Handmade Pocket Mini Book Tutorial

Now that I'm back, the scheduled and predone posts from earlier this week don't truly count as those were all done way before this happened, I thought I'd kick things off with a little crafty tutorial. Working with my hands and creating always relaxes me and leaves me with a sense of pride. So it seemed a fitting way to return to blogging, even if it's immediately followed by an Easter break☺
Quite awhile ago, I shared a mini comb bound book I made with handmade paper pockets. I've finally gotten around to making another and taking pictures for a little tutorial. I've been planning on sharing this for awhile, I just had to wait until the finished product made it's way to CA and my friend Steph from A Pocket Full of Buttons. I shared the other mini book I made her ahead of time but had to include a surprise too.
Begin by cutting a 12X12 sheet of paper in half, making two 6X12 sheets. Score in half at six inches. Then score which ever side of the paper you want to be the bottom of the pocket. Score that at 1X12. Cut away a 1X6 piece as shown above. Fold paper in half, so that you have essentially have a 5X6 sheet, with a flap. Fold up flap and adhere, as shown above. I rounded the corners of the flap beforehand, but that is merely a design choice. When you've assembled your pocket you will end up with something like this. Repeat above steps for as many as you would like. If you have a comb binding machine at home, punch as shown above on the open side. Any local copy shop can do this for you. Many schools also have this kind of binder, you might be able to use it if you provide your own combs.Use the comb binding machine to bind punched pockets to the comb. Now you are ready to make the tags for inside and embellish the outsides of the pockets.

I added little tabs with phrase stickers that coordinated with the paper.

For the tags I added colored cardstock for mounting photos or journaling and stickers.

The pieces with punched borders aren't loose on one side so one end of the photo can be pushed underneath. I also made this one for Cheryl as part of her pay it forward. I posted some of her goodies but keep this a surprise. I incorporated pink and brown as she specifically mentioned that being one of her favorite color combinations.Below are the pockets and the tags that go in each. She can slip a picture underneat the punched borders at the top and bottom of this tag. It will look really cute with the border overlapping her photo. The XO tag is bound to the comb and can be moved back and forth. I used some premade romantic themed accents, I thought it would be a cute way to highlight some special pictures of Cheryl and her husband Doug. I think it's important to still have couple time, after children join the family. Hopefully, this will be a nice keepsake for them. It's still pretty general so it could also be used for pictures of their daughters too.


Shared At: The Weekend Wrap Up Party at Tatertots and Jello, Spring Has Sprung at Fun to Craft, Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge, Friday Fun Finds at Kojo Designs, Scrappy Saturdays at Scrappy Gifts, Making the World Cuter Monday, Motivate Me Monday at Keeping It Simple, DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land and

Hello Again & Thank You

I'm back☺, well more like checking in. With Easter this Sunday I'm sure most of you will be with family, like I will. ER is especially looking forward to wearing the pretty twirly dress, she picked out. This is the first time I've gotten her a "fancy" Easter dress. I can't wait to see her in it. Things should be pretty quiet around the blogisphere over the holiday weekend and ER and I will be enjoying spring break next week. But I do have a tutorial planned for tomorrow.

The weather has been lovely, with temperatures creeping up into the seventies, so it's hard to come indoors for anything! I hope you are also blessed with some nice weather, wherever you live too☺ Being from Michigan I know not to get too excited, the weather many turn again but we're certainly soaking up the sunshine while we can!
Thank you again for all the emails, comments, and tweets of sympathy for the loss of my sweet Grandma. I can't even begin to tell you how much that means to me. I actually heard more from my online community of friends than from the ones I have face to face contact with. I really appreciate all the outpouring of support during this sad time.

I put together a little photobook for ER with all the pictures of her with Great Grandma last night and that made me feel a lot better. I know it will be a really special keepsake for ER one day. For me, it was so nice to look at Grandma's smiling face with ER. I truly feel the time they had together was a blessing and that ER was so lucky to even have any Great Grandparents, let alone four to love her. I will miss Grandma dearly but also know that to have her until I was 33 years old was also a rare thing and that I should be glad for all the time with her. Plus like one friend said, she'll always be with me. Really, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so very much for the outpouring of love for me and my family.

Green Giant Giveaway: "Seeds of Change" Prize Pack

Giveaway now closed, thank you to everyone who entered and congratulations to...Kelly, comment 26, who said,"I'm an email subscriber"

With the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, later this month on April 22nd, you may have begun to think of the little changes that you and your family can make to help protect the Earth this year.


For Green Giant, it´s all about trying to live up to the name by working every day to care for the land, the people who grow our vegetables and the families who share our vegetables at their tables. Throughout its century-long history, Green Giant has worked to reduce its environmental footprint through many measures including:

• Reducing the amount of land and water needed to grow vegetables
• Packing vegetables in smaller, lighter cans, so it takes less fuel to deliver them to supermarket shelves
• Utilizing traditional seed breeding methods over the last 35 years to double the amount of sweet corn grown on an acre of land
• Teaming up with growers to install a more efficient irrigation system that can reduce water use by more than a million gallons a year;
• Switching to more earth-friendly paperboard to package frozen vegetables, saving approximately 54,000 trees annually in the process.

Green Giant is now celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by giving $200,000 to The Nature Conservancy to help fund an innovative project that will encourage greener farming practices to repair and protect a natural treasure - the Root River, one of Minnesota´s (home to Green Giant) best trout streams.

To learn more about Green Giant´s sustainability program or make a donation to The Nature Conservancy, visit http://www.GreenGiant.com/sustainability during the month of April.

Giveaway:

To celebrate Earth Day, Green Giant would like to give one of my readers a "Seeds of Change" prize pack that includes one VIP coupon valid for a free package of Green Giant frozen vegetables, in addition to a mini herb garden, an eco-friendly bamboo utensil set, and a 100% recyclable grocery tote.

My little one can't wait to start the mini herb garden, it's such a nice way to get her involved with planting. To Enter:

Please share what changes your family has made, or plans to make, in an effort to leave less of a carbon footprint. For example, we recycle every week and bring our own reusable bags when shopping.

Extra Entries: {please leave an additional comment for each one}

• Publically follow my blog, using Google Friends Connect.
• Subcribe via Email.
• Post my link button.
• Fan me on Facebook and I'd love it if you say hi over there☺
• Follow me on Twitter, and tweet about this giveaway with a link and using @KTnestingspot in it.
• Leave a meaningful comment on another non giveaway post on my blog; then come back and tell me which one.
• Tell me your family's favorite Green Giant product, we're partial to their canned corn and green beans around here. Plus I like how convient their frozen vegetables are, a quick way to get a veggie on the dinner table!

Giveaway open to US residents through April 15th, midnight EST, no PO Box addresses. Good Luck! Winner will be notified via email and have 48 hours to respond.



Disclosure: Green Giant provided me with the VIP coupon, information, and prize packs through MyBlogSpark.