Desk cleared & 2 Great Keepsake books made

 More Tidying = Blizzard Books  

I don’t know about you but every time I try to clear my desk I manage about 10 minutes tidying  before I pick up something that just begs to be made into a card or craft project. Some of my card designs and fabric patterns come from these tidying moments. Or it may be that I am putting away paper and card I see a use for them, so they never get into the correct box, they just scream to be made into a folio page or , most recently blizzard books. 

Thought Process

I was putting away some papers I had printed and realised that the copy paper I had used for the printing was the right thickness for origami folding.

That led me to remember the Blizzard books I had made some time ago.

I quickly folded a small size blizzard book. As the binding for the blizzard is made from a piece of paper half the width of the length of the paper this was made from a piece 15cm x 29.5cm, using the whole length of the A4 sheet. This binding was a fraction too small to hold business cards, so I repeated the process making the width 16.5cm and this worked perfectly.

Having made the book binding I cut 2 pieces of card to make the covers, a little bigger than the business cards I had put into the book. 

Looking at the card covers on the desk, I needed papers or fabric to cover them.

I decided as I was going to use the book to hold my business cards I would use some fabric recycled from one of hubbies shirt and I would have a great memory/keepsake book that would be useful.

I usually use a button on elastic for a closure for this type of book but for this memory book I found an old Ilfracombe Yacht Club pin that had particular meaning. 

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I was so pleased with the end product I decided to make another. This time, staying with the memory book theme, I decided to make another bigger book and using a sheet of A3 paper , which is 42cm long I cut it to 21cm wide. I wanted this memory book to be a photo album and so cut panels 4” wide from sheets of A4 Black card. 

Next what to cover the book cover with. This time i decided to use one of Brian’s ties and carefully unpicked a favourite silk tie, ironed it out, sewed 2 pieces of the stabilising fabric from inside the tie together to make padding for the card (as the silk was quite fine) and glued the stabiliser and the silk onto the 2 covers. 

                                                                

                                            

                

                                    

I really like this book and will pick some favourite photos  to go inside. I am also going to offer  a workshop for this project and kits where there will be fabric included and instructions to use your own fabrics to make this a keepsake book.