For some reason the only time I like to make a scrapbook is when I travel and then only when it’s not a road trip. I don’t know why these are the “rules,” but I am following them! Anyway, we’re going to Kauai on a family vacation in the near future and I’ve made this blank scrapbook to take along.
I had rescued a bunch of these clamshell shaped metal pieces from a big hotel remodeling project I worked on years ago. They were end caps for bar lights over the sink in the bathrooms of all the rooms and just being tossed. (the horror!)
This pick shows the two stages of the holes I drilled to add hinges. You can see the hole where their were attached to the fixture on the side with some chipped finish around it on the right piece. You can kind of see the lumpy off-white finish.
I cleaned, primed, and painted them inside and out. Household primer, craft paint for the teal/aqua colors, and artist fluid acrylic for the gold interference topcoat.
Vintage pink shell buttons and a scrap of elastic cord for the fastener on the front.
A clear plastic bead to hold the elastic in place on the inside of the back.
I was really hoping to go all stash on this, but needed to get some brass nuts and bolts to attach the hinges that would satisfy me. The woodscrews they came with wouldn’t work with the metal and I didn’t want to count on adhesive.
To make clamshell-shaped pages for the scrapbook, I traced the shell on black paper, then cut it out a little smaller than the tracing line. A cut a little extra off the flat part ot allow room in the clamshell for the comb binding I will add after decorating the pages. Then I used my Bind-it-all to cut the holes for the binding. Finally, I scanned the black piece which I eventually uploaded to Cricut Design Space to cut multiples exactly the same.
I’ve edged the pages with gold pigment ink and stamped dates to have one day per spread. But I also have a few extra pages cut should I want to add to a day. I won’t add the binding comb until after all the pages are done or close to.
The gif shows the gold interference a little better.
