Homemade Smash Book

Has it really been three months?!?!?! WOWZERS! Things have been a bit crazy around here; this was the first year that the girls have done ballet and dance and recital week was absolutely insane! I will have to go into it in another blog post, as well as our trip to Lake Powell. Which was an absolute TRIP, because I have a crippling fear of large bodies of water. Well, onto crafty things...

Last CHA, K & Company premiered a new line of products called, Smash Books. Here is the somewhat viral video that's been sweeping the crafty blogs and message boards by storm:



Pretty cool, eh? Well, it was SO COOL that as soon as the Smash books hit the shelves, they flew off in an instant. And I mean INSTANT. As soon as I received the in-stock notifications in my email they were *poof* all gone. No. more.

Well, I FINALLY was able to track down a Black Smash book through the K & Co. Website and ordered it about a week ago. But then I read a blog post by the fabby-mc-fab-fabulous Shimelle which questioned (in a round about way) why can't we just make our own Smash books? Haven't we been doing something like this already... like in our high school days before all of this pre-made stuff was around?

I kinda like the idea of a Smash book because I'm a list maker and super note taker. I have lists for everything, Post-it's all over the place, pads of paper with notes, quotes and lyrics on them, etc... So, to have a fabby little place to put all of my little smatterings seemed like a good idea to me.

And so, the race was on. I wanted to make my own Smash book. And this is the final product:



I wanted to create something that was pretty close to the original smash book. I saw that it had a thick chipboard cover, so I grabbed a piece of 12x12 chipboard and scored a spine down the center. I then used green floral tape to tape off some sides and painted the spine and connecting portions turquoise. Also, it looked as if the chipboard cover on the real smash books had been embossed. I was on a new mission now. I knew my Vagabond and Tim Holtz texture fades would emboss the thick chipboard, but I couldn't fit the whole cover through the Vagabond. Hmmm... google to the rescue! I found This fab blog where the super smart lady figured out that you can turn your cricut blade, get this... are you ready??? UPSIDE DOWN. And then you have an embossing tool! How cool is that? Now, there are a few more steps if you want to emboss paper or foil, so watch her video, but for my chipboard purposes, I just put my cover onto my mat, taped it down around the edges (to prevent sliding) and "cut" my design. OK, given it's shallow and hard to see, especially in photos, but it actually did work. ( You can double-click any of the photos to see a larger version.)




Next up was that flowery thing you see on the front of the book. I saw that the original Smash books came with some elastic bands (sold separately) to help keep your book "together" especially once you start "smashing" more and more loveliness into it. I wanted to make my own. I took a piece of elastic band (found in your local craft store in the sewing section) and added it to a felt circle that I had topped with some baubles. I sewed a few fun ribbons on the bottom, and voila! Cute little band to keep your book intact.

OR....

A CRAZY HIPSTER HEADBAND! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Just kidding.... don't do this.

Next comes the insides. The original Smash book seemed to have fun quotes, prompts and decorated papers within it. I found a fabulous website, Incompotech Graph Paper that lets your customize your own graph paper in all types of styles and colors and then download it in a PDF format. Seriously, go take a look... it's fabulous. Once I downloaded all of my paper, I opened them in photoshop and added quotes or listed numbers to each. I then printed it out on regular printer paper. In hindsight, I wish I would have printed on some non-textured white cardstock; the computer paper is a bit flimsy. Here are a few of the pages:





I also did some patterned paper pages that I added some pockets to...


.

I did one page using a darice mirror, which you can find in your local craft store around the magnets and velcro section.


I also cut down and glimmer misted some water color paper for fun and maybe added a stamp, too...






I added some Kraft pages, because who doesn't LOVE kraft??? Plus, any kind of rub-on looks FABULOUS on them...






You can also see I added some tabbed page dividers to the book, too. These were from Target on clearance. (Yay clearance!)

Once I acquired all of my pages, I ran them through my Bind-it-All (which I've had for years and just now learned how to use it properly... oops) and the last page of my book was a thin piece of plastic paper/acrylic. I made an almost seamless pocket using kraft paper on the back cover and trimmed the plastic page slightly smaller then slid it in! Voila! Now you don't have to see the rings on the outside of your book!



Pretty fun, huh??? If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them at me. The Smash book that I ordered is here and sitting in a box in the corner of the studio. I promised myself that I wouldn't open it until I posted this blog. Hopefully on Monday I'll give you a run-down of all of the pages and goodness inside of the Smash book. Plus, I have some SUPER exciting information for you all. As in, JUMP UP AND DOWN, PEE IN YOUR PANTS, THIS IS SO FRACKING EXCITING, kind of information. Oh yeah... it's THAT good.