Family Memories Tag Book

Well, here we are it's Sunday and now I can show you the project I have been working on for 'One Stitch At A Time' (OSAAT) as guest designer this week. Firstly I must say a huge thankyou to Stitchy and the team for giving me the opportunity to do this and for their help and support.


The theme this week is 'Anything but a card' and I have gone back to my roots of bookmaking. I first learnt to make simple books about 25 years ago and developed my skills over a number of years whilst teaching my pupils how to make them when I was a classroom teacher.  So I have made a Family Memories Tag Book and the idea is that whoever you have chosen to include in this project will decorate/embellish a tag which will be their contribution towards the finished book. I have included a tutorial as a seperate post today that I hope you will find useful.
 

I have had great fun creating this using the methods of putting covers and spine together as I have always done, but instead of making it with pages, I have made it with wallets and tags.

I have started to embellish the wallets and I have designed the tag for Ken and I. This shows us at the Isle of Wight music festival last year and I wanted to include it as it is the first time either of us have been to an open air festival like this.

Now I shall give tags to the children, granddaughters, my sister and my Mum, so that I end up with photos and contributions from everyone. The wallets and tags can include a whole variety of things including photographs, journalling, drawings/art work, poems, personal stories, just anything that could be included in a diary really.

I have started to embellish Ella's wallet both the front and the back.

I just need to finish the others but will do them as the tags get completed.

I must say a HUGE thankyou to my sister Chrissie who has looked at my design and given me other ideas to think about. It's wonderful when you have another creative person in the family and I am so lucky to have my sister, my daughter and my daughter-in-law and we share, help, guide and support each other. Let's hope it all rubs off on the grandchildren as well.

Have a great day, thankyou for stopping by.

Love and hugs.  Brenda xxxx

Challenge List
Sassy Designs #47 - Shabby Chic
The Shabby Tea Room #9 - Chipboard
Daisy Doodles - Flowers
Everybody Art Challenge - Make a gift
Quixotic Challenge - Make your own flowers
Crafts and me #4 - Anything but a card
Theme Thursday - Butterflies
Crafty Ann's #14 - Anything goes

Tag Book Tutorial

This Tag Book holds 8 wallets

Materials - all sizes are in inches 

2 pieces greyboard (like chipboard) 5 3/4 x 4 3/4 for the covers

1 piece greyboard 4 3/4 x 3/4 for the spine

2 papers 7 x 6 for front and back covers

2 papers 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 for inside front and back covers

1 paper 7 1/2 x 3 for spine cover

8 papers 9 3/4 x 6 for wallets (2 can be made from a 12 x 12 paper)

1 piece of thin card 4 1/2 x 11 for concertina spine to hold wallets in place

8 pieces of card 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 for the tags

I use bookbinding glue, dry-clear adhesive, extra strong double sided tape, fingerlift tape and wide clear duck tape.

1. Cover both boards with your paper. I cut the corner down to give a neater finish.

2. Place the boards and the spine together over the clear duck tape leaving about 1/8th of an inch gap between them. Fold the end of the duck tape up over the inside to secure them all together. This gives the spine it's strength.

3. Next score the card for the concertina spine as shown. Each of the valley folds is 1/2 an inch and the edges are 1 inch. Fold the card. I cut some of the greyboard and stuck inbetween each of the folds that will be on the bottom of the concertina spine.

4. It then looks like this.

5. Next stick the paper spine over the clear duck tape.


6. Using extra strong double sided tape, adhere the spine into place keeping the edge of the concertina lined up with the spaces between the greyboard spine and the covers. When you close the book they will all line up and fit neatly together.

7. At this point I added some seam binding to the back of the book using brads. This will keep it closed when finished, particularly when you have filled it with tags and embellishments.

8. Now make up the wallets. I scored each one using the dimensions in the photo and cut out the section along the bottom. I pre-folded them to make sure they fitted together properly and then put fingerlift tape on the patterned side of the two flaps. I folded the side edge over first and stuck that down, then I folded in the bottom flap to make it into a pouch/wallet.

9. Glue the front and back inside covers in.


10. Using fingerlift tape stick each wallet into the concertina only adhering the front edge (leave the back edge open and not stuck down as this gives you more flexibility for opening and closing the pages).

11. Your finished Tag Book should now look something like this.

12.                                                                   When you start to complete the inside of your book it will look more like this. Have fun with your own design and if you do not understand how any of this fits together, please email me and I will be happy to help out. My email address is on the main blog.