fabric onto pieces of sturdy mat board and also to adhere the Japanese paper. It is very important that you spend the money on a good product that will hold. After you put this much work into a book like this, you don't want it falling apart. Since I wanted rounded corners I had to spend a bit more time covering the corners with the fabric. I cut small slits and pinched and pleated the corners until they looked professional. Takes a bit of practice and patience. I used my Zutter on the covers once they were covered which brings about another little issue depending on the type of fabric you use. This one tended to fray quite a bit so once I cut the binding holes I had quite a bit of threads sticking out the holes. To clean this up, I took a very small pair of scissors and tediously trimmed inside each one. I then put a drop of Fray Check around each hole. At first I thought I may have ruined the fabric as it left a darker liquid mark, but the Fray check dried and you couldn't even tell I had used it.

I wanted to use the window plate that is in the bottom right corner but I didn't know what to put in it. I then decided on my initials but I didn't have a "k" and "m" in a lower case font that I liked so I just made the "C" in a different font. I had completely forgot about my Justright stamps until after the book was complete.

I hope you enjoyed my project. This book can be tailored to whatever type of book you want and the size and look are endless. These books make great gifts so in my mind it justifies the cost of the Zutter.

Have fun and enjoy!

~Kim