DIY Sticker Book using the Heidi Swapp Cinch

It's my oldest daughter Milly's birthday tomorrow, August 23rd. I always struggle with what to buy for birthday presents. Mostly because kids her age (turning 5) don't really care where it came from, how fancy it is and if it's the in toy, and I really want to keep celebrating that as long as humanly possible. I know one day all those things will come in to play when it comes to choosing a gift for a teenage Milly. Hopefully not, but most likely haha. So this year I wanted to play into the whole going to school, big school, real school! I found an awesome cat backpack in the sale section at Pottery Barn Kids and had her name monogramed into it. Did you know they will monogram anything that's monogramable that you buy from there for $10 per line (I'll add pictures later).  I decided to collect all things Milly and fill the backpack with them. A horse felt play board from Michaels, a grow your own dinosaur, new sparkly ears from H&M, a dry erase printing practice board from Michaels, a key chain beanie boo, a small cat binder full of paper to colour and draw on, and a sticker book. I could not for the life of me find a sticker book! I remember having a few sticker books as a kid and I played with them for hours and hours and hours. So I decided to make one.  I'll share the process below.

It turned out awesome! I made a little overview video for the DIY sticker book :) *follow that link to see it on vimeo if you prefer

Here is a little breakdown of how the book came together.
I purchased a couple packages of self laminating laminator sheets from Dollarama. Went through my patterned paper stash and picked out the papers I thought Milly would love. Trimmed those down to 8.5 x 11 (slightly smaller) - to fit inside the laminator sheets. Laminated each paper, putting some back to back inside the laminating sheets, depending on which side of the paper I wanted showing. I also pulled a couple pieces of vellum to add some fun.

I found some fabric thickers to use for the title. I kept them on the outside of the title page as they are too thick to lay flat under the laminating sheet. You could however use flat alphabet stickers if you wanted. I like the added dimension. I may end up sewing them down if they aren't sticking, so far they are fine.

To get the alphabets straight and centered I use a ruler, line them up on the edge then move the ruler to where you want to stick them down on the page. You can do this with clear packaging as well if you can seem to find your ruler :)

The next step is deciding where you want the pages to be in your book.

The last step is binding the pages. I have this super cool machine called a cinch, my version is the adorable Heidi Swapp Cinch machine. I just couldn't resist the cute black and white stripes and gold details (I bought mine at Michaels with a coupon last summer). I've made a few fun little minis with it! I follow her little tutorial found here as I always seem to mess up the process :) Be sure to do a practice round with a few of scrap sheets of paper in the same size as your book before committing the process on your actual book.

I hope you've enjoyed my little tutorial and be sure to tag me in your photos should you give it a go! :)