This post is a continuation of my post from earlier this week, As I mentioned in that post, I not only made the majority of the engagement party decorations for my son and his fiancé, but I also made them a gift. I am stopping back by today, as promised, to show you what I designed and created.

Let’s start with the engagement card I made for them:

I kept the overall card design very simple, and yet this card is anything but simple in appearance! I think the embossed heart image is just beautiful, and the contrast between the embossed vellum layer on top of the patterned paper strips is really striking. I love that I was able to personalize this card by incorporating the same paper patterns that I had used on the decorations, and I was also able to customize the ring to resemble the actual engagement ring.

It’s little touches like this that make paper crafting so satisfying!

For my gift, I wanted to give them a way to commemorate and always remember this very special day for many years to come. So, I made them a keepsake album. I used a paper collection from Simple Stories called Happily Ever After for the album. This is an older collection, and I had purchased a few of the kits several years ago for some bridal shower and wedding cards I needed to make.

This collection has coordinating paper patterns as well as stickers, and, in the above photo, you can see the specific papers I used for their album.

I decided to use a 6 x 8 album so that it would fit easily on a bookshelf. The album was designed to have 2 distinct sections–the first section gives them an opportunity to write and record specific information and memories about their engagement day, and the second section is for photos. Let me walk you through the album, cover to cover:

This is the front cover. I absolutely love the background paper, so I didn’t want the title to overpower it. I kept it really simple by framing a white square with coordinating paper, and adding another coordinating strip of paper underneath. The “You & Me” and the arrow are stickers included with the kit. I carried this same design for each of the other two title pages in the book for consistency.

For the spine label, I just adhered a ring onto the same background paper as the front and back covers.

This is what the inside of the front cover looks like. I used a coordinating pattern to cover both the inside front and back covers.

I wrote them a note, so I made a pocket for it and put it on the inside front cover.

Opposite the inside front cover is the first title page of the album. As I mentioned before, each title page has a consistent design with the same background paper, and the same design for the label. I stamped the words, but the ring box is another sticker included in the kit.

The next few pages were designed to give them opportunities to write about their engagement day:

I used page protectors in a variety of different configurations to create these different sections, and each layout used a combination of hand stamping and stickers. It took me a long time to design and make each section, and I worked hard to have the overall appearance of each area be consistent with the others.

We now move into the second section of the album for photos. Again, I kept the label design the same and the title was made with stickers.

I included lots of paper protectors for both landscape and portrait oriented photos. My son’s fiancé’s twin sister ( say that three times fast!) took all of the pictures, so I wanted to make sure that they would have a place to store and protect all of her photos.

I put my logo on the inside of the back cover, and now we have reached the end of the book:

This album was definitely a labor of love, and it really challenged my design skills. I am really proud of the final product, and I hope that they will use it to relive their engagement day for many years to come.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and, as always, remember:

“May the waves kiss your feet; / the sand be your seat; / and your friends out-number the stars”.

-C-