(A little apology for my poor photos. It's not the camera's fault.)
I spent yesterday afternoon in the studio with Able Baker Dana, showing her how to make a flip-flop vacation journal for a little girl.
I made one a couple of years ago, but I don't think I was blogging at the time and I thought you might like to see it.
And if you don't like to see it, you can just pretend you do, okay?
I didn't take photographs when we first started because we weren't really sure what we were going to do when we wandered up to the studio.
But I can tell you that the first thing I did was trace around the shoe to make a pattern, which I subsequently cut down by about 3/8" all the way around.
I used the pattern to trace and cut some pages from cardstock.
I cut the straps off one of the flip-flops and glued the ends in the holes on the front of the shoe with E6000.
Doing so gave the inner part of the book-back a smooth surface...to which I glued a piece of heavy cardstock covered with lighter weight colored cardstock.
Then I decorated all the pages.
This is the title page.
When I started putting the journal pages together I noticed my package of little index cards sitting there on my workdesk...
... and realized they would be the perfect way to add some lined pages to the book.
Putting them in as separate pages leaves more room for photographs or momentos on the foot-shaped pages.
It was hard not to be sucked into a long paper-doll making session when I got out the little cabinet to add some people to the pages.
Banners are everywhere in the arts and crafts world lately, but I hadn't made any yet so these were my favorite pages.
I tried to think of summer-y things for each page.
But I fell back on paper dollies when I started getting tired.
I didn't have to drill or punch the flip-flops to make holes for the ribbon binding.
The rubber on these cheapies was soft enough to run a bamboo skewer through.
I punched the rest of the pages with a standard hole punch.
I added a couple of flowers and a button to the front of the book and voila!
All that remained was to draw this Inchie.
And to write this post.