Just Us Crafting

Making The first page of Brag book 101

After seeing all the beautiful projects on YouTube I really wanted to start building my pages, it is so exciting! Well, I needed to decide what my base page would look like. I decided to go with the “sleeve” page…this is made to two pieces of paper glued on the short ends and the long open ends are attached to the spine, or open for a tag to be inserted. This type of construction seemed sturdier to me; I could be wrong but that is the method I am going to choose.

Once I chose the type of page, the next consideration was the hinge method for the binding. Well did you know that the hidden hinge method is copyrighted/ patented?I DID NOT KNOW!

I did my version of a bookbinding hinges with different spacing and score lines. There is also stack the deck method that looks good. For an example of the hinge I use check out my Shadow card

Now, what will I include on each page?

With so many ideas running through my head, I feel paralyze and decide to sit back to watch people craft on Youtube. It really is entertaining, and I love it!

Eventually, though this blog post keeps calling and it won’t write itself so I decide “I can do this!” and start my page.

These pages are going to be Halloween themed ( coming up really soon! and I am creating them in no particular order. I also decided to make a wedding album since the pages will be the same only the embellishments and paper will be different! I am going to illustrate only Halloween but I will post my wedding album that will use the same files so you will see how flexible the digital files are.

First the digital file

Screenshot 2017-10-05 10.05.23 — Note that Light blue is just the digital color, I will use cardstock from Recollections Ravenshead Manor collection

Screenshot 2017-10-05 10.08.48 — Gate on left, matting for behind gate on right. In the middle is what you see when the gate opens: a pocket with a tag.

The Cut files

When I cut these files with the Silhouette Cameo, I noticed a few adjustments needed to be made.

On side one:

the gate was too big
the pocket under the gate was too large

One side two:

the flap with the pocket would not close because the envelope with the zombie’s hands was too big!
I redid the layout so that the zombie envelope is now on the outside, it also flips open. I added a flap to the inside and may add more see photos below

I have not stuck anything down as I am going to place magnets and cut the matting then glue it all together.

Each page really has two side that need pockets and flaps etc. so page one has a side A and a side B Side A will have the gate that opens to a pocket.

20171005_114744 — This is the gate, I will have a mat at the back, the pink is just for visibility

Open the gate and see the pocket where I will have a tag in the shape of a tombstone. This pocket will be on a page that flips up and there will be place for 2 large photos.

This is the pocket when the gate is open. I will have a tombstone tag for the insert.

Side B of page one:

This is the large envelope.

The envelope flips over to the left. Space for photos.

20171005_115035 — large envelope with Zombie hands

Again the page flips and there is a pocket to the right and a pocket to the left. The pocket with zombie hands is on a flap that opens for large photo mats…..see next photo.

It took a bit of time to mat the pages and there are a few places that still need matting. When doing the matting I placed my magnets first but found they were very thick so went and got some thinner ones but alas, they are not holding very well…next page I will try a different brand.

I am not going to attach to my binding until all the pages are complete because I want to make sure that I am absolutely finished adding flips and flaps to my page.

So here is the first page:

Side A of page one with the gate, now with the matting. I did not get a chance to go looking for cute doorknobs so I used small brads. This was one place my magnets did not hold. EEKS!

When the gate opens there is a pocket with zombie hands and a tag. the flat space behind the tag can hold a photo and the tag can be shorter.

This is to show the space for a photo mat that I have not yet completed but each page will have one in the side pocket.

Side B of Page :

A hinged page pulls to right for photo mat space. On the other side of the zombie’s hands is an envelope

this opens to reveal another envelope no matting yet and the page opposite has another large envelope with more zombie hands

This zombie envelope is on a page that flips up

That is the end of the first page…..

I use the tombstone and zombie hands from the Silhouette design store and the paper is Recollections Halloween Ravenshead Manor collection.

For my template page subscribe and email me your request.

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Carolyn

Shadow box card in 10 min

Have you seen those awesome shadowbox cards that are 3 dimensional and look like an artist, graphic designer and engineer must have collaborated to make it? Also You can buy these cards for $2.99 and more but why would you when you can make your own?

If you have not see theses cards then you are in for a treat because not only will someone love getting one from you, I will give you the basic template and you can customize as you see fit.

Shadow Box Card

Ok now lets back up a little and give you some ideas of what I am talking about and then we will go into what you need to make these cards. Below is a Christmas Santa card that I made a few years ago. Notice that there are layers and this gives the 3D effect. These cards are called shadowbox or tunnel cards.

This Santa Card what cut on a Silhouette Cameo Machine, so for those of you who own a machine like this, I will show you how to use my template to make any card you like.

For those of you who don’t own a machine, I will show you how you can still make beautiful tunnel cards, just will a little bit extra work like the one below. This will be a separate post that I will put up later. In the mean time, download the free template and use any pictures or embellishments ….for all you know, you may end up with some tricks to show me!

So, for those of you with machines like Silhouette Cameo and Cricut, the first thing you will need is my template for the card itself. You will need to open the SVG file in Silhouette Studio. see my post here.

If you can’t open SVG files let me know and I will send the studio files.

Now that you have the template, think about what you want the card to be about and spend a few minutes looking for free images on Google. I wanted a beach scene as summer is on the way. Here are some of the images I found. I used the trace feature to trace them and then resized for my card.

In my free template, I included 2 images that looked like “hills” or “clouds” I use these to create different heights for each layer and welded it to my frame. Remember to ungroup the fold lines (dashed lines) before you weld.

Next I arranged my images and welded to card pieces. Below are the pieces cut out and compared to the template with no images welded.

front card with image welded
inner card piece with and without image welded
inner card piece with and without images welded

Assemble

To assemble the card bend all the fold lines.
Lay the back piece flat
Glue the tab of inner card so that it is up against the fold line. The tabs of each card is great for spacing if you place them right up against each other.

the inner card is glued so that the tab is up against the fold line

the next layer is glued right up against the edge of the last.

This is the back. the tabs have glue on then and we close the large brown piece on top and press down.

Shadow card with beach scene — Shadow Box: summer at the beach

Carolyn