AMAM - envelope book

For those doing the AMAM challenge over on UKS, I've volunteered to post a mini book for this month too.

I made one of these books from instructions shared by Karen at Total Papercrafts - please pop over to her shop and/or blog to see her monthly kits and other goodies she sells :)

It's a great mini if you want to add loads of photos or even receipts/journalling etc. To make one, you will need:

8 x DL size envelopes (you can have less pages - I only had 7 as I wanted a page a day for our holiday)

2 x pieces of chipboard 5.5" x 4.5" (I've used pages from an old board book that we no longer need)

15 x patterned paper pieces 4.75" wide x 4" high (7 envelopes need 13 pieces, so 6 envelopes would need 11 etc)

10 x patterned paper pieces 3.25" wide x 4" high (7 envelopes need 9 pieces, so 6 envelopes would need 8 etc)

Note: I've used cardstock weight double sided paper. I would recommend this as it makes the 'flaps' much easier. If you're using normal weight single sided paper, you will need twice as many smaller pieces of paper as you will need to cover the inside of your flap pieces as well. I just cut my 12" x 12" sheets into 4" strips and then trimmed to the above sizes but it works equally well using up lots of smaller scraps.

2 x covers for the book, either 2 pieces of patterned paper 6.5" x 5.5", or 6-8 extra smaller pieces of patterned paper as above to create a patchwork effect as on the example.

2 x 13" lengths of ribbon

Tools/extras:

co-ordinating inkpad
strong double side tape - and normal DST if you don't want to use all up your good stuff ;-)
corner rounder
1" circle punch
scorer and bone folder
ribbon/flowers/rub-ons etc to decorate pages
lettering for title

To get started, seal all your envelopes down and trim a sliver from each of the narrow ends - the envelopes should now measure 8.5" long. With the envelope laying horizontally and the seal flap across the top edge, score and fold 3.5" from the left hand edge. This creates a large and small page as below. Do the same for all envelopes.

Next use a circle punch to cut a small semi-circle from the centre of each open end of the envelope. Then lightly ink all the edges, front and back, of each envelope included both sides of the fold.

Now it's time to put the pages together. Take one envelope with the smaller page on the top, and the fold to the left. Apply strong double side tape about 0.25" in from the left edge - leaving this gap allows the book to 'flex' a bit like an accordion, so it won't sit in a v-shape if you pad out the pages a bit. I'm a bit tight, so I use normal double sided tape down the right edge of the smaller page.

(note: you'll see I forgot to punch the semi circle before applying the tape and sticking together - I thought it was a bit of a faff considering you then have to punch the paper you cover them with - but it's definitely better to punch before sticking together, or you can't punch both out sides of the smaller pages. It's also easier to get the punch central when it's not all stuck together.)

Now stick another envelope on the top of this one, again with the fold to the left and the smaller page on the top. Repeat until all envelopes stuck together..... it will look like this:

It's now time to cover the pages..... round off the corners from the pieces of patterned paper, ink the edges and attach small and large pieces to the respective pages in the book, like so:

(I'd kind of caught up with the semi circle punching by this point lol)

Then you have to punch through the paper to match the envelopes:

Once you have covered all pages, ink round all the semi circles.

Next you need to make the flaps. Take a large piece of the patterned paper, round the left hand edge corners, then score along and fold 2.5" from the left edge:

Apply double sided tape to the reverse of the straight edged piece of the flap....

turn to the next page in the mini book, then slip the straight edge of the flap (the smaller side) into the envelope opening of the smaller page on the back of the larger page, like so:

It will then look like this when in place... this is the front of the page you are working on:

and this is the flap open to reveal a pocket for more photos/journalling etc

and this is the next page in the book, ie the back of the larger page:

Repeat this for all pages except the last large one, as this will be stuck to the cover.

To make the covers, take your chipboard pieces and either cover in one large piece of patterned paper, or use smaller pieces to make a kind of patchwork look:

I mitred the corners, scored along the folds then used a bone folder to give a neat finish to the edges. You need about 0.25" to be folded over and stuck on the reverse of the chipboard pieces.

I then added ribbon across the horizontal join in the papers, so I could tie the book shut. You could use a magnetic closure if you wanted to, but I don't have any in my stash....

Stick the front and back pages to the covers. You will need to slip the remaining small pieces of patterned paper inside the envelopes and onto the reverse of the covers to complete the book:

ta-da! All done :)


and here's some piccies of mine after the photos etc have been added:

and even though it is quite full and pads out a fair bit, it still sits nice and 'square':

I hope you enjoy making this mini book. Many thanks again to Karen at Total Papercrafts for showing me this one, I love how easy it is to make yet so effective at holding tons of photos.