[This post is too detailed. Too wordy. Most of the pictures aren't all that good. And it's boring! But I've spent HOURS on it so it's getting posted anyway! I'm not proofreading it anymore. I'm not doing any more editing or moving things around. I'm not even going to look at it again! I'm completely over it! Now that I've said all of that — I hope you enjoy! Really, though — the project is good and I think you'll like it! :) ]
Every year we give the staff at the preschool a little "birthday" gift (but everyone has been gets the gift at our luncheon in April because it takes me that long to get my act together!). This has been a rough year and we've had to make some tough decisions regarding the number of classes we can continue to support in this economy when our enrollment is down. Because of this, it means we have to say goodbye to some favorite teachers. So sad; I don't even want to think about it. We've also had staff members whose husbands have had to take pay cuts or who have lost their jobs; things are tough out there right now!
It seemed to me that yet another gift with the school logo on it was not the right thing to do this year. I wanted something that would be both meaningful and inexpensive. How to accomplish that? Make them, of course! For the meaningful part, I wanted to use words of hope — and what is more hopeful than the promises given to us in the Bible? Also, the Lord often comforts me through music so I wanted to be able to incorporate that, too. I came up with the idea of a booklet of Bible verses with a CD of songs to go along with each one. Warning: this will be a long post as I'm doing a lot of the "TELL" part at the beginning. If you only are interested in looking at pictures, scroll, scroll, and scroll some more!
I began in February by beginning to puchase the supplies I would need. I ordered Craft-a-Board from Ellen Hutson. I had seen it written about on one of her blogs: in touch (hopefully that will go to the right page — I had trouble with the link). I used this product for the book covers, cutting the covers with my Cuttlebug and Stampin' Up's Top Note die. I also purchased the owires to bind the books using my Bind-it-all from Ellen's store. (As a side note, if you appreciate excellent customer service and quick shipping, try purchasing from her. I've ordered twice and have been amazed at how quickly the products arrive in NC from all the way across the country in Washington state — both times I got my order in less than a week!)
I ordered the patterned paper that I used from Emma's Paperie. That was so much fun, browsing through their excellent selection of papers! I chose only two-sided paper/cardstock, as usually the designs on each side are complementary to each other and I wanted to use one paper for the outside cover and another for the inside cover of the booklet and then also use the coordinating two sides for the CD cover and decorative band. (And here I'll pause to give a plug for Emma's Paperie. Getting an order from them is like receiving a present! They package everything up beautifully and when you spend $50 you get a special little project kit that they put together each month. Here is a link to the one for April.) I chose a variety of colors and styles, figuring that I was going to be making sets for 33 different women, each with their own individual tastes and favorite colors — I wanted to be able to give them a choice. I adhered the patterned paper (cut with the Top Note die) to each side of the Craft-a-Board with spray adhesive.
For the inside pages of the booklet I used Papertrey Ink's Stampers Select White Cardstock, also cut with the Top Note die. (The cardstock is found on this page.)
To make the CD covers, I cut the paper 6"x10" and scored 1/2" inside each long edge and then in half crosswise (at 5"). After folding in half, I trimmed each side along the score line halfway down the length of paper to eliminate some bulk and used Scor-Tape (1/4" width) to secure the edges and form a pocket in which to insert the CD. I used a 1" circle punch to cut a half-circle from the opening of each pocket to provide easier access to the CD. (I actually thought to do this later, which is why the photo shows the embellishing already completed.)
The paper for the belly band was a 12" strip cut 1" wide. I scored it at 2" and then again at about 7-1/8" and folded it around the CD pocket, securing it to itself with the Scor-Tape. The band can slide on and off the little CD cover.
Now it was time to decide on the embellishments. To keep costs down, I had carefully planned my paper use and saved all the scraps to punch flower layers from. From each double sided paper that I had used, I punched seven shapes using punches from Marvy (2" and 1-1/2" circles) Stampin' Up (1-3/8", 1", and scallop circles and the small flower from Boho Blossoms), and Martha Stewart (Cornflower). After some experimentation, I determined a "formula" for layering my flowers. For the CD cover I used the same paper for the bottom and top layers (2" circle and cornflower), the CD band paper was used for the 1-3/8" circle under the cornflower, and I chose a scallop circle print that seemed to look good under that. I distressed the edges of the circles with the blade of my scissors and snipped in about 1/2" between every other scallop on the scallop circle. I wadded up the distressed circles, smoothed them out, and gently curved in the scallops and the cornflower before layering them all up. I put a button on top and sewed the layers together with embroidery floss. For the flower on the booklet, the bottom circle (1-1/2") is the inside cover paper, the 1" circle is the same as the scallop circle from the coordinating CD flower, and the boho flower is the same as the cornflower. I punched through those three layers with my Crop-a-dile and secured them with a brad from my stash. Leaves were punched from various colors of green cardstock using the Martha Stewart Frond punch and the Stampin' Up Little Leaves Sizzlit die. (My Little Leaves die doesn't always cut to my satisfaction so I tried adding an extra sheet of cardstock to my Cuttlebug sandwich on top of the die, rolling it through 4 passes, and I got clean cuts each time. A little extra effort but much less frustrating than trying to tear along the lines that didn't cut through!)
I printed the scripture that I had chosen on white (good quality) printer paper and then cut them apart to adhere to each of the 16 pages in each booklet. This was tedious. I'm sure there's a better way, but my low-tech self had no idea how to do it — and our printer doesn't like cardstock at all, so printing directly to cardstock wasn't exactly an option. 
After adhering each verse, I went back and stamped a little doo-dad of some sort on each page. All of the stamps were from Papertrey. I just went through all my PTI sets and chose little emblems that would work. (Sets used were Warm Happiness, Everyday Classics, Mother, Heart Prints, Simply Stationery, Recipe Box, and two Borders & Corners sets: Squares and Rectangles.)
Here's a tip: I arranged the small stamps on my acrylic blocks, utilizing all four corners of the larger 
ones and both sides of the smaller ones. I kept all the stamps on the blocks until the stamping was completed for the entire project. This was so much easier than continually removing and replacing the stamps.
Everything was put together assembly-line style.
I've done a lot of telling. Now it's time to SHOW a finished booklet.
I just noticed as I looked at the photo of the last page that the booklet I chose to photograph happened to be the one that I dropped an inked stamp on. Go figure. 34 booklets, one dropped stamp, and that's the photo I got. Oh, well. I do have strong tendencies toward perfectionism, but have learned to fight the urge to redo every little imperfect thing. Yes, it'll bug me, but not enough for me to do it all over again. I'm letting this little mistake go!
Before "wrapping" the gifts I stamped a tag from PTI's 2008 Holiday Tag Collection with white ink on kraft cardstock, added the "Just for you" sentiment in black, punched each out with a Marvy circle punch, and embellished it with a Martha Stewart butterfly that had been punched from the main paper used for the booklet & CD cover, adding a little rhinestone for the head.
Each gift set was packaged in a large glassine bag from Papertrey Ink. To dress it up a little, I used a Stampin' Up Scallop Border punch on the open edge, folded it over, punched holes and secured the tag with a length of ribbon from my stash.
And here they are, ready for delivery.
