Wedding Cards Book

We received some many lovely cards for our wedding that I wanted to do something special with them. I don't remember where I first saw the idea to make them into a book but this was one blog I looked at when I decided to do it.

I gathered together the cards and picked out the shortest one. The really big cards I put to one side and made a second, thinner book with.

I used the smallest one as a template for making the holes to bind the book. I made 5 holes, equally spaced along the fold.

I found it easier to put the fold of the card over a rubber and poke my 'pokey tool' (that's really what it was sold as) through the card and into the rubber. I did this for all of the cards, making sure the template card was in the middle of each card, which I was able to eyeball most of the time.

Next it was time to sew the cards together. A popular method is coptic stitch but I found this video, which is a slight variation on that stitch, which worked for me. Once I'd stitched two or three cards together I started to get the hang of it, which meant I could put Netflix on to help pass the time.

For the book cover I cut the front, back and spine out of mount board and glued them to a piece of fabric, which conveniently matches the colour scheme of our living room.
I also sewed a piece of ribbon to the fabric over the spine of the cover which wraps around and can be tied to keep the book shut.

I glued the back of the last card to the inside of the back cover, and I'd stitched in a blank piece of paper at the start of the cards to stick to the inside of the front cover.

I am so pleased with how this book turned out. I like how it's a streamline solution for keeping the cards and doesn't take up too much space, unlike keeping them in a box or sticking them in a scrapbook.
For the book larger book I made with the leftover cards, I added some blank pages at the front and back which I used to stick in mementos from the day, like one of our wedding invitations and our place cards. I've also thought about sticking photos of our guests to the blank sides of the cards, so there's a lot you could do with this book idea.