Altered Binder – Memory Book

My sweet little niece got to spend her entire Spring Break with us, and I wanted to make her a little memory book of some sort to take home.   We only got to meet her this past Christmas and I have been going to get her on the weekends since then, so I had lots of photos to stick in it for her already.  I gave it to her today, when we were leaving to take her home and told her to take care of it and on her visits we’ll start printing her pages to put in it before she goes back home.

I LOVE HOW IT TURNED OUT!

This was really an experiment in my problem solving abilities because I had never “altered” a 3 ring binder before.

I cut the clear plastic off the binder because I wanted to adhere the paper to the binder, rather than just stick them in the cover protector.  And then it was all about the mod podge. and. waiting.

and. waiting.

lol!

for the label, I used a left over cutout I had from when I had Shannons Wishblade here.  I stamped it with VERSAMARK using the GRATUITOUS GRAFITTI stamp from Stampin Up, and clear embossed that with clear ZING!.  Then I  inked it with Old Olive and Melon Mambo from Stampin Up.

The letter “K” is a chipboard letter from an awesome set of letters from Colorbok.  Im looking for more, this was bought on clearance for $2.  I would sure like to find some more like these!  Just a hint of glitter!

The brads are from American Crafts bright collection (and tried to kill me)…

the papers I used are both from Me & My Big Ideas

After looking at it for a while and decided it didnt look “finished” I added some ribbon and some “rocks” with my I-Rock tool, and then I gave the skull a little bow of her own.  I wish now I would have used pink ribbon on the label too, but it was already attached at that point…

I also covered the pockets inside. For those I used some of the left over cover paper and some old green cardstock I had.  I tried attaching them with that spray CRAFT BOND and that just made on nasty ass mess, so dont make that mistake if you attempt this project. LOL  I ended up using just Aileens Tacky Glue and am crossing my fingers it holds up.  *sadface*

I printed out about 40 photos for her, and stuck the ZOO map in it for her too.

While I was making it she kept asking me “Who’s that for?”  “it sure is perty”…  I just kept telling her “I dunno” and Harmony told her it must be for my friend KIMB since it had a K on it.  She was really happy when I told her it was for her.  YAY.