Personalized Handmade Book

Capture a special moment with a Personalized Handmade Book from Candace Jedrowicz. This handmade book idea is a great paper craft that goes beyond the world of scrapbooking. Make up a story, use decorative paper and simple techniques.

Materials:

• About a yard of fabric – all one color or complementary colors
• Several cereal boxes
• Spray adhesive – I used Aleene’s Spray Adhesive
• Fabric glue – Aleene’s, of course
• Plenty of decorative papers
• Aluminum foil
• Printed words
• Photos
• Decoupage medium – I used Aleene’s Collage Pauge
• Sponge brush
• Lots of newspaper
• Embellishments for the cover

Directions:

1. I started with a poem and several photos of my grandson in pajamas. Then I printed three different faces from more recent photos. I made them slightly larger for a cartoon effect.
    
2. I cut out each of the bodies, some I cut arms off to reposition them on some of the pages. Faces were cut out and glued on bodies.
    
3. I cut all the sets of butterfly wings from the decorative papers, but didn’t glue them on until I decided how he would be oriented on the page.
    
4. I assemble the pages without glue, before I put the book together.
    
5. There were sixteen lines in the poem, each set of pages had two lines.
   
   
    
6. I cut my card board to 6″ x 6 3/4″ and measured out squares of fabric for each side of of the boards.
   
   
    
7. I cut one large piece of fabric to cover both pieces of card board for the outside covers.
    
8. I took everything into my garage, laid out lots of newspaper and started spraying one piece of cloth and cardboard at a time. Then I stick the board to the fabric and spray again to attach the fabric for the other side of the page.
   
   
    
9. The outside of the front and back cover was sprayed (on the wrong side) and both boards were placed with about a finger width between them. After the whole thing was sprayed again I placed the fabric for the inside.
    
10. I trimmed three edges of the pages and all four edges of the cover.
    
    
     
11. The fourth edge of the pages were cut to about 1″ from the edge of the card board creating a flap to attach the pages. I separated the fabric on the flap right up to the card board.
     
12. This photo shows the first page laying next to the inside of the front cover with one side of the flap turned up.
    
    
     
13. I applied fabric glue to the inside of the flap.
    
    
     
14. Then overlapped the inside of the front cover with the glued flap and secured it by burnishing.
    
    
     
15. This is the other side of the page above. Here I’m showing the other side of the flap folded back AND pointing out that I cut the flap off of the next page, just short of the card board.
     
16. Every other page was attached by half of its flap to the pages before it and after it. I also pressed the joined pages into the spine with extra glue.
    
    
     
17. As I began gluing the pages, I put sheets of foil between to keep them from sticking together.
     
18. I used Collage Pauge to put the pages together.
    
    
     
19. I added glitter pens elements and dots of punched out paper to embellish some of the pages.
    
    
     

ForHow to Make a Custom Book. a comprehensive video tutorial, check out How to Make a Custom Book.