Last two UFOs to share

OK, full disclosure, there are a few more things that are unfinished in the bin, but they are SO unfinished as to be more an IDEA then a project. So I will end with these couple Holiday-themed items.

First, the one I will 100% finish. Not this week, maybe not even this year, dare I say not this decade (!) but I WILL finish it. My son asks about recipes from holiday meals sometimes, and I always planned to do for him what my MIL did for me. She gave me a wooden recipe box, full of handwritten recipes that were The Hubster’s favourites. I’ve made a lot of them over the years and a couple are so well worn I need to recopy them for myself!

BUT, in 2010 I began a mini-book made to house cards with holiday favourites:

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The recipe cards slip inside mini brown paper bags and there is plenty of room for someone to add their own, as I have to my MILs gift. I think for this one I will wait for a wedding before gifting it to my son. I’ve never been 100% happy with the placement and how the title reads – should be Thanksgiving To Do List for the Domestic Goddess but I’ve never felt that was as clear as it could be. Maybe I can fix that now!

Now a Christmas project. I am also inclined to finish this one cause I do really like it and I can think of just the right place to put it up when we do our holiday decorating. I blogged about the Rosette Words printables a few times but this wreath is here. The printables work if you hand-score the lines OR if tyou carefully position the Tim Holtz rosette die. I think it makes a cute wreath (indoor only, of course)

It is SO CLOSE to being finished, although the glue that stuck the rosettes has come unstuck in some places, so I just need to re-stick them and the wreath will be DONE. Problem is that I am never keen on holiday projects when it isn’t actually Christmas-time, and when it IS Christmas I have far too much to do to take time out for this kind of thing. So maybe, if I can remember, in the autumn I will drag this out and get it done.

Yeah. right. Who am I kidding?

A couple more unfinished minis

This one I actually describe how to make on an old blog post here. It’s from 2013 so not as old as the ones from yesterday. I still really like to construction and it is a great structure for many small photos or to display a poem pr something like that. Might make a more substantial Wedding card, perhaps. Anyway, here is is, still bare as the day I made it…

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I obviously planned to finish it, so kept it in a bag with all the other bits I had selected. I kinda think this might have been about when my beloved HiTi dye-sub printer died and printing photos at home became impossible. I loved the way it looks from the top, a bit like an arrow!

Pretty papers, too. The next one was SUCH a good idea and would make a lovely book for future generations to look over. I want to say this was destined for a Scrapbook Inspirations article but can’t be sure. Makes sense, tho’ cause I can’t find a place I shared it on my blog. I called it The Story Behind The Bad Photos and I wish I had captured those stories before time ate away my memory. I do remember some of them, but not all. I need to see if that missing S is in the bag someplace!

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You can see the journaling spots that sit in the pocket behind the photo pages. I also have a handful of small photos that I planned to add to future pages.

Yep. That’s my daughter, always mugging for the camera.

A couple more things tomorrow.

OK so I lied about taking the weekend off, sort of

I am still taking the weekend to TRY to have some family time – which, sadly, might involve upgrading to WiFi 6 and installing and testing a bunch of WiFi extenders, rather than a lovely walk outside, but who knows? Anyway, as I was dragging out all of the boxes and bins of paper and card, to try to begin getting them worted out, I came across a bin that was not just paper. It was what I like to call my “Project Graveyard.” These are things that I began and then, for whatever reason, stopped before finishing. I might have lost my mojo, it might have been a class that I did not complete during the class, I might have encountered a problem of some sort…. I thought I would share them. I probably should share them after finishing them, but to be honest if they have sat for 5+ years unfinished, they might very well sit for five more.

Surely on of the oldest is a class from the 2005 Scrap Wars Star Wars themed Cybercrop. Called Death Star, it is a lovely star book. and yes, if you click the link there you can download the class and make one yourself!

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My plan had been to add a bottom to some of the layers so I could slip in more photos. Maybe you can kinda see that where I punched out the divots. It would have been a cute gift, but as the kids are quite grown now, it all seems a bit pointless. Maybe I will re-purpose it somehow.

The next is ALSO a class, from Scrap Fever 2009, a Willow Tree Crafts crop. I ALSO found the class by Venessa but that one I had left as the basic elements and has since been scattered. This is a class by Donna Downey. It was going well, but time was a factor.

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Honestly, both projects are good ones, it’s just I already have about 100 mini-albums of my kids from this period in time when I was a mad scrapper. I don’t need another. Might be best at this point to save them for some potential Grandkid far in the future. We’ll see.

More tomorrow!

A colourful mini-book

Mini-books are my favourite things to make. I love finding, or creating, unique structures and I love composing all the pages and I love being able to use a longer quote. This quote one is one I have had in my back pocket for ages – possibly since my college history class. I love how it turned out!

The basic structure is very much like a couple of scrapbook-style minis I made many years ago. This one is still one of my all time favourites and the post has instructions for the basic structure. Then I made another one with slightly different dimensions. For this one I wanted the pages to be bigger so I changed it again. I began with an A3 sheet of carstock and sprayed it, as best I could, half and half, warm colours and cool.

Cutting it across the length into two and trimming the raggedy edges …

I backed each piece with black card. This did make for quite a thick piece for accordion folding but on the plus side it made a VERY sturdy structure to stand upright when opened!

From there it was just adding the images and the covers. I love how it turned out! Click the photos for a bit of a closer look if you like!

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And the cover:

So only the 100 Days page to add:

I really like this one! Been a while since I have said that wholeheartedly! I will be at day 75 soon and that is really going to be an accomplishment! I am hopeful I will make it to 100 for sure, and will begin considering my next 50 days project – that should be a breeze after doing the 100 days one!

Printables, and a near-fail book

I will begin by adding some printables that I made last week, before I got sidetracked by bookmaking.

I think looking at the PDF on my monitor, the text looks fuzzy. I’ve printed them to test for myself and they are actually fine.  There are strips for a 6×4 photo (along the 6″ or 4″ edge) and the 4″ inch ones also fit a 3×4 inch photo or filler card. There are some 3″ ones too.  Just little label-maker style text strips that you might find useful. Grab them here.

Now continuing the bookmaking adventure, I did try the rectangular labels.  Not a total fail but not a total success either.  First, an annoyance.  I was quite pleased with the paper booklet that came as a gift with Crafts Beautiful. Cute patterns, mostly, double-sided and a nice weight for the map folds, not too bulky.

Then I opened it.  WTF?

Printed right on the paper!  DOH. Careful placement of the dies just barely worked

Some of the edges look a little nibbled.  The real problem is that there is a formula for doing the map fold on a rectangle.  Width – Height / 2 (width of paper across minus the height of the paper divided by 2)  and that number is where you would mark for your diagonal score lines.  But because of  the shaped edges I was struggling to get it right.  Technically that is 9 1/2 wide minus 6 high = 3 1/2 divided by 2 = 1 3/4 inches.  But every time I did it, it seemed to fold just slightly differently.  And sometimes the folds had to be adjusted so the finished unit had neat edges.

 

I found doing one side perfectly then adjusting the other so the points matched, worked best.  And making a template for the point to fold the side in to helped as well.

 

The construction is pretty much the same, although I made the covers from the biggest size (same as the pages) then the inner cardstock dividers from the next size down.  It made for an interesting book.

Go back to the previous posts here and here for more detail on the map-fold books. This post talks about folding directional papers.

I am madly folding pop-up boxes, from my better designed .svg, to finish off the handful of ATCs before Wednesday.  Bank holiday tomorrow and we may actually get out for the day, so doing laundry too.  Blech. After spending the entire day disassembling DS’s Stompa bed OMG! what a job) and filing a mountain of paperwork, and prepping an enormous amount of  meat for the BBQ (enough to last the week for sure) and to populate the new freezer, I could use a day out….

Folding the inserts (map fold book)

I’ve already explained the map fold, so this is more to save yo ruining a piece of paper yo want to use by making a wrong fold. Firstly, look at how hugely different the labels die cut can be folded.

I suppose you could make a case for both versions being useful, but the one on the right (in the bottom photo, left in the top one) is the one that offers the most useable space, I think.  That is the one I will explain.  You can make the other version by just switching the bump and point folds. I trust you can identify a bump and a point….

1. Begin by folding the piece in half, two bumps together.

then fold the other two bumps together, keeping the mountain folds on the same side

2. With the mountain fold on the inside, fold in half, matching the points.

Matching the mountain folds of the point-to-point fold, collapse the unit. You will end up with this:

 

3.  Fold in the sides, keeping the top of the fold as level as you can, leaving just a smidge of a gap in the middle

 

and fold the reverse side to match.

4.  This is the tricky reverse-the-fold bit.  

Unfold each fold, and reverse the centre fold so the bump is inside.

5. Done.

 

The trick with paper that has an actual directions, that needs to be seen right side up, is to orient the paper correctly to begin with.

 

Make sure the single point to point fold goes top to bottom

 

It only looks wrong – the flat (unscored) areas are the “pages” where the unit is stuck inside the book base.

 

I am going to add the PDF of the shaped areas, without the poem, as it is more useful and no one really expressed any interest in having the with-text version.

You can easily create the sized text blocks and print them then stick the cut out bits over the test and print again.

Have fun!  You know, I have a set of rectangular brackets as well –  I wonder….

 

{wink}

 

Construction of the Map Fold Books

This post has the potential to be excessively long.  I am going to break it up into a couple of posts to keep that from happening.  Also, I am off out very soon.

So without further ado, here is the basic construction.

1. The book base is constructed of three folded sections.  The measurements for the one I will show are

two 4 x 8 inch pieces of cardstock, scored and folded in half

one 12 x 4 inch piece, scored at 4 inches, 8 inches, and 8 1/2 to 8 3/4 inches.  This will create a fold over flap so the thickness of the book  will determine the size.  This should help:

 

2. Stack the pieces and carefully punch five evenly spaced holes thru the centre folds

and sew together with a 5-hole pamphlet stitch.  This is the image I go back to over and over again when I forget!

That is the basis for all of the books.  The inserts for THIS one begin with not a square, like normal, not a circle, like my previous variation, but with a large bracket, cut with the Spellbinders Grand Nestabilities, Grand Labels One.

To add the pages, stick one side of the folded unit to the left (or right) page.

Add adhesive to the other side – I usually don’t cover the whole face bit focus on the centre line and the straight bits on the sides

Fold over the next page, making sure the corners are lined up, and press to stick.

Ta dah!

You can close the book with a simple ribbon or cord tie, like I did the previous sample

or add a two-button wrap, or any other closure you fancy.

In the next post I will talk about folding the pages from the label – there are a few tricks to it, especially with directional paper – and share show I added the text.  I should be able to share that as a PDF so you can print and cut, rather than taking the time it took ME to set it all up.  Here’s a sneaky peek:

The file looks like this:

 

I do also have a sheet with the shapes, but blank, so you can add your own text.  The print looks like this:

and the page looks like this!

I’ll interject here that I know not everyone is going to have these big labels.  So if you want to see the printable file for a circle page or a square page, comment and let me know.  It’s a bit of effort but I think I can do it when I return if there is interest.  I may even go ahead and do What is a Girl? (also by Alan Beck) as well as I do have one of each!

 

Hungarian Map Fold Book

So the bookmaking group I am on (pretty darn nearly the only thing that ever drives me to log in to Facebook) had a challenge for a Turkish Map Fold book.  You may recall I reposted quite an old PDF of instructions that had disappeared from the net. I’ve always like this fold, and had a bit of a play with it.  The book was cute enough, but I had to make another one so I could improve the construction.  As this is going to be VERY photo intense I’ll just show you the bare bones – a three-folds pamphlet with a flap.

The Turkish map folds are stuck two together and then stuck between each section. I’ll do another post about the construction but today I want to explain the HUNGARIAN map fold, a variation on this one, and my circular variation on that.

There is a great post here with the basic fold. That is for a square piece.  And don’t be fooled by the video that may pop up – it’s for the Turkish fold, not the Hungarian one. Although to be fair it is only one additional diagonal that differentiates the two, and by sticking the units so one piece is flat, mine really ends up being more Turkish than Hungarian LOL! But orienting the text is easier with the additional diagonal, I think.

Let me show you the finished  book first.  

I would say e.e. cummings is my favourite poet and this one of my favourite poems. This is what the it looks like opened.

but without the inserts. Unlike the Turkish one from yesterday, this one has only ONE insert between each section. The inserts are heavier weight than the graph paper so two would have made the book VERY thick.

I’ll be showing you folding specifically for the placement of the text as well as folding a “diagonal” on a circle the only thing you need to know that the original linked page doesn’t cover.

1. I printed the text across the middle of pink graph paper.  

Fold the circle in half bottom to top, across the text.  Use the lines of text to make sure the fold is straight across

2. Open and fold, again with the text on the outside, in half side to side.  

Flip it over.  It should look like this:

3. Fold the diagonals by matching the fold lines.  This is the only tricky fold.

4. Fold the second diagonal by matching the top and bottom fold lines of the first diagonal

5. Collapse the piece.  It should want to collapse, if you’ve done the folds right.

Note the orientation of the text.  You want the flat area to be the text area. Once collapsed it will look like this:

6. Mark each unit at the same point – can you see the tiny dots?

then fold in the side to meet the point.

7. This sounds tricky but it isn’t.  REVERSE the folds so those triangle on the top switch to being INSIDE the unit.  Open them

and push on that middle fold to push it inward

Re-crease the folds.  It will change from the left image to the right one.

And THAT is the circular Hungarian Map Fold. These inserts are just smaller units than the cardstock ones and the fit inside perfectly.  I didn’t go to any extraordinary lengths to get the units in exact proportion, I just made sure the marking and fold-in sides were similar, and that was good enough for them to nest nicely. I did stick them only in the very centre, which I think would help accommodate slight variations

and yet they collapse fine.

 

I experimented with a number of circle sizes and they all seem to nest nicely.

It would make a nice card too, just one fold.

I think it’s just a pretty little book.  I also think the flat areas that hold the text could easily hold photos and you could add journaling or other text to the smaller folded areas by the print/cut/stick method, or hand write it if yo prefer the circles open up relatively flat.  Well, dang.  Now I have to make  a photo one too.  Argh.  Maybe I’ll photo that for a step-by step for the construction…

{sigh}

And I can do the straight Turkish fold on a circle and see if it really is the same (minus the extra diagonal) and if it matters.

Jeez.  I am so out of practice for these tutorial sorts of posts.  I’ll try to be more concise for the next one,  just need to get my groove back.

And finish those last few ATCs before Wednesday!

 

 

 

Off to crop!

As I am off to crop today I thought I would add one of my all-time favourite mini-books today.

I still love it. It is a little mini, built on a LARGE flower, housed in a sweet little box.

Have a happy scrappy day!

Box book

Remember a few weeks back I was working on a mini made from a cardboard box? Well, I’m not done with it yet but am closing in on it!

I had planned on calling it Brother in a Box but I just could not shake the association in my head of “in the box” feeling like “in a casket” – bizarre, I know, but once something like that gets IN to my head I can’t get it out.  I still wanted the BOX part and had to go with what has to be the most OBVIOUS title, Jack in the Box.

I had been saving this cereal box, with the intention of covering it and using it as a min-book housing and here was the chance.

You can see the mini-book fits it perfectly.  I am also dithering about the title – on the book? on the BOX? on both? the SAME title on both??

Doh!

I think it will have a button and loop closure – but not sorted that out either.  Love the paper – WRMK Nonsense.  Has to be one of my all time favourite paper pads ever.  So bold and colourful and playful, and a great mix of boyish and girlish colours, blues and greens and pinks and oranges, with yellow and white as well.  It’s yummy.

With luck I’ll finish it maybe over the weekend.  Sadly my crop has been cancelled (well, to be fair it was out of schedule due to the Newbury show last weekend, our usual slot) so I won’t be able to finish it there.  When at home, so many things just get in the way and keep me from focusing on a single task – which is why I have so many UFOs in my room. {wink}

Have a great weekend.  DD is due home this afternoon so it’ll be fun to have her back!  Of course that might ALSO keep me from finishing, but it’ll be worth it.