A Simple Guest Book

We’re having a bit of a shindig in a couple weeks to celebrate my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary and Atlas recommended that we set up a guest book for attendees to reminisce in written form. The problem is that most guest books you find in stores are like fifty bucks and they also contain about four hundred more pages than you really need. Then the people who receive the book don’t know what to do with this half-empty journal they have.

So I thought I’d make a smaller version by hand for the occasion, just a couple dozen large pages for people to scrawl their congratulations, and then it will be a slim little volume that can be tucked away with the wedding album once the day is over.

I started with some basic supplies: coloured cardstock for the interior pages and patterned cardstock for the exterior, a paper cutter, hole punch, ribbon, washi tape, and a decorative punch for the corners. Obligatory corgi butt in photo as well.

The pastel cardstock I had was already 8″ x 8″ so I left that as is.

After I’d gotten everything sorted the way I wanted it, Gren came over to take a closer look.

Then he got tired so he had to lie down.

Then I told him to move because he was lying on my stuff.

So he flattened out further. Because he’s kind of a jerk.

In the end, *I* moved and started punching holes in the pastel cardstock.

Then I decided on a cover (conveniently this paper is double-sided so the opposite page has a complementary pattern as well).

I wove the interior pages together with a piece of ribbon and tied it off in the centre.

Added my cover pages, which were cut slightly larger than the interior, and a spine made of the opposite page of the cover.

Then I started taping everything together with the washi tape. I chose the tape because it was partly transparent, but with enough colour so you’d notice it.

I folded back the pages of the interior just to get them more flexible for use.

And then shoved the interior pages into the exterior cover. I made a hole in the spine for the ends of my ribbon, which I tied in a bow on the outside.

Then I continued my taping.

It looks a little messier on the inside but it did the trick.

I punched the corners of all the pages to make them pretty.

And added a few rubber stamped flowers to match the theme of the party.

Tada.