I'm working on a custom guestbook right now. It's going to be a really really neat book when it's done, but just right now I'm wondering what I've gotten myself into.This is for a destination wedding, and instead of a traditional book the guest are going to be sending postcards back home. Cool, right? Well, I got a little carried away when I heard the idea and saw the photo this is based on, which simply used some string on a piece of paper. See every other post: making things a hundred times more complicated. So I said, ooooh, lets do photo corners instead, and a window so you can see both sides of the postcard! I wasn't thinking this quite all the way through, though, because that means handmaking photo corners, eight per postcard so they're on either side! argh!
I cut them out too big as well, first, so I had to recut all 352 when I was folding them. Yup... there must have been a better way of doing that. One thing did go very well, though. To get the window in the paper (I found a nice heavy printmaking paper that will support the postcards very well) I traced a template on the first page only, then used my awl and punched holes all the way through. Tranfered the pattern in minutes! Of course, I then realized it was too small because the photo corners had to sit outside the window, leaving a small mat around them so the postcard wasn't simply floating inside the opening. But that was minor. Still, next time I do one page start to finish so I know all the things I might encounter before I start the assembly line of all the little ingredients.
At the moment I'm at the stage of gluing all the photo corners on. I'm actually sewing binding thread through the outside corner as well because I find photo corners tend to lift, and since this book is supposed to last for a very long time I want them staying where I put them! The outside cover will be a lovely ivory bookcloth I have with a ribbon spine. I hope it looks as lovely and romantic as I think it will! And that it's finished in the next few days... stay tuned!
Oh, you have the same disease as me... over-enthusiasm, causing symptoms such as making-things-too-complicated, over-estimating-the-possibilities/under-estimating-the-time-required, coming-up-with-all-sorts-of-clever-suggestions-for-the-customer-before-thinking-them-through... It's a terrible disease and the only cure is to get a new brain!!
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds as if it will be really fabulous! I have just finished a custom Baby Scrapbook photo album. I'm about to start on a Wedding Guest book, with a moss/sage and cream theme. Trying not to over-complicate that one!
Good luck with the guestbook!
That is the best desciption of my problem! Oh well, better than being to lazy to do things properly.
ReplyDelete