Sweet Brownie Queen: Book Club Directories

My Book Club celebrated it's 11 year anniversary this summer and I made books for each of the 5 members. I had made little directories in the past, but this time I wanted to include the books we have read over the past 11 years. I knew I wanted to make a book from scratch and use each member's favorite color, but that was it.

The biggest thing I needed to come up with was what to use for the inside pages. One morning, I got the idea to use pages from an actual book. I thought I would start with the dollar store (not my favorite place), and to my great surprise, there was a hardback Jan Karon book for $1!!! I was thrilled because 1. it was only $1, 2. there would not be any chances of inappropriate words, 3. it was the right size, and 4. it was only $1!!!! :) I used a craft knife to slice the pages out of the book, used Yes paste to glue 2 together for each book page, and then trimmed them to all be the same/right size. If I do this again, I will glue the pages to card stock to make a sturdier page. I punched the holes and used hole reinforcers for each page.

I looked at just about every piece of paper at the scrapbook store, trying to come up with the right cover paper and color combinations. This was the 3rd one I debated and it was perfect. I wanted the favorite colors of each member on the cover and in the book. We have 2 pinks, 1 orange, 1 blue/aqua, and 1 yellow. They were all in this AND the background has notebook page lines!

The first thing I had purchased several weeks earlier when I got this idea were the library card pockets. I figured I would use them one way or another. I ended up mounting the pockets inside the covers and it was perfect for the book theme!

I cut chipboard for the front and back covers, and covered it with the scrapbook paper. I used pink card stock for inside the covers. The pages started out with our order of choosing books (by seniority) and the list of birthdays. The next few pages are not pictured, but each page has a member's contact information mounted on their favorite color. All other items were mounted on black. The rest of the book has a list of books for each year. Due to the number of books I was doing, I used both the front and back of each page, and put 2 years on each page. For the finishing touch, I tied ribbons on the binder rings that hold the books together. I had found a flower ribbon that matched the cover paper, and then had light pink, dark pink, aqua, yellow and orange ribbons to tie on the rings.

The BiblioChicks loved their books!