Paper Bag Mini Book: The Ultimate Thank You Card

I am posting my Scrapbook Sunday project early, because it's been a few weeks since I've joined in on the fun over there and since two of my favorite blogging gals run it, I don't like to miss even a single week! Thanks Noelle and Holly for hosting all the fun, go on over to see their great scrapbook projects and share in their special memories.

My mom, Aunt Barb, and three very close friends joined together to throw me and ER a Meet the Baby party when we visited Michigan when ER was five months old. It was a wonderful way to introduce ER to family and friends. Everyone worked really hard on it, and it was a special way to celebrate our first child, as we were not able to make to to MI when I was pregnant in NM.
As a thank you to my Aunt Barb I made her a paper bag mini book to commemorate the event and filled it with pictures from the day and a personal and heartfelt thank you.

Take three paper bags and stack them up, lay them down with the open side alternating. From the bottom: Open side to right, open side to the left, open side to the right.

Folded each one in half and punched five holes down the side. It's easiest if you make a template using a scrapsheet of paper, make your holes and then lay it down on each folded bag and punch the holes through one folded bag at a time.

Make a binding strip by measuring around the spine of your book and adding the amount of overlap you want to show on the front and back of your bag. My binding strip is green and about three quarters of an inch to and inch overlap on each side. You can eyeball this, it's doesn't need to be exact. Fold your binding strip in half to mark with a pencil where you want to punch holes and make sure they line up exactly with the holes you've already punched in the bags.

Open up the strip, and center one UNfolded bag on top. Line up punched holes and add metal eyelets to each hole to reinforce them and ensure they do not tear. You will need ten eyelets, five for the front and five for the back. Lay the remining paper bags inside and use thin ribbon to tie them all together. Decorate pages.
Here is the first page you see when opening it up. I put a thank you to my Aunt Barb on it and a picture of her with our buffet. As you can see the folded up bottom part is facing up and I used it to tuck pretend tags into it with extra detail pictures and some more text. They are pretend because you can't actually move them, they are attached with double sided tape and I've glued the pocket formed by the bottom part of the bag shut.

Below are a few more examples of the pages.My mom and proud Grammy loved showing off her first grandchild, and next to them are the pretty centerpieces my friend Sara made.
My Aunt Margie also helped out and made the coolest little cakes I had ever seen. She put a picture of ER onto each cake. The entire thing is edible and they looked very pretty and were so special!

One of the best parts of a paper bag mini book are all the places you can tuck things. Into the open sides of the bags I put tags with more pictures and journaling. It was a fun project to put together and my Aunt really liked it. Mine is not overly elaborate as I had a baby at the time and had to squeeze in crafting during nap time. Now I try it fit it in whenever as nap time is phasing out, so that's still my excuse for simply embellished projects!

PS: I was supposed to share a tutorial on how to make a t shaped paper bag mini book, with pictures so the technique was easier to understand for the readers who asked me for one. This past week but I was not able to muster up the creative juices to make it happen. I am sorry to the people who have been patiently waiting. I will try very hard to force myself to make them next week. My plan is to make them into little mini books featuring pictures from our Mother's Day Tea Party for the Grandmas and I want to do that in a timely manner and not three years from now☺