Throughout his life, my Grandpa has said some certain things over and over and over. A few years ago, his three daughters started compiling these sayings into a document and called it "Tedderisms." So after my Grandma's birthday book was such a success, I was asked by my aunt Katy, aunt Cissy and my Malm to make a book of these sayings - something fancier than just printing it on plain paper and stapling it together. Plus they each wanted a copy so a total of four books.
Here's the process I went through for making the book(s):
1) Aunt Cissy emailed me the Word doc with the Tedderisms divided into 10 categories: Sayings, Breakfast, Names, Responses, Tricks, Jokes, Fractured Language, Money, Songs, and Stories.
2) I decided the pages of the book would be 8 x 6.5" and then I created an Adobe Illustrator document at that size.
3) I wanted to make tabbed dividers for each category, so I put a smaller rectangle on the right side of the page and Marlene showed me how to connect the shapes to make one solid shape.
4) I created 10 different layers (one layer for each category) and moved the placement of the tab for each page so that five tabs can be seen at a time when the book is closed. At least, that's the gist of what I did. It's easier done than said (as opposed to said than done).
5) Then I chose a font, my current favorite: Rosewood Fill, for the category titles and assigned each tab a name.
6) I made each page a different color based on the American Crafts "Earthtones" cardstock variety pack, and then I changed the font color to white.
7) Next I printed each page four times on high quality off-white cardstock.
8) I cut each page out using a rotary cutter for the straight sides and an exacto knife around the tabs. PS - using an exacto knife to cut around rounded corners is not a piece of cake.
9) Then I copied and pasted all of the text from Word into new layer in Illustrator and kept it at the default font of Myriad.
10) I made guidelines on the page so all of the text was placed in the same place.
11) I printed each page of each category four times on plain printer paper.
12) I gathered the Earthtones cardstock that matched the category title pages and then spray adhered each and every single page onto the assigned color of cardstock. I was a very sticky mess afterwards.
13) Next I made a little somethin' somethin' to go in a die cut window. A title for the book if you will. I named the book: Tedderisms "it's nice to be quoted", with "Tedderisms" in Rosewood Fill font and "it's nice to be quoted" in Jane Austen font. I added some brackets around the title and a decorative line between, copied the entire thing three times so I'd have four, printed it on high quality white cardstock and cut them out.
14) I found some shiny white paper for the end sheets and cut eight of them. Actually, I messed up about 20 times cuz I wanted one side of the endsheet to be shorter than the other so you could still see the tabs....complicated stuff I tell ya.
15) Then I made Chris go to the BYU stockroom after one of his classes to get their hours. We found some time to go one night and I bought some PVA glue, two feet of brown bookcloth, and a big ol' sheet of binder's board. Chris stayed on campus to go to class and about five minutes after I left, I told him to go back and buy some blue bookcloth because I suddenly decided I wanted to make a double-thick cover to give the book some thickness/substanance/weight.
16) Next I put all of the pages and tabbed dividers in the right order for each of the four books.
17) I took one "block" and carefully aligned all of the edges and clamped it together so nothing would move. I placed two-10 pound weights on top and set it at the edge of the table.
18) I painted about five layers of glue on the spine edge, added a piece of Muslin cloth to the spine while it was still drying, added more layers of glue, removed the clips but left the weights on top, and let it dry overnight. Disclaimer: this is not an official bookbinding technique. I do not know how to bind single sheets of paper so I was hoping, fasting and praying mightily that all the glue would hold the book together.
19) When I woke up in the morning I was eager to see if it worked. It did. Awjyeah.
20) I repeated this gluing process for the other three books.
21) I went online to the BYU website and found out when the bookbinding classes are held. The only huge paper cutter (guillotine) that I know of is in the BYU bookbinding classroom, which you have to have a key to get into. I graduated over a year ago, I don't have a key, so my only option is to go during a class. Luckily, classes are held every weeknight from about 5-9pm. I went on a Thursday night and waited in my car for about a half hour, almost gave up, but then a crew of students went into the building. There was a lecture going on in the class so I hid until it was over. I knew the teacher and he kindly let me cut all 16 pieces of the covers and 8 pieces of the spine from my binder's board. I actually ran out of binder's board and only made 15 covers, but I had just enough from a leftover project at home.
22) Back at home, I glued all eight spine pieces to blocks of heavy paper and then I glued the cover boards to each side of the paper. No pictures of the process, sorry! However, I'm thinking of doing this technique in the next Mini Album idea book by Scrapbook Trends so then there will be pictures to accompany all of this nonsense. We shall see. All in good time.
23) So then I glued the inside cover piece to the blue bookcloth. Repeated three times.
24) Then I glued the text blocks into the inside covers.
25) Then I exacto knifed windows from the four outter covers and glued them to the brown bookcloth.
26) I adhered the "Tedderisms" title to the back of each die cut window.
27) Finally, I glued the outter covers to the inner covers and set them under heavy weights (aka large art history books) overnight.
28) Done!
Cover
Another view of the cover
Inside cover
Inside endsheet
First page
Second page
Between sections
Another look inside
Double cover
The tabbed dividers
Sneak peak inside
At an angle
Top view
View from the back
Colorful inner pages
Taste the rainbow
On Monday, I wrapped the best of the four books in AC wrapping paper, put it in an AC bag and filled it with AC tissue paper. My mom picked me up from work, we picked Chris up from home and we went to the Brick Oven. There, we met up with my aunt and uncle and their three children (my cousins) who came down from Salt Lake and my other aunt who flew in from Oregon. When my Grandma and Grandpa walked in, he was so surprised! He said, "You cotton-pickers!" Whatever that means :) He started tearing up which made me and everyone else tear up. He had no idea that all three of his daughters and other members of his family would be there. Afterall, my mom was just in town a week ago. It was a very tender and special moment. We each went around the table and said what our favorite Tedderism is and why. The entire night was filled with laughter as he told some of his Tedderisms and even graced us with a song or two.
I love you Grandpa Tedder the Gooder and Better!
Your books are always so amazing! Awesome job Paige :)
ReplyDeleteHoly cow Paige, I can't even believe how awesome that book is. WOW.
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