In Rosie's Book: QuicKutz Cookie Cutter Die Set

Why Rosie's Book?

While growing up, I had a dear friend, Renee, that lived next door and with whom I spent much of my childhood. We grew, in different directions, and went on our merry way. Many years later, I ran into her parents and they kindly reminded me of the laughs they still have over my book. “What book?” I wondered with a puzzled look. "I don't remember a book." Hardy laughter accompanied their response. At some time during our childhood, I tried to convince Renee about something that her parents didn’t agree with. I told her that proof of its truth could be found “in my book.” Naturally she went home and tried to convince her parents of the same thing but they weren’t falling for it. She needed an edge and told them emphatically, “It’s in Rosie’s book!” After they caught their breaths from reborn laughter, they let me know how “Rosie’s book” has been cited for many other things throughout the years. They’ve also mentioned that they’d like to see “Rosie’s book” one day. I can’t remember all of the things that I said were in “my book” but I’m sure my dear friend’s parents can recall much more than I ever knew about – LOL!!! So, here it is . . . my version of things you might find In Rosie’s Book . . .

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

QuicKutz Cookie Cutter Die Set - Composition Book

QuicKutz has added to their fabulous line of mini-album die cuts. Their latest release is a wonderful 4-piece cookie cutter die cut set called Composition Book. The set contains a large cover/page with rounded corners, a spine, a 3-lined journal box and a slightly larger mat. I’m thrilled with my first project using this set and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of use out of it. I’ll show you a few pages of a mini-album I made as a gift for a friend’s granddaughter who was recently recognized in our local newspaper for designing a dance costume that she wore in an Irish dancing competition.

While this project reminded me that I had, long, long ago, performed, in costume, with a Polish dancing group, I am not of Irish descent so I can only hope that my choice of colors and patterns for Irish dancing are at least reasonable.

When all 4 dies are used together for the cover, the result is a very classic and clean presentation. There’s plenty of room to embellish and add more detail, if desired. I added the loose elastic cord around the book for gift giving and expect that it will help to keep the book from yawning open when all of the pages are completed.

The size of a single page is a whopping 7” high x 5 ¼” wide. When paired up with the adjacent page, you have the potential for a very large, 10 ½” wide, surface for a double layout. That’s a significantly sized surface for a mini-album!

In this photo of the center of the book you can see the yellow stitching at the center score line. This stitching is through a transparency, 4 sheets of heavy white textured cardstock and another blue textured cardstock spine. The simple stitching provides a very professional-looking finish! If you score and fold your cardstock before die cutting, then place the folded edge of the cardstock near, but not over the straight edge of the die cut, you’ll produce a number of stackable pages ready for your stitching line. Find a great how-to by QuicKutz-lover, Sharron M. Hoff, here.

This Lucky Me mini-album gift contains 16 sturdy base pages + 4 transparency pages + the sturdy insides of the front and back covers!!! That’s a lot of space for recording great memories in this mini-album! I’ve left 14 pages blank for our friend’s granddaughter to add her own pictures and journaling.

The QuicKutz Composition Book die cut set is easy to use. Its pages are large enough to include good size photos, journaling and embellishments. The clean and classic look is a nice change from mini-book bindings of staples, coils, rings and ribbons. The professional looking finish makes for a magnificent completed project.

Thanks for stopping by! I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what you think about this QuicKutz Composition Book mini-album project.

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Edited 8/12/10 to add:

Dear Rose,
     I wanted to thank you so much for the beautiful booklet and scrapbook page you made for me using the newspaper articles about my dancing. They really are a work of art; something I can use to look back on my journey through dancing years from now. I plan to either frame the scrapbook page, or to create a book of my own and place it in there. I have started to take interest in design whether it be in clothing or other projects like scrapbooks and in seeing your work I was able to learn more about different techniques used in creating something so unique. Even the slightest embellishments used really bring the piece to life and add extra beauty to it. I showed both pieces to my Clothing Technology teacher (who often stresses to us the importance of design and presentation) and she was in awe as she looked at them as I was too when my Pop-Pop first gave them to me. I am so excited to have something to commemorate my accomplishments this year and to have these as keepsakes. Again I would like to say thank you so much for sharing your talent with me!
                                                                   Sincerely,
                                                                           Victoria F.

Here's the scrapbook page she mentioned. The article was so long that I had to add a fold-out to include it all on one layout.

Victoria, the pleasure was all mine. Good luck in all you do!

1 comment:

Unknown said...: Rose, this book looks great, not as frilly as the other normal books, my grandaughter would love something like this, if I started it for her, she is 10 this August and just getting into scrapping with her Grandma, so I will have to think about this one, thanks, especially as I will have them a good deal of the summer, have to keep them busy!! You did a beautiful job on yours. My grandson (8) might even enjoy keeping a mini journal!
Donna; June 2, 2010 at 11:52 AM