cov·er-/ˈkəvər/ verb
put something such as a cloth or lid on top of or in front of (something) in order to protect or conceal it.
That is the official definition of cover. In the scrapworld it is so much more. It is the way we wrap our memories we have collected. It is also sometimes the last thing and can be a stumbling block to getting our pages into a book. I am hoping today, I can encourage you to get your covers done, and even prepared for books that aren’t even completed.
I started on Power Point, lol, and printed all my pages as 8.5×11, and just used page protectors to fill binders:
My first 3 years of printed books(2010, 2011, 2012), I did one year thick books. This is a few reasons, one I was cheap, and second I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing. I was so overwhelmed. There was no rhyme or reason to the books. I didn’t even know if I could do a cover. So they are plain black, and I used a sharpie pen to write the year, and where we lived at time on the spine.
Then I got all fancy, I started making so many pages. I started with a new company (Shutterfly), and they had covers available. I wasn’t real sure how it would look, so went with 3 parts. It was pretty cool looking to me, especially after the plain black covers. Twenty-14, brought 4 books and I was getting the hang of it.
By 2015, I was hitting all cylinders and had a fun template, and changed the elements and dates for the books. I think these were my favorites to create. The colors and little elements were a joy to hunt down, and get just right.
These covers are my boys ultimate favorites. They play I-Spy with them all the time. I haphazardly brought all the jpgs of the pages in the book onto a canvas. Then shadowed them, and rearranged them so you can see parts of them. The boys will go thru every page then flip to the cover and yell, “found it!” each and every time they read the book.
In between the year books, I did 3 years of week in the life, summer only books (because so much happens), DYD or Christmas books, and a few grandbaby brag books. The covers vary and it really has become something fun to create:
My 2017 books are to arrive tomorrow, I had hoped they would be here for this posting, but the covers were kind of a flashback to my plain black beginnings:
I am also working on 2018 books right now, and using this way cool template that Cheryl of FiddleDeeDee gave for the MOC 8 layouts. You can get the template free here.
I am about 3/4 of the way thru Jan-Apr-May 2018, and learned to keep the covers up as I go.
No matter what you do for a cover, just do books. I love them, my family loves them, and friends get a kick out of them. My bookshelf is filled with years of pages, and they don’t all match, but they all get looked at ALL the time. I actually organized them after their photo shoot today!
~never lose your joy
ajk says
WOW, Anne!!! Looks like you had so much fun with this! Hats off to ya!