Book Plates

This was a fun little project. We gave my great-niece a book baby shower. I made little bookplates for her to put in each of the books in her library. I got the elephant clipart from Lettering Delights. You can size the clipart to any size and then print it out. I printed the large elephant on heavy white cardstock and did some paper piecing. The book plates were printed on an 8 1/2 x 11" label, then cut apart. The container is a band-aid tin made for altering. I covered it with My Mind's Eye paper.

When covering a tin, use glue stick liberally directly on the tin. Then after cutting the paper to size, press it on and try to get out all of the air bubbles underneath. The great thing about the glue stick is that your paper is still movable for a bit so it's easy to reposition the paper if needed. It also bonds very well and alleviates almost all air bubbles if you cover the project liberally. Any glue stick will work, but I recommend not using the colored sticks that dry clear. I actually had a project ruined because it did not, in fact dry clear, it stained purple. I don't know if it was a reaction to the paper, or the container it was used on. But I learned my lesson!

I don't recommend using Mod Podge. One reason is that it has too much water content and tends to buckle the paper. It is also thin enough that you may get pockets of air from not applying it evenly. The second reason (or is this the third?) is that it gets very messy!

I will plan on posting a tutorial on altering tins, there's more information!