Ginny's Birthday Book

I posted last week about hosting Ginny's birthday party earlier this month. It was exciting, and it spawned some DIY. Woo hoo! I decided that we should make Ginny a book in honor of her 30th birthday. I asked the guests at the party to each make a page expressing their well-wishes for Ginny - I thought this would be particularly nice for her kids to do for their mom.

I picked up this 8x8 scrapbook with expansion pack at Michaels. I was hoping to find an 8x8 paper pad, so we'd have a nice variety of coordinating papers. I couldn't find one that was really the right style, but it worked out just fine. I picked up three packs of perfect 12x12 papers in Target's dollar spot. I then used a paper slicer to trim them down to size. It worked out great! I put the papers out with some interesting accompaniments for everyone to work on during the party.

Afterwards, I edited and printed a ton of photos.

I spent a couple of hours making a ton of pages - with these banner papers, with the pictures, and with other weird stuff.

I even found a birthday card, which I cut in half and made the last page of the scrapbook. The inside message says, "You sparkle from the inside out - Happy Birthday"

I also got the chance to bust out my new glue gun to add these mardi gras beads to the page. My control of the heated glue could use some work, but still - very excited!

I put the pages into the book and even got to make a decoration for the cover, which reads "Happy Birthday Ginny" (but substitutes her real name).

Scrapbooks that are so thick they'll only barely close are my very favorite!

 The banner page reads, "Happy Birthday Dear Ginny"...

 And here's the bead page, along with the pictures of Little Miss M playing with the beads!

We ate Dove Chocolates during the party and made fun of some of the fortunes, so I saved a few for posterity. And, after Ginny jokingly said, "I hope 30 sucks as much as you do" during the party, I knew it would have to be part of our memories of the evening!

When it was all said and done, I printed about 60 pictures. And I couldn't fit quite all of them into the 40 pages of the book! Easy peasy - I tucked them into this envelope and taped it to the inside of the back cover. I hope the book and the extra photos will help Ginny keep happy memories close at hand for a long time to come!