“Evan at Two” mini brag book

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Designer: Susan Weinroth

I created this book as a gift for my mother, Evan’s grandma.  Since she doesn’t live nearby, the people that she shows the book too will not know my son Evan, and his fun little personality – so I wanted the design and color scheme of the book to show just that!  There is also a fun little interactive element on the cover, that I created by double-cutting a piece of folded cardstock with the Fiskars circle cutter, and adding a magnet closure.

Difficulty rating

Instructions (Print version)

1. Start by covering the front and back of your album cover with yellow patterned paper.  Add strips of stripes and other designs to the top of the front and the back.  Add red patterned paper to the binding side of the book.
2. Use the Fiskars circle cutter to cut almost a full circle from folded blue cardstock – allow a portion to not be cut where the folded part of the paper is.  This will create your interactive cover element. 

Tip:  Applying more pressure on the circle cutter when cutting will allow you to cut through the double layers at the same time.

3. Adhere blue circle to the front of the book.  Add name to the top.  On the inside use the Round N Round circle punches to punch a photo and to punch bright polka dot patterned paper.  Adhere in place.
4. Decide where magnets need to go on the inside of the blue circles and adhere.  Use the pop up circle punch to punch small blue circles – adhere these over the magnets to disguise them.
5. Fiskars Microtip No.5 scissors are great for trimming images out of patterned paper – as I did with the robot on the cover.  It’s also an economic way to create your own embellishments!  Trim robot and adhere to front cover using foam adhesive.  Also trim sun shape and adhere to top of front cover.

6. Using the Large Nice Tri punch – punch 4 triangles and adhere across the back so that they look like they form a pennant banner.  Add name stickers.

7. For inside pages, my book page size was 3x3.  I trimmed various pieces of colored polka dot paper and added fun punched photos.  I also created small pages with cute sayings that my son has right now, and other info related to his being “2”.

SUPPLIES:

No. 5 Microtip Scissors –
http://www.fiskarscraft.com/tools/t_no-5-micro-tip-scissors.aspx

Circle Cutter –
http://www.fiskarscraft.com/tools/t_circle-cutter.aspx

Pop Up Punch Circle –
http://www.fiskarscraft.com/tools/t_pop-up-punch-circle.aspx

Nice Tri Large Squeeze Punch –
http://www.fiskarscraft.com/tools/t_nice-tri-l.aspx

Round N Round Medium Squeeze Punch –
http://www.fiskarscraft.com/tools/t_round-n-round-m.aspx

Round N Round Large Squeeze Punch –
http://www.fiskarscraft.com/tools/t_roundnnroundl.aspx

Round N Round Xtra Large Squeeze Punch –
http://www.fiskarscraft.com/tools/t_round-n-round.aspx

OTHER: patterned paper (American Crafts, Bo Bunny), American Crafts thicker stickers, We R Memory Keepers chipboard mini album and page protectors