Paste Paper Wedding Guest Book

One of my best friends got married Saturday. It was the second time around for both bride and groom and marks the beginning of two families joining together not just two people. The ceremony, in a monastery chapel with huge windows overlooking a beautiful valley covered with trees, was everything it needed to be: special, elegant, and heart-felt. The reception, held at Genitti's Hole-in-the-Wall had, as you might guess, a more fun, casual feel to it. The bride asked me to make the guest book. With the less formal feel in mind, I made the following book...

First, I paste painted a large sheet of Fabriano paper. One side has lines of varying widths that act as guides for the guests to write on. The other side is painted in the same colors but has no discernible texture to it. Her daughter and sister wore green attendant dresses so that's where all the green comes from. The color of the dresses and the book is a light "celery" color.

I kept it pretty simple as the words from the guests on the inside are the most important part of the book.

This is the picture she gave me to work with. Nice of the two of them but a not-so-great background. I sanded the background over a textured printing plate and then scratched into the background with an awl. Then came watercolor and oil pastels. Finally it was sprayed with a fixative.

On the inside front cover the Irish Wedding Blessing was printed on a sheet of vellum and then tucked into the folded cover. The folded part, on the left, is glued down and holds the vellum in place.

For the structure I used Teesha Moore's wonderful 16-page-book-from-one-sheet-of-paper directions. You can see the video here. I had to change Teesha's directions to fit the dimensions of my paper so this book was not a vertical 8" x 10 but about a horizontal 9" x 7". This structure worked really well as the book could lie flat when open so people could write in it without the cover getting in the way. While not a typical, "sign here" type of guest book, it fit the occasion. Guests were able to write a prayer, a wish or some light-hearted advice where ever they wanted in the the book, including tucked away under the gatefolds.

Their day was beautiful and I hope their new life together is too. They deserve it.

Lorrie