I have all kinds of art work that the kids have made over the years. I decided to take photos of my favorites pieces and make an art brag book.  I loaded all my images on a jump drive and took them up to the UPS store. UPS Stores are having a color copy sale right now and 8 1/2 x 11 color copies are just 25 cents each! I had 18 prints made and had them bound together to make the brag book. Unfortunately, the cover of the book isn’t very pretty so I decided to alter it. I did have my choice of cover colors, but there wasn’t anything too exciting. I figured a neutral color would work best.

I was pretty impressed with how well the prints turned out.

I dug through my scrapbooking supplies and pulled out what I thought I may want to use. When I was digging through my supplies I didn’t really have any idea of what I wanted to do. I just grabbed whatever caught my attention. Glue, scissors, flocking, paper, pearls, distress ink, ribbon, etc.

I’ve had this paper stack for years and haven’t used it. I flipped through the papers (size 5×7) and found 3 pieces I really liked.

After I picked out my 3 sheets I tried them a variety of different ways on the cover to find something I liked. This layout was o.k., but I wasn’t loving it.

A little better, but still not feeling it.

Ahh. I think this will work perfectly.

Cut the two bottom pieces of paper in half with shape scissors to give the center edges a wavy look.

Then use distress ink to ink all the edges of the papers.

Just lightly brush the ink stamp along the edges.

It’s o.k. if it’s a bit thicker on the edges in some places than in others.

Use Elmer’s Craft Bond Glue Pen to adhere the paper to the cover of the brag book.

This is how it looks with the cut pages on the cover…boring…but it makes a great base.

Now we are going to adhere our third sheet using pop dots.

I used Elmer’s Craft Bond Glue Spots. They pop your paper just a bit off the base giving some dimension to it.

Just adhere one dot to each corner of the paper

After the four pop dots are on the paper, flip over and place in the center.

Next you are going to use some flocking on the top center piece of paper.

I used Elmer’s Craft Bond Glue Stick as the adhesive for the flocking

Just rub the glue stick on the paper where you want the flocking to stick. Then shake the flocking all over your paper.

Just tap the excess off onto a napkin or plate. As you can see I used two colors. I used the red first, let it set a few minutes and then used the gold color.

Next up, Pearls.

Place 4 on the right and left center of the book

Here’s how it looks so far. Getting closer to making it look great!

Cut a piece of ribbon just a little wider than your center piece of paper.

Tuck the left side of the ribbon under the center piece of paper. Just put some glue on the end and tuck it under. Hold for a few seconds so it starts to dry. Glue the ribbon down across the center of the paper and leave the right side of the ribbon untucked.

Use scrabble tiles to spell out the work ‘art’ across the center adhering them with Elmer’s Craft Bond Glue Pen. Tie a piece of ribbon on a small charm and adhere to the center top of the page.

Finally, take a long piece of ribbon and weave it through the binding 2 times.

Weave the ribbon so that you can tie the knot in the center of the binding.

Tada…All done. From boring to beautiful in a few easy steps. I put this together in less than an hour. Now I can proudly display the art book.

#GlueNGlitter and #LovinLogistics

disclaimer: this project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insight study for #collectivebias.  all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I think this would make a GREAT Mother’s Day present. What do you think?

Cheers,