Creating a Beautiful Wedding Book for My Best Friend's May Celebration

On May 2nd my beautiful friend was married. It was the perfect May day. One filled with sunshine and a soft breeze with lovely flowers on every table and at every corner. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces and the excitement was tangible. One of my favorite parts was watching her darling grandchildren walk her down a pathway - the oldest one holding the rings in a wooden heart-shaped box in both of his hands, her only grand daughter scattering rose petals , and two little guys holding the train of her dress and saying, "Sorry Grandma" every few steps as they struggled to keep it up. It was the sweetest.

This is my friend's second marriage. Her first husband of 32 years passed away a few years ago after a terrible illness. After watching her go through so much heart ache, it is wonderful to see her glowing again. She married a good, good man. He has gone through great heartache also. I wish them both so much happiness.

About 20 years ago my niece asked me to create a scrapbook for people to sign at her wedding. She asked that I only use pictures that were taken of them in their wedding clothes before the wedding day. I thought it was the strangest thing I'd been asked - I'd never heard of this new trend before and I was a big scrapbooker at the time. I had been doing it for about 10 years and I had every tool known at the time for this hobby. I designed for a couple of companies and was published, I taught classes, and I worked in my favorite store. I had four adorable children and LOVED taking pictures of them. I didn't want to forget anything and this was my way of recording our lives with them.

I was definitely intrigued with my niece's request...

Since that time, 20 years ago, I have designed at least 20 wedding books. It is one of my favorite things to make and I decided it was past time to create a post about it. This wedding was the perfect time to do so.

There are many different ways to make these books. Generally speaking I use a 12 x 12 scrapbook or a few times I have used two pieces of 12x12 chipboard that I have covered in patterned paper, inked the edges, punched three holes in and attached together with rings. Inside the books I've used patterned papers, cardstock, and in the last three I've used watercolor paper. I love the texture with the stamping and the way the inks move on watercolor paper. Sometimes I will watercolor a few things too. This is definitely my favorite right now. One more thing, you do have to be careful about the kind of pens you put on the table for people to sign with though. Make sure they work with the paper and the inks you choose. Generally it is the ink that causes problems.

Soooo, when my best friend asked my to create her a sign in book I was excited. She brought me the pictures to choose from. I began pulling out inks and stamps, ordered a scrapbook, and bought the 12x18 watercolor paper (Strathmore Watercolor 400 series). I prefer the smoother side - which I cut down to 12x12. I designed 24 pages which is too many to post, but below are some of them. One more thing, this looks a little bit different than books I have done in the past. They were both previously married, both lost a spouse, and have their own children. They enjoy traveling together and are very active. They didn't take any prewedding pictures before the wedding day so we focused on their lives with family, their travels, the activities they enjoy and more.

I used A LOT of different stamps and about four distress inks - regular and oxides. The colors used are Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick, Kitsch Flamingo, and Saltwater Taffy. in Archival Inks I used Black Soot and Hickory Smoke. Distress inks are pretty much my favorite. I love all the colors and I loved the distress look they give. I also used a Concord and 9th ink pad Ballet Slipper which is a very soft pink.

A few of my favorite stamp companies are: Tim Holtz, Ali Edwards, Heidi Swapp, Studio Calico, Simon Says Stamp, and more. Ali Edwards has some of the best stamps for wedding, baby books and more, with lots of words and cute little designs and expressions. Her handwriting is darling and the little tiny designs are perfect. I've been stamping her designs for a long, long time. Heidi Swapp has amazing stamps for the scrapbooker, cards, and so much more. She too has very cute handwriting and darling designs.

#19 is their engagement at Sundance Ski Resort. It is a beautiful place with great relevance in their lives. The ampersand stamp on the background is Heidi Swapp and the Story Begins is a Stampabilities.

Page #21 are the Stampin' Up background and frame stamps and Heidi Swapp arrow stamps.

Watercolor paper is a great way to create your own backgrounds. There are many brands of watercolor paper and some are much nicer than others. I don't use the most expensive but I don't use cheap either.

When deciding on which stamps to use for a page go with some words and different shapes - you can mix them up with different companies and stamp away.

This layout #15 of Mickey and Minnie actually uses a Stampin' Up set for the background, the Ali Edwards Magic set and a Printworks stamp (another favorite) that says, "I'm so glad you happened to me". As you can see, I also numbered the pages. It took me a few books till I realized that people were putting the pages back in helter skelter - I couldn't bear it! Thus began the numbering.

This combination of stamps on page 11 is Stampin' Up for the background and frames - circles, hearts and stars, a couple of tiny expression stamps by Ali Edwards and the 'i love you' stamp by Stampabilities.

New Years Eve, #17, is stamped in an alphabet by Stampin' Up, the love stamp for the background is by Simon Says Stamp and the smaller stamps on the frames are by Ali Edwards. I've used Hickory Smoke Gray, Black Soot, worn lipstick and spun sugar.

The background stamps on #20 are Ali Edwards but the stars and the heart are Tim Holtz.

I almost always cut my own frames out of watercolor paper and stamp them too. Its all rather simple. And, of course, the ribbon. Ribbon is an absolute necessity!

On this page, #24, the background heart stamps are all Tim Holtz. This is a great set. It has many different hearts and you can buy metal dies to go with the set from Simon Says Stamp. The rest are all Ali Edwards stamps. Two of my favorites.

This is the final page in the book. The Ali Edwards stamp above the picture frame says, "the story begins here". It may be the end of the book, but is a new beginning in life for these two lovely people.

I enjoyed making this book. Anytime I get to do one for someone I love is always a gift. Of course, stamping makes me happy, but stamping with a purpose is even better. There are so many, many different designs, styles, and designers. Always be on the lookout for clever new stamps.

Thank for stopping by.

Have a happy day,

Cam