Memory Book for Retiring Colleague

Wow! it's been ages since I have updated my blog. The reason being the little project in the photo above.  

This is a hidden hinge scrapbook, I have never made one before so when I realized  a scrapbook was needed for a retiring colleague, I jumped at the chance to do it.  I spent many hours on you tube learning how to make this type of book before I began the project.   It's relatively easy to make but time consuming.   I lost track of the hours spent on this after I got to around a 100 hours.

But it was for a very special lady who has dedicated her life to children with speech and language disorders and hearing impaired children and has now retired. So it was a genuine pleasure to make this " Memory Book" for her.

For legal reasons I cannot show any of the pages that contain photographs and out of respect for the people who contributed a memory or a personal message I have obliterated any messages so they cannot be read....so don't worry it's not your eyes playing tricks on you.

For the cover I used some Tim Holtz paper from his French industrial paper stack. These papers are great for  vintage  albums. in the stack are some papers  with vintage images of people  which would be great for a focal point on the cover of a scrapbook for a man, but I felt they were to masculine for a book for a lady.  I really struggled to find a suitable image for this book....Then I had a light bulb moment.........I remembered and old photograph my grandmother had on her sideboard of two girls.  I had always loved that photo as a child and when I asked my gran who the photo was of,  she used to say it was of her and her cousin.... I never  really knew if she was being serious or joking.  All  I know is,  it meant a lot to her.    

So having a copy of this photo,  I decided to use the image  as one of the focal points. 

I scanned it,  changed the colour tone and softened the image  to knock the image back  a little. I think it's worked a treat.

The flowers are a mix of roses purchased from   Hobbycraft. 

The daisy like flower was  made from those plain white  flower petals you buy in bags to build your own flowers, I painted it with ink  to match my colour scheme and added a gem to the centre.

The keys I made from air dry modelling clay,  painted with black acrylic paint and once dry I smeared a very small amount of gold paint over the top with my finger, taking care not to add to much gold paint and cheapen the look.

 

I added a few fern and rose leaves which I punched from olive green card stock and inked the edges.

I think most of you will recognize the Tim Holtz Frame I used to frame the word memory.  I printed of the word Memory and stamped over the word with a texture stamp  and S.U 's Crumb Cake ink to give it the vintage look.

 

 I had one of those clear resin  bubble things ( I can never remember what they are called, they remind me of blisters)  that almost fitted into the aperture of the frame, with a little trim at each end it fitted perfectly.

The strips of bling I bought from Hobbycraft, I didn't realize when I bought them,  is that they are actually a sheet of rubbery gem stones that you cut into strips yourself. 

The lace was from  Fabricland  (a local fabric shop). The  large, flat back, self adhesive pearls are available from any good craft shop. Although they are self adhesive,  I did use a hot glue to apply them as I wanted to make sure they wouldn't fall off as they were being applied to lace, not paper.

Now for some of  the Pages.          
Most of the pages were decorated with The Stampin' up dsp called Tea Party  I used two packs of this paper and half a pack of another dsp that I can't remember the name of at the moment plus several sheets from the dsp  stack.
I can't tell how much black card has gone into this album, but I think I have created a black card shortage in Hampshire ..lol.

On opening this memory book all you see are the pretty papers, pockets, tags, titles, mini books, flip up pages a waterfall album, some embellishments, and the occasional  message or memory.

This is truly an interactive memory book as you have to go looking for the photos and memories/ messages.

I also used some quotes on retirement to fill in.

Ribbons to keep flip up pages under control while turning pages. Strips of magnetic tape are buried under the papers in the flaps and pockets on the side of pages and on mini books to keep them closed while turning the pages.

The little knobs on the flaps pictured above were made of air dry clay  and painted in the same way as I made the keys featured on the cover.

I chose the Tea Party DSP for this

book for two reason, one because the lady it was made for  requested "a tea party" leaving party  and two because the lady loves to do patchwork and there are  some beautiful patchwork papers in the pack. I wanted to tailor this book around the things she loves to do and make it personal for her.

This page is one of my favourites. I think that's because I love the paper and colours. The pocket contains very large tags with either a story or photo on the back. The booklet in the pocket contains photos of  previous members of staff.

Including some members of staff that have sadly  passed away.

The finished project needed a presentation box and something to keep it safe, so the next step was to make a box.

I designed this box with a drop down side to make it easier to take the book out.
 On reflection I think it would have been better to have all four sides drop down. like the exploding boxes.

As I found some people tried to view the book while it was still in the box, which I didn't think would do the hinge of the book

 a lot of good.

Yes, I know!!  it looks a lot like a cake box. but by time I got to covering the box I was running very short on suitable card stock.
So I had to use something neutral.
I did add a pretty label with a flower & a ribbon was  attached to take away some of the plainness.


Apologise for the poor spacing on this post. I am having a few issues with my blog today.