That's so cool! I've never seen those! I love the idea of using snippets from the letters. Hmm....Now I have so much more to contemplate!
You have not met my bad sewing skills! But, this would be cool with a pillowcase? Is it the actual paper to make the clothing? or is it printing the letters onto fabric? That would be cool! I think it would be a pretty thick book though. But maybe, if I do Yeah, thanks for bringing up another project on my to-do list! Just kidding! Truly though, I have his mission stuff that is also a project hanging in the back of my list. He has a ton of letters in that too! Is it weird that I'm not worried about someone else reading them? I mean, I'm thinking if it's a book it'll be blurb or shutterfly, and in my head they have so much to do they don't have time to read my letters. Plus, they'd have to decipher my cursive! This. 100% This. You said so much better what I was trying to say. I love this and I remember you working on this project! (Which reminds me...how long have my parents been married???) I like the idea of the actual letters, but I still feel like I'd like to digitize them at least as preservation. Did you use a pocket to hold each letter? Or did everyone only write on one side?
I have a scrapbook of the dating years with photos and tickets and such, and a lot of our cards are held inside with adhesive. Other notes on notebook paper are still folded and in a vellum envelope that I affixed to the inside back of the album. Of course, there wasn't a ton of communication back and forth between us because we were really never apart geographically. I need to digitize all my paper albums including this one, but I need a better scanning process. I like the results from our all-in-one printer, but honest to goodness, opening the scanner lid every time is irritating not to mention everything usually static clings to the platen. Anyway, I like the process Becky Higgins followed . . . that might be a good process to follow for scanning and then just use Shutterfly or Blurb like you mentioned to have it all in a book. Why-oh-why do I have too many things I want/need to do? LOL Now you've made me think of yet another project!
I'm pretty sure I've seen at least two dresses made from actual papers (a designer made a wedding dress from other people's divorce papers, the other included a steampunk librarian's corset and a peplum (iirc) made from book pages) but they had to have at least been treated with something. I could totally see trying it out with double-sided fusible web, if you want to use the actual letters. Or print them out on iron-on printer paper, that would work too.
I wasn't sure if you would be or not, some people do have very strong feelings about other people reading stuff like this. I don't. I still haven't done anything with the letters I found that mom wrote dad. Heck, I also found a bunch of letters that mom wrote to me when they went to Florida every winter. She wrote once a week along with our Sunday afternoon phone calls. My plan is to scan them and do something with them as well. That might be a good project for a Shutterfly book.
eek, I have a trunk...actual trunk of photos I need to get digitized. @MrsPeel set me free, take photos of them! It is way easier! This is my retirement project and wow loving Becky Higgins process!
LOL I remember that post, there was a time in which everyone was talking about digitizing by scan..... if you have a DSLR (or a phone with a good camera, which these days is easier than having the DSLR!!!) getting the photos to stand up (I got them up in front of the kettle in my kitchen which is the best light we have) ands tale photos in close up, watching that there will be no glare, the files you get by taking photos of them are way bigger, better files than scanning.... I did 8 years of Sarita's life like that, then digi scrapped, then printed in 7 books....... Now Courtney, have you not wish of making something hybrid? I think if you do a book, a journal, no need to do all the letters, but do it in hybrid, I think it would be amazing.... as the letters not always look the best in photography.... also depends on if you just want a beautiful memory made into an art thing or you want to make a record of the actual letters..... but anything you do, I think it would be SO amazing!!!!! I'm waiting for my mum to come back, when she came in November 2018, she told me she was bringing the letters I wrote to my dad when I was in Uni in Rio (de Janeiro/Brazil)...she brought something else, but now she moved, she says she has them, and I will most definitely wanna do something so, I don't think you are crazy AT ALL.....
A friend of mine took her scanned her mom's annual Christmas letters and all the Christmas photos she could find, then she made a photobook at Shutterfly. For the years that had a letter (not all did), she put the letter on the left hand side and then that years photos on the right ... it came out beautifully.
