Labor of Love

Cheesy title huh? Because it's Labor Day and my post is about my altered book titled, "Love"... Get it? Haha ha ha   h  a. Yea.

ANYWAY... I worked on an altered book this weekend to put all of my Instax photos from leave into. I kept it simple. I love the Tim Holtz Ideology paper stash! It's very industrial and fairly gender-neutral. I wanted to keep the embellishing to a minimum, but I may add a book marker with some of my Tim Holtz trinket pins and Marion Smith bird cages. I'm hording my Marion Smith stuff... but I NEED to use it! I will make "practice" scrapbooks - the kind where I don't have photos for it or any idea in mind for it's purpose - but this one has a purpose and it deserves to have some trinkets!

I heat-embossed a book plate die cut I got in a 99 cent package from Target. I embellished with a Prima flower, Prima flower trim and K & Company fabric flower die cut.

I inked the edges with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I sewed each signature together with embroidery thread.

signature (ˈsɪɡnɪtʃə)
a. a sheet of paper printed with several pages that upon folding will become a section or sections of a book
b. such a sheet so folded
c. a mark, esp a letter, printed on the first page of a signature

Some scraps from the cafes we ate at...

I also used my stamp edge punch from EK Success. It's so cute!

I didn't get to fill up the whole thing because I made so many pages. More room for the next time I visit home!

I really find book making to be interesting. My aunt's friend Esther published a book called, "How to Make Books" that I've been meaning to pick up. I have one called "Expressive Hand Made Books" that I really enjoy. I noticed when I first started scrapping I HAD to have the book structure in place first, rather than working on individual pages. What good is a pretty mini album page if it's not bound together nicely?