Name Book

I was looking around the house at some of the awesome crafty projects I've either done or had made for me, and I just wanted to share this awesome name book. A very dear friend of mine, Wendy, who is one of the best scrapbook crafters I have ever met, made this for MJD's first birthday! I just love passing by it every day and thinking about her and him at the same time. Such a special gift.

You can buy similar "name books" online which say "LOVE", "FAITH", etc. But to make one personalized you need the following:

• Assortment of scrapbooking paper
• White poster board paper
• Foam board
• Stickers, accessories, stamps, pictures, etc. to decorate it with
• 3 Binder rings
• Adhesive glue in spray
• Cutting mat and X-acto knife
• Printed letter fonts that you want to use as your template
• Hole puncher

The idea is to take your poster paper and trace out the letters for the name, all but the last letter. Start with the first letter, in this case the M. Cut it out, then lay it on top of the next piece of poster paper and then trace out the next letter, "A" over to the right  so they stack in a horizontal manner. Do all the letters except the last one. The last one you need to do with foam board, which is a little harder because of the depth of the foam, but the foam is what holds the book standing upright.

Once everything is cut out and you like the layout, then spray the poster/foam board with the spray on glue and lay your scrapbook paper on top. Be sure there are no air bubbles and smooth everything out. Then use the knife and cut off all the excess. This is best done if you flip it over and see your edges from the poster board.

Stack all your letters together and get everything lined up nicely, then punch 3 holes though all the pages at the same time and connect with binder rings.

Finally, decorate with embellishments!