Baby Face Book

face book - /ˈfās bo͝ok/ n. a book of faces

I got the idea to make a "face book" when I noticed my own son, James naming things in books.  I thought, wouldn't it be nice for there to be a book with faces of family and friends for him to name? Of course I went to consult Pinterest to see what others were doing with this idea.

There were a few ideas but nothing crazy.  Most people just sent it off to Shutterfly or any of those online photobook makers and viola!  But what if I wanted to add more people?  I'd have to order a whole new book since I wouldn't be able to just stick in new pages.  So I decided to make my own book, of course! ;)

The book cover was made with cotton fabric, quilted padding, and iron-on interfacing.
Measures roughly 13.75" x 9" laid flat.  When folded over like a book, it's about 6" x 9" with an 1.75" spine.

I made this book for my nephew, Cody, for his 1st birthday.  Happy birthday sweet babe. ❤️

Front side of cover - unsown edges. Gray fabric is just hemmed with one fold and a straight stitch.

Close up of the stem stitch for Cody's name on the front cover.

This is the inside of the cover upside down.  The solid yellow piece is a pocket. Unfortunately I got too excited when making this, I forgot to take process shots of how I got to this point.  I basically placed the two right sides together and sewed only 3 sides together (placing the straps inside as well). Flipped it inside out and now in this pic, you can see that I pinned the bottom in place.

I made a straight stitch all the way around the entire project to enclose it and to make it look more finished.

Here is what the outside looks like after sewing around the entire circumference of the cover.

The next step was to sew 4 button holes in the center for the binder ring to go through.  Here you see the binder rings already inserted.  If you don't want to have the binder rings stick out to the other side of your book, you can make the button holes before hand on only the inside piece of fabric before you sew up the book. BUT, if you look at the next pic you'll see why I purposely had the binder rings stick out the front through both layers. Also, I feel like having the binder rings go through the entire cover makes it more sturdy.

Next, I added a handle by folding over some fabric, lined with interfacing and measured it to the length between to two binder rings.  This handle not only looks good and is useful, it also covers up the binder rings that stuck out of the cover.

Here is the finished cover! I am super happy with how this turned out!

Happy sewing and creating! ♥ jen