Binding Machine

Yes, I'm a binding machine. Jane and I "co-purchased" a Bind-it-All tool many months ago, and I love it so much that I'm going to buy out Jane's share so that the binding glory will be ALL MINE! Well, honestly, I am willing to share... as long as I buy myself primary custody.

Anyway, I've made (or finished, as the case may be) a few self-bound projects recently and thought I would share them.

A few months ago, I thought creating an acrylic album might be a fun and challenging project. Since I was making it with the (since-abandoned) idea that I might teach a class on it at my local scrapbook store, I chose a family-friendly, photogenic subject - my little sister. Here are a couple of sample pages:

I really enjoyed the challenge of placing the paper and photos just right so that no "dead space" would show through on the back of the page. Although I am kind of rub-on deficient (seriously), I liked the look of the black swirls on the acrylic pages. I definitely plan to work with acrylic pages again!

Then, a couple of weekends ago, I was looking at my stash of newly-created greeting cards and worrying about how I would preserve them so I could actually find them when I needed to. I made this nifty card book to solve the problem:

And finally, I attended a friend's baby shower last Saturday. Since it is her first child, I decided to give her a book full of "advice" (see sample, below).

So that's what I've been up to lately - lots of binding. In the near-ish future, I plan to bind my own visual journal to use after the Soul Journaling project is over. I've had so much fun combining words and art that I am sure I will want to continue!