Altered Paper Plate Album - Let Freedom Ring

A couple of days ago the Patriotic bug bit me.  It all happened as I shopped for groceries and saw these "oh so cute" square paper plates in a flag design.  My creative brain took over and the ideas began to form.  Good thing that I had my grocery list with me or I would have forgotten most of what I needed for our 4th of July dinner. 

I knew that I wanted to use the plates for the album cover, and I worked with several before deciding on this option.

Front Cover

The plates are approximately 9 inches square with rounded corners.

They are deep which made the cover more challenging.

I inked them all over with a brown ink to give the white of the plate a more antique appearance.

Then I inked with black to distress the edges even more.

The inside pages are made from heavy textured cardstock glued back to back to create extra sturdy pages.  More cardstock and papers are attached to each side of the pages.

This makes the pages quite heavy and sturdy.

All the pages, pockets, tags, mats and pullouts are heavily inked in navy, browns, black to add a distressed look.

Each interior page has a pocket in which pullout mats and tags have been inserted.

The front and back cover also have a pocket.

Photos below are of the book from front to back.

Close ups of details are also included.

I've used buttons in star shapes, jingle bells in red and blue, and on the front cover is a flag charm.

Ribbons and fibers were extensively used to soften the book appearance.

Detail of front cover

View of back and front cover.

First inside set of pages.  Inside of the front cover and first interior page.

Detail of inside front cover.

Detail of pocket on first interior page.

Interior pages.

Detail photo of an interior page.

Detail of interior page.

Last interior page and inside of back cover.

Page detail.

Inside back cover detail.

Back Cover.

This project was a lot of fun to work on.  :)