I haven't used my big stencils to create a word book for ages. I came across them the other day and decided to dust them off. The Crazy Bird Stamps by Tim Holtz have also been crying out for use. They are such versatile stamps and I decided to turn them into Robins to keep to the Christmas theme. This is for Cute Card Thursday and their birds and animals challenge.
I used a piece of A3 heavy weight white card and cut it into four pieces (10.5cm x 29.7cm). I then placed the stencil for each of the letters that I required on the right hand edge of each piece and marked them out with a pencil - the stencils that I have are just the right height for the card - if your stencils are smaller then you can always adjust the height of each book page accordingly. Having cut the letters out along the right hand side, leaving them attached to the card strip, I laid them out so that they spelt out the word Noel and then trimmed the left hand side of the N, O and E so the they were evenly spaced and level on the left hand side of the book.
I have found that although at a pinch you can make a five letter word book, three or four letters are the best. 'Mum', 'Dad', 'Joy', 'Love' are all word books that work well. I chose Noel as I am not very fond of Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas. I covered the letters with paper and trimmed them at the back. The green paper was plain, so I stamped over it with the fir branch stamp from the Special Christmas set by Anna Marie Designs and a Versamark ink pad to create a water mark effect. I edged the outside of each letter with gold peel offs, both to neaten up the edges and to emphasise the letters.
On the left over card, I stamped two of the Crazy Birds by Tim Holtz twice using Tuxedo Black Memento ink;
two Christmas hats from the Crazy Things stamp set in the same ink and two candy canes using Vermilion Archival ink.
Having coloured the birds and hats with my ProMarkers, I used the dies to cut out each of the birds, the eyes, beak and wing of each bird from the second image and the hats and candy canes. I built up the images using a mixture of glue and foam pads; cut the birds and hats again from white card and stuck the extra die cuts onto the back of the coloured images. This covered over where the colour from the alcohol pens had bled through to the back of the original images as some of the birds can be seen from the back when the card is open. At this point I added glossy accents to the eyes and allowed them to dry overnight.
Having laid out the card including the birds, I decided that I needed to link the outside of the card with the Merry Christmas that I had stamped on the 'L' page using the words from the Claritystamp word chain 13 set using the Ranger Black Tie ink pad.
I used the Spellbinders Celebrations Tag That large oval speech bubble die with white super smooth card; stamped 'We wish you a' using the individual smallest letters from the alphabet stamp set by Crafter's Companion, using the Black Tie ink; added the fir branches in Mowed Lawn distress ink and the pine cone in Frayed Burlap distress ink from the Highland Winter Majestix stamp set by Card-io, finally I drew around the edge of the speech bubble with a metallic gold Sakura pen.
As a final touch, I found a strip stamp with bird tracks from the Fun Strip set by Dovecraft and added them along the bottom of the 'O' and the 'E' pages. Once I was happy with the rough layout, I scored a line 1cm in from the left hand edge of each of the pages; glued the pages together; used my Cropadile to punch two holes and added gold, red and green metallic elastic which I knotted at the front. The card stands up really well with the pages only slightly open.
I used a piece of A3 heavy weight white card and cut it into four pieces (10.5cm x 29.7cm). I then placed the stencil for each of the letters that I required on the right hand edge of each piece and marked them out with a pencil - the stencils that I have are just the right height for the card - if your stencils are smaller then you can always adjust the height of each book page accordingly. Having cut the letters out along the right hand side, leaving them attached to the card strip, I laid them out so that they spelt out the word Noel and then trimmed the left hand side of the N, O and E so the they were evenly spaced and level on the left hand side of the book. 
I have found that although at a pinch you can make a five letter word book, three or four letters are the best. 'Mum', 'Dad', 'Joy', 'Love' are all word books that work well. I chose Noel as I am not very fond of Xmas as an abbreviation for Christmas. I covered the letters with paper and trimmed them at the back. The green paper was plain, so I stamped over it with the fir branch stamp from the Special Christmas set by Anna Marie Designs and a Versamark ink pad to create a water mark effect. I edged the outside of each letter with gold peel offs, both to neaten up the edges and to emphasise the letters.
On the left over card, I stamped two of the Crazy Birds by Tim Holtz twice using Tuxedo Black Memento ink; 
two Christmas hats from the Crazy Things stamp set in the same ink and two candy canes using Vermilion Archival ink. 
Having laid out the card including the birds, I decided that I needed to link the outside of the card with the Merry Christmas that I had stamped on the 'L' page using the words from the Claritystamp word chain 13 set using the Ranger Black Tie ink pad.
As a final touch, I found a strip stamp with bird tracks from the Fun Strip set by Dovecraft and added them along the bottom of the 'O' and the 'E' pages. Once I was happy with the rough layout, I scored a line 1cm in from the left hand edge of each of the pages; glued the pages together; used my Cropadile to punch two holes and added gold, red and green metallic elastic which I knotted at the front. The card stands up really well with the pages only slightly open.
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