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Karson was born in the fall, just 2 weeks after school started. I took off 6 weeks for my maternity leave. Knowing everyone would want to see pictures when I went back to work, I made up this little book to show off my family. I did not use anyone else’s idea for making this, I totally contrived it on my own, although I had seen small book necklaces before…I had never seen this. I actually started making it without really knowing what it was going to end up like. The pictures inside were printed from my inkjet printer on photo paper in a really small size…14 pictures 1.5 x 2″. I made the black paper strips just a slight bit bigger, so the actual folded size of the page is more like 2.25″ x 1.75″. The cover was cut from matt board and covered with a shiny finish paper that is printed with a mosaic pattern…and had hints of green and purple, which ended up being my color scheme.

The cover dimensions are 2.5 x 2 and it is about a half inch thick. I attached a ribbon to the spine under the end paper which is easily slid over my head to wear as a necklace. That made it easy to carry around. The closure was made by attaching an art bead with wire through two holes in the spine and twisting it together. I attached a loop of ribbon to the front which just fits over the bead tight enough to hold it closed, but it’s pretty easy to slip off as well. It was a little difficult to figure out how to engineer the whole clasp thing, but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. The pictures inside were pictures of my kids: 7 of Karson, 5 of Savannah, and 2 of Max…some of the pictures have Savannah and Max and Daddy in them with Karson. I got so many compliments on it. That wasn’t really the point of making it, but maybe people just liked it because it was a different way to show off baby pictures…I don’t know. Several of my friends said I should teach a class on how to make them. I was thinking of making up some instructions and posting them on here.