Wedding Bookbinding Ideas: A Valentines gift in book form

I’m lucky enough to have been with my now wife for 6 years prior to us getting married. We, like most couples, exchanged a lot of cards, love notes, love emails, and the such over the years. Our first anniversary, Natalie printed out all of emails we had exchanged in our first year of being together. So when I took a bookbinding class(I eventually took 3 I love it so much!) I knew I wanted to make a book that showcased our love notes in some way.

I ended up making a flag book, but went with simple layout. Instead of trying to pack our hundreds of notes into hundreds of handmade mini envelopes, I picked 6 from the 6 years we had been together. The last one was the card Natalie gave me after her proposal.

I found the yellow and pink bird paper at Paper Source(but this was 2 years ago). I then handmade the end paper using birds stamps and embossing them with clear embossing powder. I love how their raised and super shiny.

The envelopes themselves were made from a paper source template and made using double sided paper. Natalie and I bought a wax seal with our first initials intertwined in Italy. So I used it for the envelopes. However, I was *not* used to using wax seals and ended up ruining a few envelopes before I concluded I would make the wax seals separately and then attach them to the envelopes. So using freezer paper(not wax!!) I used my hot glue gun, which had a wax stick in it, and make little circles. I then quickly used the wax seal and pressed down. Tada! Wax seals. I then used my glue gun to put a tiny amount of wax on the envelopes and then attached the wax seals that way. I did learn that if your wax seals aren’t thick enough, the new hot wax will burn through your seals. 

Then came the part I wish I had spent more time on- the little notes. I went through dozens and dozens of cards we had given each other and picked 6. I then types them up and printed them out small enough to fit in the envelopes. What I didn’t know- the printer was crappy. So half the ink from the notes has flaked off or worn off. I would love to make new cards with much nicer paper and a nicer printer. Or I even thought of scanning the cards and making mini cards- but then you couldn’t read the text.