Tuesday, March 17, 2009

He deserved this... Valentine.

Whoa. I'm way late. Only a month and three days. So Brad was my Valentine this year. He is pretty hot and awesome. I guess he heard through the grapevine that I write about him frequently, so he checks my blog when he remembers. Or misses me. I think? So I guess I can't really hide my feelings for him anymore. I made him this.
But am scared to give it to him? Should I?
Jk. He has read it, seen it, shown it, whatever guys do. But its actually in my room right now. I need to see it at all times, to make sure it is kept safe. Jk. I dont know why I have it.

Ya that's a book. See I bought the book at the DI for like...2 dollars, then the guy at the counter (he loves me and knows I'm a regular for purchasing books) he gave me a discount...so it really was only about 1 dollar. Probably.

Then I covered it with paper. Then I put ribbon on the back of it. Just because the paper tends to come off if you put paper all the way around it. Then I Mod-Podged over the paper. Mod Podge is fun. Sticky but fun. I then placed a bookmark of brown ribbon in the book. This was because it looked nice. I then punched holes in both sides of the book in order to close it-tie it, with another brown ribbon. I punched those holes with a crop-a-dile big bite.


This is the first page. The 123 means to lift the flaps. Some people struggle with the interactive side of this book. I think it is a book for educated people. Or inquiry-based people. Regardless... the flaps say. 1. our 2. Love 3. Story. Get it? Our love story... so I found those words in the actual book then cut down to them with an exacto knife..but then there were holes in all my pages that I couldnt cover up, so I just ripped out all those hole pages, and salvaged the our, love, and story words and posted them under this page. Whew...glad I got that out in less than a million words. The picture of us, is actually a Costco sticker that I ordered, you may see more of them. Yep, you will. I may stick them all over my face. Or yours. Probably yours. I don't want them on my face. Why would I put a sticker of my face on my face? I wouldn't. But I would on yours. Totally would. K moving on.

Oh did I mention that I sewed, hand sewed the word 'love' right there on the right.


Here lies the next page. If you can follow it....it Says..."me & you Began At BYU 41st Ward'
Then the little pocket holds the byu 41st ward and it pulls out. On the pocket it says Love at first sight. There is a costco sticker on the left hand side. Don't ask the meaning of the camera. i liked it. And I made it pop out. And i like how I ripped out the pages and used them as borders sometimes. I also like the mod-podged pocket I made. I like it.
This now is the next page. A few things to notice....
I made another pocket. The pocket holds the program from that Sunday, that we met. There is also the beginning of our story. I won't put that on here. Its only 15 single space pages on Microsoft Word. 11 point font. Totally normal.

Here is another page. Kinda complicated. I inculed a center pop out envelope. Which I made...I like making envelopes, then I place a grommet? ya whatever in the center of the flap and put a ribbon through the hole and put something that is 3-d in order to hold the ribbon which ties around. This is probably boring you. I know this isn't a how to scrap a book for Brad blog. If it was, I would probably rich by teaching people how to make envelopes and place stickers of our faces all over. Yep I would be rich. Anyway, sometimes I don't make sense.

So the envelope holds part of the story. That I wrote. About our love.
And this is the next page, you can kinda see the envelope on the left. The one in the previous picture, remember? So this is a costco sticker on a sticky thing that has texture and is three-d, and three ribbons, which match the paper,and I love. I like the colors. I like the color combo. Who wouldn't, please everyone who is normal would.
Now please let me tell you...I did not include all of the pages. I figured that would bore you to absolute death. So I just included some of my favorites. And some that aren't (that word has a squiggle under it? why? I totally spelled it right. Aren't, .. weird.) my favorites, but might be your favorites.
This one is kinda awesome. In the envelope I have here, which I made... is a picture of Brad and I...resembling the picture to the left here. Except we are much hotter. And way more serious.
This is one of my favorites. We have here a hanging envelope which includes a card, three things I love about Brad. Then the story is all over here. Then the pop up heart that comes up when you open the book. Then the hanging card that is stamped with my love, and it says, "Brad you are a hunk" -Brittany. Super romantic, I know. I guess you should know how I printed my story. I cut the paper to what size I needed it to be, chose the font color and size and type, then printed it. Sometimes it went in crooked, sometimes it jammed. Sometimes I swore. In my head, not out loud, that would be pointless and fruitless because nobody would hear me. And I would just feel like an idiot swearing to myself because the paper jammed. But really..it was a task. And sometimes, when I felt like I had only plowed through 3 single space pages on Microsoft Word and I had already spent a million trillion gazillion hours on it, I made the font reallllyyyyy teeny, so I could get more on there. And...feel like it was going fast. When . . it really wasn't at all.
Oh ya, I left space for him to write his story too.

A lot of people like this page. Me too. I cut out a heart from the book pages and pasted it on paper, then I sharpied (is that an action verb? is now.) the whole page on the next page, and left the word 'us' because it was there, I was trying to just finish this lovely thing. And...here we have it. An awesomely simple page. Those are brads at the top of the story. Ironic, I put brads in your book Brad. Dumb? Probably. But oh well.
This page here on the right is my favorite. Maybe, I have lots of favorites. I bought the die cut pop out whatever they are a while ago and when creativity fails you, just use the words 'love' and the name of your love, in my case, 'Brad'. So its my favorite because I love sewing paper by hand. I ripped the page in half, but kept it intact. Then sewed a new piece of paper on it. So its a bit fragile. Costco sticker on your left.

This was mostly everyone's favorite page. Not sure why. But it was. I think the hinges. This is the story of our first hug. Ask Brad about it. He really didn't hug me very well at all. I actually told myself I couldn't date him anymore as he walked out my front door, because his hug was so....unlike me. I prefer to be hugged like the person likes me, or why waste the motions of a hug? To burn calories? No, awkward. So I would have rather him not even have hugged me if he is going to hug like that. But....then I would not have been able to write about it. So...thanks for being so great at hugging that first time Brad! (if you don't know that that is sarcastic, this little note in parentheses is telling you that it is sarcastic.)So it opens. and it has hinges. Hinges on paper. Thank you big bite.
Oh and don't my fingers look great in this photo. All wrinkled and manly. My nails may have been bitten in the past 20 hours. Maybe. Oh, so the paper folds down again, and more story is visible.
This is our 'first kiss page' See the words 'kiss me' on the top left. Then brad on the bottom right. So this font is teeny tiny, cuz I wrote a lot about our first kiss. I asked my friend Kaitlin to give me the picture of us from her party, which we were at before we kissed. I had only known him like six days. Gross? Nope, awesome. This is a pocket that pulls out lots of stuff, a card for him to write his story on, a picture of us, a card that says, 'i knew I would love you forever when....' and ya...so we kissed. And we still do sometimes.
I did this page ultra fast. It was after a five hour session of working on the book sitting indian style and I was ready to eat. Sometimes when working on this book, I forgot to eat, and got high off of glue. Normal. Totally normal. This flap that says, 'it must be love' lifts up and the story is underneath. Sometimes I did things the long way, and I was like, wow that took forever and shouldnt have. That was this page.
Here is another speed job, but sometimes simple is awesome.
I like this page. Hence why I put i here. It has a pocket that I made and Mod-Podged with a bird sticker on it, and a love stamp up top and a love hanging card, and story. Lots of story. Also, this is a list in which I wrote a day or two after meeting him, its cute, you should read it.
Now this wasn't part of the story. This was my own words, which I wrote that day in my journal then ripped them out. It was a letter to Brad, and I tear up when I read it out loud to people. Its romantic. Trust me.



This is a fun filled page of wonderfulness. This is about the first time he said, I love you. Ya he tells me that sometimes. There is a picture of us skiing that day, New Years day, he was snowboarding. And then a flap that contains lots of fun stuff. He said she said card. Then Remember when you said....And I wrote, 'you loved me?' I love metal stuff. The bottom right. Metal. It says, 'friends with benefits' Jk, it says best friends. Or, 'best lovers' Jk, it says best friends. Im done just kidding. Nope, probably not.


So here is when I ended it. Not our relationship, duh, but the book. I gave up on Scrap and just started throwin it all together. STuck a sticker on the left and another sticker that said love under that. then glued a picture to a paper then glued that paper to another paper to the book. Thats all. So here it says....This is the end..but really it is the beginning....... Then the next page says, 'to our love story. So if you put it together it will say, This is the end, but really it is the beginning to our love story.
Oh here we go. Costco sticker attack. Our love story. So ya read the first page.
Here is my about the author page. Oh did I forget to tell you? I think I did. The night before Valentines....wow that sounds like the night before Christmas, well its not, but its similar, and better. The night before, (NB) brad wouldn't leave, and I had SOOOO much to do on his book. I never really have 'wanted' him to leave before. Until this night. I had like anxiety, am I going to finish it in time. He asked me when he could see me the next day. I was like..uh..........how about six? HA! Ya right, he knew I wasn't doing anything, because I'm a abad liar, but I had to lie more and more and say I had homework. Who has homework on VDAY, nobody. Unless you are lame VDAY haters. I hate VDAYs without a boyfriend. I love VDAYS with a Brad Boyfriend. Gosh can I write one blog post without talking about him? Probably not. So he left who knows what time, for the sake of the BYU honor code, and me always keeping it we will say midnight. He left at midnight. Then I worked on this book for NINE hours straight. I thought I would need caffeine. But I didnt, I just ate candy all night and focused. No music either, I dont know why. I should have listened to music. Then I went down stairs and talked to Landon in the morning, ate something and I was loopy. Then...I went to sleep, then I did about two more hours of finishing touches. 100 hours later, the book was finished. I think it was about 84 hours, but 100 sounds better. Way better. I remember when I hit forty hours on it. That was when I wasn't even close to done. I felt kinda overwhelmed, it was only a few days till VDAy. Yikes. I am always with him, when am I gonna finish this, work, sleep, and go to school and take tests and do well and not fail, and buy pencils at the testing center? That cost thirty cents but they put it on your student account so you have to pay it off with a credit card. Can I not find 30 pennies on the floor before I buy it? No. I cant. Was that a tangent, yes it was. Memory of the loopiness is coming back to me and I am feeling it again. So I stayed up a long time. All night to finish it. Ya I probably slept on our Vday date.
It's thick, because of all the three d awesomeness.
see it? just in case you don't, I posted a different view of it.
Thats my bedspread in the background with my down comforter, pretty huh? I dont make my bed.
Here Brad, Have this book.


Who wouldn't want to make this face something wonderful, like a book. I would, so I did, and disregard that he is on his cell phone and not really into the whole, hey I'm gonna take a picture of you thingy. Headband=hot.

So if you feel like you want to know more about this book, just tell me I would love to sit down with you and go over the process of gluing, tearing, re-gluing and finishing it.

He liked it, I hope you do too.

4 comments:

Karissa said...

He should probably propose.


And you should do that for a living. It's pretty amazing.

And I miss you miss creative, artistic, freakin awesome cool girl.

Kikal said...

I love making altered books! This turned out too cute. I hope you guys get married between May 7th and June 1st b/c I'll be in udah.

Raquel said...

Does he know how blessed he is to be your man? If he doesn't have him call me!

Auntie Raquel

Raimo and Jessica Laitinen said...

I love your book- so cute! Funny thing-- I made a book for Raimo last year for Valentine's and I didn't finish it til like 3 in the morning the day before! We got engaged. True story.