Custom Handbound Address Book

If you saw my last post, and actually made it to the end, you know that I have been working on a project for myself--a new address book. I almost gave up on it before I ever got to the binding part because getting the pages printed right was so difficult, but I persevered, and here it is! (Lots of photos!)

Most of my books are approximately 4" x 5", but this one is larger--5" x 7".  It is bound very similar to my journal from Monday, with a groove for the elastic band and Coptic and French Link Stitches over tapes, but I added Long Stitches with weaving, also.

Since this book has a longer spine, I was able to use wider ribbon for the French Link stitches, and I had a fairly large area for the long stitches. 

Here's a better view of the spine, especially the weaving. Weaving like this is simple, but given that I had 2" of Long Stitches to cover, and the thread was not very thick, it took awhile. And, since I don't have a lying press, I had to hold the book between my knees and sit all scrunched up while I worked on it, which did not make my neck happy at all! What a relief when I finally got to the last row!

I covered the inside covers with a calm, dark green paper. I like pink, but can only take so much of it at once. You can also see the first divider. I used white 65 lb. cardstock and added die cut tabs. The text on the tabs was made with a label maker. The black and white strip is Washi tape. I love how it looks, but I mainly used it to cover the part of the tabs that is glued to the divider. It didn't look too good sitting there all naked. ;D 

The best part of making your own address book is getting to put anything you want in it and leaving out things you don't need. These are the sections in my book. There are 15 in all, and I divided them by wrapping every other section with a cardstock folio. In all, each section has 12 pages--a total of 180, not including the dividers. You might be wondering if I'll ever get around to showing you the actual pages, right?

This is my title page. The pretty floral paper is a digital paper by Juliana Kneipp, called Old Sweet Times. Unfortunately, she no longer makes or sells digi paper, so I don't think it is available anymore. I used this particular image because it was only a border. Since I was printing this on my printer, I didn't want something that was going to drink up all my ink.

The entire book was created in Word, using tables. Here's my Personal Information page. I used that same floral image on every page in the book, adding a text box over it for the tables I made for the information. 

One of the things I really wanted in this book was a place to put things like the paint colors we've used, and major appliance information. I don't need to access it very often, but when I do need it, I can never find it. On the facing page, there is room for favorite babysitters, restaurants, theaters, parks, and libraries. 

The actual address section has 6 pages per letter, with room for 4 addresses on each page, except for a couple of combined sections (t,u,v and x,y,z). I can't imagine ever having more than 24 addresses under one letter of the alphabet, so I think I'll be able to use this book for a long time.

The last section is just a place for notes. All the pages in this section are set up the same, but 4 of them have a blank writing area, 4 have a lined writing area, and 4 have a grid writing area. You never know what you'll need to write in there. It probably looks like the text on every page in this book is printed in a different color. It's not. I can never get photos with lots of white to turn out right--especially when there is a lot of red in the photo, too. 

I see pics of handmade books with the pages fanned like this. Why? I have no idea. But, I figured I'd do it, too. :D

And, this is my favorite shot of a handbound book with an exposed spine. One that shows both covers and the spine at the same time.

After working on this for several weeks, now I need to fill it with information. I hope I can bring myself to actually write in it! I might need to work on my penmanship first. ;~/

Hope you are having a stellar week! Thanks for stopping by!

I'm entering this book in the following challenges:
613 Avenue Create #148: Anything Goes
Color Throwdown #367 (CTD#367)
Craft Your Passion Challenge #286: Always Anything Goes

~Hugs,

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