Hey everyone! It’s Cindy here joining in on our Helmar Acid Free Glue week along with the focus of school's out.
My project is for my six year old granddaughter and her (our) upcoming summer vacation. We were talking about journals one day and soon after we saw smash book products in our local Michael’s store. Before I knew it we were planning a smash book for her to work on while we are on our trip to Maine. She’s been counting down the weeks for this trip, but I’m not sure now if it’s her excitement about her first plane trip or her excitement over using her first smash book! She loves to write and create so I thought this would be the perfect thing to ease her into future smash books and scrapbooking.
For her book, since it’s specific to this particular vacation, I created it from scratch rather than altering a ready made notebook. She would have been content to use a notebook, but I wanted it to be a little more than that for her.
I started out with some scrap chipboard pieces and covered them with pattern paper using Helmar Acid Free Glue. (I was a little slow deciding to take a picture and the glue dried, but you get the idea). This glue is perfect for paper to chipboard applications. I just spread the glue thinly, all the way to the edges and placed my paper on top, smoothing it out entirely from the center to the edges. Once dry, I trimmed my paper to fit and gave the edges a little sanding and inking. I did this to both sides of two pieces – one for the front cover and one for the back cover.
The cover is embellished with decorative scissor cut papers and die cuts made using my Cricut Expression 2. I always use Helmar Acid Free Glue to assemble my die cut layers. It’s gives good adherence and flexibility of the completed image, in case I want to bend or shape it.
Once the images were assembled, they were sprayed with a shimmer spray and then adhered to the cover. With everything in place, I gave the entire cover a protective coat of Crystal Kote Gloss.
Just for fun, I added ribbon lengths across the front. These are adhered with Helmar 450 Quick Dry with no visibility of the glue at all.
I chose to bind her book with the Zutter Bind-It-All knowing she would be opening and closing and turning the pages a million times over the course of her one week vacation.
For the pages inside I thought 2 page surfaces for each day of her vacation would be adequate and would give her a little guidance and keep her from going too crazy for this first book. I really just want her to get the feel for scrapping, journaling, etc. I labeled each day for her and got her started on her pages with simple border stickers by SRM Press. I put a few extra pages in the back of the book where she can write more about her vacation as a whole when she returns.
I also thought that a few daily journaling prompts would help her jump into her pages so I computer printed journaling tags with prompts that I knew she would like to answer daily, as well as some journaling tags without prompts. I chose to bind them into pads using the Helmar Acid Free Glue – it is a bookbinding glue, after all. I lined up the edges, spread some Acid Free Glue over the edges and clipped it tight between scrap chipboard with binder clips until dry. Worked perfectly! The main reason for doing this is, as I said, she’ll be opening this book over and over – on the plane, in the airport, in the car, in restaurants, etc. This way, if they fall out of the pockets, several pieces of paper won’t scatter all over the place. They’ll be bound into little pads of them. I also included a pad of pattern paper scraps for her to use as she sees fit.
These pads are inserted into pockets that I created on the inside covers using envelopes, lined with pattern paper using Helmar Acid Free Glue . I adhered them to the covers using Helmar 450 Quick Dry
Inside the pockets I’ll include Helmar Zap Dots for ease in adhering her notes and whatever other items she feels fit to adhere to a page. These will make it incredibly easy for her smashing on the go. I’ve also included a page of self stick gems and I’ll hope they stay adhered long enough for us to reinforce with Helmar Gemstone Adhesive when we get home . I don’t usually rely on the self stick part of self stick gems and I often peel it off and use the Helmar Gemstone Adhesive . That way I don’t have to worry about them falling off. Also in a pocket will be a sheet or two of letter stickers. That’ll be enough to hold her while we’re on vacation and she can add stamping and other embellishments once we get home. We’re going to try to print a few pictures while we are gone, but will definitely add some on return.
Our final addition to the cover was a few gems and a chipboard tag that was chalked with a few different colors and then sprayed with Helmar Workable Fixative. I then glued a bright flower onto it with Helmar 450 Quick Dry . The chipboard tag itself is adhered using Helmar Silicone Adhesive . I chose to use the silicone adhesive because the chipboard tag isn’t sitting flush to the cover because of the ribbon. The silicone adhesive is a gel like substance that can spread and accommodate the varying thickness of glue needed under the tag to keep it secure. One final embellishment – the ribbons on the rings. I didn't tie them in knots because I wanted them to drape nicely rather than the ends sticking out. I simply used a dot of 450 Quick Dry half way down between the ribbon ends and they are good to go.
I hope this inspires you to help a little person in your life make the leap into Smashing, Scrapping, or Journaling.
Helmar Products used in this smashing journal are Helmar Acid Free Glue, Helmar 450 Quick Dry, Helmar Gemstone Adhesive , Helmar Crystal Kote, Helmar Workable Fixative, Helmar Silicone Adhesive.
Don't forget about the June Helmar Color Challenge. Complete a project before the end of the month and upload it to http://www.flickr.com/photos/helmarlive/ You could win some fabulous Helmar product!
