Birthday Book Gift Project

The concept behind birthday books; is that they are to be given as a gift, and inside they feature a collection of greetings cards.

The lucky recipient uses the calendar pages inside the book to mark off important birthdays and anniversaries and uses the actual cards to send to people on those special occasions.

Creative Cards member Adrienne Goodenough created a gorgeous birthday book using a template she had adapted from one we saw online; which can be seen in this months issue. When I saw her lovely project it inspired me to design a similar smaller template to make the book you now see on this page.

The beauty of this style of book is that it can very easily be adapted to use as a diary or a simple appointment book which would all make a wonderful gift for someone special in your life.

The cover of the book which can be seen opposite  features a Beeswax Collage which can also be seen elsewhere on this site!

I love to make books and had a lot of fun creating this project! I hope you too will be inspired to try!

Read on for details…

Materials Used:

• Birthday Book Template (opens pdf file)
• 15 A4 Sheets Heavy Card Stock  – all same colour – I used dark cream/yellow
• 2 Sheets A4 Dark Colour Card Stock
• Bone Folding Tool
• Paper Trimmer – or craft knife & ruler
• Strong Double Sided Tape
• Black Satin Ribbon
• Scissors
• Heart Shaped Die Cut Card
• Glitter And Metallic Gel Pens – Sakura
• Cream String
• Scrap Book Papers :
• Rusty Pickle & K&Company (Lifes Journey)
• Rebecca Sower – Fresh Cuts Buttons, Natures Walk & Flowers
• HOTP Paper Pizazz Paper Charms
• Victorian Decoupage Scraps (Mamelok)
• Dictionary Definitions  (K&Company)
• Scrabble Words – (http://www.innovativestampcreations.com/)
• Postage Stamps
• Peel Off  Stickers (Class A Peels) in: Borders, Brads, Frames, Eyelets, Letters, Words and Name Plaques.
• Safety Pin and Beads
• Gold Krylon Pen
• Gold Vellum
• Fleur De Lys Craft Punch
• Beeswax Collage *see this months Technique Of  The Month for directions

Rubber Stamp Supplies Used:

• Derwent Water Colour Pencils
• Judikins Water Brush
• Memories Inkpads in: Brown, Art Print Brown, Soft Leaf & Hunter Green
• Black Stazon Inkpad
• Brown Card Stock
• Pigment Ink Paint Palette (Colorbox) – Forest & Carnival
• Scrap Paper

Rubber Stamps Used:

• Front Cover: Face – Cherry Pie, Vintage Woman – Hero Arts, Flower – Diffusion
• January’s Page: Simple Touch – Stampington, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• February’s Page: Heart in Circle – Diffusion, Large Ladies Face –  Stampfranscisco
• March’s Page: Both Hero Arts
• April’s Page: 3 Muses – Judikins, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• May’s Page: Lady And Letter Collage – Inkadinkadoo, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• June’s Page: Davinci Woman – Stampington, Face – Cherry Pie, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• July’s Page: La Divina – Hero Arts, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• August’s Page: Optical Illusion – Hero Arts, Face – Stampinks, Heart in Circle – Diffusion
• September’s Page: Vintage Woman – Hero Arts, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• October’s Page: 3 Gibson Girl Faces – Diffusion, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• Novembers Page: Imagine Collage – Personal Stamp Exchange, Background Poetic Print – Hero Arts
• December’s Page: Vintage Tag – Hero Arts, Heart In Circle – Diffusion

How To Create:

Preparing The Calendar Pages:

1. Print the Birthday Book Template onto paper – you can use colour if you wish, I used white printer paper and added the colour to each month myself using a colorbox paintpad to apply the ink direct to the paper.

1. Cut out all the pages leaving a small border around the calendar page; apply 4 layers of doubled sided tape to the reverse of each page and set aside for later.

Folding And Assembling The Book:

To make the instructions easier to understand I have created diagrams using a drawing program – please not these are not to scale!

Creating The Book Pages –

Each calendar month book page is created from one whole sheet of A4 (regular sized) sheet of card stock.  The page features a ‘slip pocket’ on the right hand side of the page to enable you to slip greetings cards inside. To create this pocket, you make one simple fold as shown below:

Once you have folded and made your first page, you need to repeat the steps above for the other 11 pages.

Once I had created the pages I stamped each page using rubber stamps and added colour using the ‘Direct To Paper Technique’.

The main body of the pages on the left hand side will feature the calendar, so you only need to stamp a border as the centre will not be visible.

Use scrap paper to create a mask which will protect areas of the pages you don’t want to be stamped on.

I added highlights to the stamped images using watercolour pencils and glaze pens.

I added further interest to the pages by sticking down collage pictures, postage stamps, stamped images and embellishments.

Once stamped and coloured, affix 1 calendar page to the main body of each of the 12 pages and set aside for later.

Creating The Concertina Book Spine –

The book is held and binded together using a simple concertina spine which is created by folding an A4 sheet of card – fan style.

See the 2 diagrams below for further details:

Once you have created the concertina spine you are ready for attaching your book pages to it!

Attaching The Pages To The Spine –

This step is very easy; but it’s hard to visualize in written instructions! Hopefully the diagrams below will make it easier to understand. It helps to remember that you want to ‘sandwich’ the mountain folds of the spine inside your pages which makes it invisible:

Binding The Book –

To bind the book together securely I used 1” thick satin ribbon, on the top on bottom of the book covers I used 2 small strips of ribbon, and across the centre a long strip of ribbon which also acts as a ‘tie’ for tying the book together, heres how:

Finishing The Book –

Once the ribbon was in place, I affixed 2 plain sheets over card over the top of the front and back pages to cover and hide the ribbon.

I then decorated the front page of the book using torn paper and card scraps and affixed a beeswax collage I made earlier.

To bring the project together I made some vintage style greetings cards to slip inside the pockets of the book and my project was complete!

Birthday Book Pages – Click On The Pictures Below To Open Up A Larger Detailed Version