mini-book: germany

i shared a photo of this book's cover on instagram a while back, but couldn't share the book in it's entirety until today.  this is my favorite mini-book to date, made for my sister-in-law's birthday (happy birthday kate!).

for this 4x4 book i chose a simple palette and used basic techniques.  for the above munich text, i painted vinyl letters (found at most office supply stores) on a transparency with white acrylic paint.  once dry, i peeled off the stickers, finding a fantastic punch of color from the following photo.  i couldn't be more thrilled with these pages.

while walking around downtown salzburg, i found this beautiful blue & white wrapping paper at a quaint paper store.  the minute i saw it, i knew the paper would be perfect for something.  it was fun to incorporate this fantastically textured paper into this book.

using found objects thoughout the book is my fave.  it's a great way to incorporate memories throughout the pages.  for example, i collected a few coasters during our travels & added them between pages.

we returned home with so many pictures.  something like 700 in two weeks.  seriously.  so to bring more pictures in the book without making it 300 pages, i used photoshop elements to make a photo grid of various architectural elements, food, doors & other cool things snapped along the way.  i then printed these 4x4 photo collages through a standard photo processer (in my case, snapfish.com) as a 4x6 photo.    once cropped to size, they bring an awesome display of various photos to the pages.

to make the book a bit easier to look through, i stapled washi tape, ribbon and paper to specific pages as tabs.  i then added some stamps and a bit of commentary throughout the book.  since this book was for kate, i left lots of empty places for her journaling, quotes, & whatever else she wanted to remember.

to enhance a few of my favorite portraits or scenes, using a sewing machine, i sewed a basic shape around the subject(s) i wanted to highlight.  there's something so unexpected but natural about sewing on paper.  i love the way it looks & the added texture it brings to the pages.

finally to tie-up the entire book, i created a small 4x4 envelope (using another 4x4 envelope as a template and basic kraft paper) to store other memorabilia from our travels.  these little envelopes are so useful and would be a great place to keep anything that you can't (or don't want) put in the pages of your book.  i love these little envelopes.  in my humble opinion, they should become a mini-book standard.

the book in it's entirety was close to 50 pages and incorporated about 120 photos.  obviously, i only shared a few of my favorite pages (otherwise this post would take an hour to upload).  since it was such a thick book, i bound it using two, two-inch binder rings (found anywhere you can purchase office supplies).  these are my favorite way to bind books, especially when gifting, since people may want to add a photo or two that you might have overlooked.

over the next couple months i'd love to start (and finish) our own german scrapbook and am hoping to make one about our soon-to-be epic road trip.  that said, i have quite a few projects piling up- but let's be honest, who doesn't love a good project?!?

enjoy your weekend & get creative! xoxo

supplies: kraft paper; acrylic stamps (source unknown) in white embossing powder; kraft with black dots, the paper studio; blue & white wrapping paper found in a random paper store in salzburg; green graphics with blue blocks, source unknown; you're my favorite stamp & today is stamp, elise joy; peacock dots bracket label, paper source; yellow graphic paper (sadly, no longer available online), recollections; orange file folder label, martha stewart for avery; doelightful washi tape, freckled fawn