Phew! - Family History Storybooks

I made it! I got through the first round of One Month to Win It! Did you go check out all of the projects and vote? There were some awesome projects this week.

Did you guess which one was mine?

I really love the way these books turned out. I started with personal histories I had recorded, but you could use any memories. Getting the story broken up into pages and on the right side of the paper for printing takes a bit of thinking and finagling (I can't believe I spelled that correctly on the first try). If anyone is interested, I could work on putting together a Word doc with the pages set up for people to make their own books.

After I had all the text on the pages, I added illustrations. For one book, I hand drew the illustrations and then scanned them onto my computer. This way, I can easily make additional copies of the same book. For the other book, I used clipart and other images from the internet.

I wanted cloth covers, and I used freezer paper to personalize them. I made a stencil for one book.

That was maybe the most difficult part of the whole process. This would be SO much easier with a silhouette. Maybe one day... :)

For the other cover, I attached fabric to a piece of freezer paper and printed an image directly on the fabric. This is much easier than stenciling, but it will only work for a smaller book.

To start binding, you need

• the pages of your book  printed and folded
• two decorative endpapers
• the cloth cover
• chipboard or cardboard cut to size (I bought a 99 cent three-ring binder, cut off the vinyl cover, and used the board inside)
• needle and thread
• Elmer's glue
• paint brush

First you need to sew the pages of your book together. I didn't have all the proper tools for this, so I made do. I used a simplified, dumbed down version of the instructions used here. I will work on putting up a more detailed tutorial in the future.

After the pages are sewn together, glue a piece of fabric over the binding with white glue. Then add the fabric to the cover by painting on white glue and smoothing the fabric down. Fold the edges of the fabric over and glue to the inside of the cover.

Once the cover is covered, you attach the pages by gluing the endpages to the cover.

The endpages cover the unfinished edges of your fabric, hold the pages in the cover, and make your book look super cute.

I've read these stories to my son at bed time, and he really seems to like them. I'm not quite sure if he understands who they are about yet, but I think he will one day. I love the idea of my kids growing up knowing stories about their grandparents and great grandparents. 

Now, off to finish my Week 2 project for OMTWI!