For Buttons

Disclaimer:  This has absolutely nothing to do with actual buttons...so if you are reading this title thinking "Huzzah!  I love buttons...I will check this out...", you will be sadly disappointed.  Just a warning!

Instead, this has to do with my younger sister, Teddy, who is pregnant.  Teddy and Buttons...  Buttons is what we are calling Teddy's baby.  She got tired of me calling her unborn baby 'it', and so from about a week after we found out she was preggo, we have called 'it' Buttons...  This Friday, we get to find out whether Buttons will be a girl or a boy!  (If Buttons cooperates, that is...)  I am excited, because I get to be there!  I can't have any kids of my own, so Teddy is lovingly letting me be a big part of her pregnancy experience.  So as a little surprise, I am giving Teddy a smash book.  (I almost called this post Baby Smash Book, but all I could think was how terrible baby smash sounded, so I decided against that...)

At any rate, smash books are kind of like a scrapbook that you fill with all kinds of ephemera and words and whatever you want.  You can definitely make your own if you were so inclined, and there are lots of cool tutorials for smash books/ junk journals all over the internet.  But I didn't want my limited paper crafting skills to get in the way on this present, so I went with the real deal from K & Company.

This one:



I also got her a bunch of little stickers and doodads to put in the book, gender neutral, as we won't find out till Friday what she is having.

To me a smash book is a very cool, easy way for her to keep track of what its like to be pregnant.  Teddy is one to notoriously put things off, and I don't want her to forget anything that happens.  The smash book seems like a good way to get her to record things, in just a few sentences if she wants, with pictures, or other memorabilia that she can just toss in when she feels like it.  To me a smash book is like a casual scrapbook...where you don't worry too much about how polished it looks if you don't want to.  They are also neat (especially for people like Teddy) because they have the little smash stick (which is a fine tip sharpie on one end and a glue stick on the other) attached right to the book.  That way if you are out somewhere, you can smash stuff right then and not forget about it...pretty smart...

To help Teddy get over the blank page jitters, I did the first page in her book.

Here is the blank page:

Before...

And here is the after:

And After...  Get it...a book about buttons...cause we call the baby Buttons... genius!

On a really cool side note, those button die cuts came from one of my other sisters, Jocelyn.  The library where she lives has a huge die cutting machine that you can use if you bring your own paper!  I checked out my local library, but they don't have one (which made me a sad panda).  But it may be worth checking into at your own local library.  Besides, libraries are awesome in general, so its not like the trip would be wasted.  Plus, some libraries keep a rack of old books and magazines for sale (mine does do this) year round that can be a great source for paper crafting supplies.

I also did the back of the page:

Good quotes!  The yellow is a pocket for a little card I am making...I will post that when I get it done...

I didn't go overboard on the whole decorating end of it.  Teddy is not super crafty, and I didn't want to freak her out with some crazy fancy whatever that would make it be intimidating for her to add to...  Also, while the thick layers of stuff look cool, in reality, it makes it difficult to do the pages that follow...so I kept it simple...  I am trying not to give her any excuse to not just 'smash' the crap out of this smash book!!!

What do you think of smash books?  Any thoughts, I would love to hear whatever you have to say!

~Sully