One of my favorite kind of books to make is a wedding guest book! It’s exciting to be a part of a day that marks a new beginning for a loving couple.

Melanie and Tony asked me to create a one-of-a-kind guest book for them. The Scripture verse “My lover is mine, and I am his” graced the cover.

Their wedding colors were earthy tones, so I mimicked this in their book using soft, brown recycled paper, brown satin tie ribbons, and earth-toned papers for the pages.

A nice, green paisley paper added the finished touches to the inside cover.

And no wedding book would be complete without a little personalization!

Names and a very important date, all surrounded by heart-shaped brads.

Tony and Melanie, thank you for allowing my art to be a detail in your special day. Here’s to many, many years of wedded bliss!

I printed the picture and used it as inspiration to create some memorable cookies for a friend’s bachelorette party/personal shower.

I called up one of the other bridesmaids, and we spent an evening chopping the tops off of heart-shaped cookies, piping and flooding designs with royal icing, and giggling. A LOT.

The photos don’t do them justice, but you can see we worked very hard to make some unique undies.

My favorites were the “sets” that we displayed on this white platter. Too cute!

Who knew cookies could be naughty?

My client requested three cupcake flavors:

Cookies and Cream:

Chocolate:

Strawberry (no in-process photo…oops!)

She wanted all the cupcakes to have strawberry buttercream icing and asked that the three varieties be covered in different shades of pink.

Sometimes people have NO IDEA what they want in terms of flavors or design and I love guiding them towards a decision.

Other times, they know exactly what they want and my job is merely to knock their socks off by fulfilling their requests. And I do love to please. So follow her directions I did.

I must take a moment here to say that I got plastic cupcake carriers from Midwest Baking Supply and was totally thrilled with them. They were well-constructed, inexpensive, and made transporting the cupcakes so easy. Plus, they look very professional. Even though I consider baking a hobby (at least right now), there’s no reason I can’t be as professional as possible!

This was a fun project and I look forward to doing multiple variations of cupcakes again in the near future!

***

What, you’ve never heard of a Cupcake Kabob before?!

The first thing I did to prep the kabobs was grab a bunch of these:

And a bunch of these:

If I could help it, I didn’t want to repeat colors on each kabob, so I skewered the candied fruit slices on the sticks so I could get a feel for how things would pan out.

The next several steps are the same ones I followed to make the Lamington Mini-Cupcakes. In fact, the same mini-cuppies were used, so I just repeated the photos here in case you missed the Lamingtons post (shame on you, by the way).

Like I mentioned before, it made a BIG batch…which is good when you have lots of kabobs to create!

The icing was a simple paste made of warm milk and confectioner’s sugar.

Each mini cupcake was hand-dipped in the icing,

and the excess was given a moment to run off.

Here’s the tricky part…you have to refrain from just gobbling these up after they are dipped. It’s difficult, let me tell you! Especially since they are so miniature and cute!

Since I managed a sliver of self-control long enough to add some sugar sprinkles, this was the final result:

Now, repeat a million times with various colors of sugar sprinkles.

Okay, maybe not a million, but MANY times nonetheless.

Mmm. If you are the impatient type, you could just stop here, slap these babies on a plate, and call it a day. You just wouldn’t be able to call them “kabobs.”

I then added one cupcake of each color (orange, yellow, pink) to a skewer, alternating fruit slices in between.

And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat….

Since these were for a bake sale, I wrapped each one in cellophane, tied the ends with cheerful yellow ribbon and called it a day.

They were absolutely darling.

And I was absolutely spent.

Now THAT’S quite the title for a book, isn’t it, ladies?! I can tell you that since marrying Andrew last May, my life has certainly felt like an adventure! And I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for the world!

My friend Alison found this book at an estate sale and asked me to convert it into a journal for her.

Clearly, this book was very old-school…I based my assessment not only on the cover design, but also on the fact that the author’s name was listed as “Mrs. Norman Vincent Peale”. My, how far we’ve come.

I do love the debossed elements that these old covers have…here, two intertwined rings. I’d love to see some newer books incorporate that old debossed look.

After cutting several stacks of folded pages to size, I selected bright stripes for the inside paste pages. The colors just seemed so happy-go-lucky and ready for anything…

…including adventure!

I think a book like this would be a fantastic wedding gift…a place where couples could document their journey towards wedded bliss.

If you have any old books you’d like to turn into journals or sketchbooks, shoot me an email or leave a comment on this post! I’d be happy to give your old books a new life!

I LOVE making lots of books at once. It’s so satisfying to make an entire collection, knowing that although they are alike, each book will be given a different home.

I made six books for Sam and Candace: one for each of their 5 groomsmen and one for Sam himself.

The books were black suede covers with an antique crackle paper for the facing pages.

Each one had a personalized place inside the front cover with space for Sam to write a heartfelt note.

The inscription color alternated for each guy and coordinated directly with their ribbon bookmark.

The best part was seeing them all together and day-dreaming about all the amazing thoughts and observations that would fill their pages.

Sam and Candace: Thanks for asking me to make these. May they bless the guys who received them!

((Note: The Artist’s Way is NOT for the faint-of-heart or for people who are content to live their lives in a state of ‘comfortable complacency’. It’s terrific, but it’ll rock your world!))

Anyway, back to the point. Sam and Candace got engaged and in doing so asked me to make them a one-of-a-kind guest book as well as gifts for their groomsmen–come back tomorrow to see those.

I made a 6×6 hard-cover book with a photo of the couple on the front.

Their wedding date was showcased in a label holder–complete with heart brads, aww! ;) on the book’s spine.

Candace likes the type of floral patterns you’d seen on Anthropologie’s website, so I gave them several options and they chose a muted blue, green, and sage motif for the paste pages.

To match the paste pages, I used blue, green, and cream colored cardstock for the book’s guts.

A silver satin ribbon tie enclosure completed the look.

Sam and Candace: Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your very special day. I wish you all the best of God’s blessings as you two embark on this wonderful journey called Marriage together!

Two years ago, I made this book for my (then) boyfriend, who is now my husband!…not that the book caused that transition, mind you, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt either.

It was a simple book, really. 8.5″ square, covered in blue velour fabric.

I used letter brads and a mesh heart brad to spell out the following message on the cover:

Throughout the book, I used the theme of “Love…” from 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8. For each “Love…(is patient, is kind, never fails, etc.)”, I placed a photo of myself on the left-hand side of the page.

On the right-hand side of the page, I wrote a sentence or two about my feelings for Andrew and how his love for me (or my love for him) fit that “Love is” message.

Some were just plain silly.

Some were more contemplative.

Some involved inside jokes.

Some were heart-warming (that’s me with Andrew’s two daughters).

My love for Andrew grew even as I put this book together. I am willing to bet that a gift like this would strike a chord with your sweetie as well. You still have time to put together a Love Album before Valentine’s Day. And I can help! Visit the Contact tab in the top right corner of your screen for more information!

I got a great email from a woman I’d never met before. Her name is Peggy and she wrote: “My children are grown and married [...] for Christmas I want to give them a book that on the first page I will write a message/prayer to them. Then in the following pages my hope is that the couple would write love notes/prayers back and forth for each other. My thought is that this would be such a beautiful keepsake for them and for their children and grandchildren one day. [...]  I know I could go to Mardels and get a “journal book” but I think something more personal would be so much more special.”

I loved Peggy’s idea and immediately contacted her to accept the project. Peggy wanted to include the names or initials of each couple and wanted two soft-bound and two hard-bound books. She gave me some pointers on each couple’s favorite colors/style, and I set to work collecting supplies. Below is the final result.

AARON and LAUREN
Aaron and Lauren are engaged to be married and love the color blue. I started with a sapphire blue suede cover.

The inside paste pages were made from scrapbook paper resembling burlap. A black satin ribbon bookmark was added so Aaron and Lauren could mark the page where they left off.

Slide-on alphas spelled out their names on the cover. Silver star brads helped keep the ribbon secure.

BRANDON and JODI
For their book cover, I used a flat black cotton cloth and alpha brads bearing their initials.

I carved grooves into the book boards before binding to give the plain black cover a little punch.

The inside paste pages were zebra stripes, Jodi’s favorite:

The ETHRIDGES
For the Ethridges, I used a vibrant red suede cover and circular alpha brads in an alternating pattern of black and clear.

I used a funky retro circles paper on the inside and added a brown satin ribbon bookmark.

TOMMY and HEATHER
For Tommy and Heather’s book, I covered the boards in my blue-gold bookbinding cloth. The inside paste pages were a cube/column pattern reminiscent of 1980s video games.

I added a brown satin ribbon bookmark as well as heart brads on the spine.

On the cover, I included their initials and a mesh heart brad.

Peggy, thank you for allowing me to bring your wonderful idea to life! I’d love to hear how these books bless your family for generations to come! I know I’d enjoy reading love letters that my parents or grandparents had written each other. God bless!

This would be a wonderful wedding or anniversary gift! If you are interested in having a Legacy Journal made for your significant other or for loved ones in your life, contact me. Let’s preserve those memories!

I’m more of a golfer than a footballer, so I found this sweet photo online that I could use to get the proportions of the design fairly accurate.

After baking two chocolate layers and stacking them, I carved them into a football shape using my trusty bread knife and set to the task of icing the whole thing.

Here’s a glimpse of the base coat.

I used homemade marshmallow fondant to construct the laces. I was really pleased with how well they turned out. I also used strips of fondant for the stripes on either end of the ball (not shown, see below).

Next, I used piped stars to create the OU logo (while simultaneously attempting not to feel like a traitor to the real Big Red back in NE. )

To finish off the edges of the cake, I added some green ‘grass’.

I was really pleased with the final result. I later found out that Nick and Mary received lots of compliments on this cake at the wedding reception–the main one being that it was even better than their professionally-made wedding cake. Wow! I was flattered to hear that!

Nick and Mary, thank you for allowing me to be a special part of your big day. All of God’s blessings and happiness to you both!

–Abbi