most papercrafters have at some point come across a set of papers or embellishments that are just "too good to use", am i right? the tendency to hang on forever can become even more pronounced when the paper line goes out of print; or worse yet, the company goes out of business. case in point: hambly screen prints. back in the day, they were one of my very favorite companies... and honestly, i still love their designs! and NOBODY before or since has made transparencies of the same thickness and quality, imo, but i digress. the point of this story is that my sweet friend amy tsuruta recently de-stashed a bunch of hambly paper and was kind enough to send it to me. obviously i wanted to make her a thank you gift, and equally obviously, i had to use those papers. it occurred to me that sometimes what we actually want is to KEEP all those fun papers, but LOSE the bulk. what if i trimmed a bunch of them down to a more accessible size, and used my bind-it-all to make them into a book? so i did!
i decided on a page size of 5x7" on the grounds that it was big enough to serve as a journal or travel book if amy wanted to use it; but small enough to just stand on a shelf, and be flicked through lovingly, if she did not.
i made one page from each style of paper amy sent, and filled in with a few of my own. i also made half a dozen pocket pages from transparencies, which i scattered throughout the book.
i wrapped the front and back covers in arguably hambly's most famous and beloved design: the white chandeliers on kraft. for the endpapers, i cut one of the large 12x12" chandelier papers in half, and split it between the front and back covers. apart from adhesives, the only NON-hambly products involved in making the book were the puffy stickers for the word "forever" and the bind-it-all wire.
as i was making the book, of course i wound up with a bunch of offcuts, so i started thinking what i could make out of those. what would potentially be useful to a cardmaker like amy? well, card fronts are always good, right? so i trimmed a bunch of 4x6" panels of paper and transparencies into a stack. label shapes are perennially useful, so i diecut a few different styles, as well as some hearts. finally, i was down to quite small scraps, but at the same time, i was thinking about the book's cover decoration. i decided on the title "hambly forever" for which i diecut the letters that spell "hambly". i was so happy with the result that i knew i had to make an alphabet set for amy too. for the alphas, i backed the scraps with some plain white cardstock, then used my trusty (ancient!) provocraft "tag sale" alphabet. it's one of the very first die sets i ever bought, but it's still a big fave, and i use it quite often.
my intention was to tuck all of the "goodies" into the transparency pocket pages of the book. but that resulted in a very fat, very funky-looking book. so in the end, i covered a small gift box with two different colors of hambly's damask print paper, and just bundled the book and box together.
i loved (LOVED!) making this fun little book and i'm proud to say that amy loved receiving it, as well. mission accomplished! well... maybe only half the mission... because i think i want to make one for myself now, too! ♥♥♥
