When our niece Kyra asked me to be in charge of a guest book for their wedding reception, I probably said “yes!” before she finished the question. I love projects. I also love simplicity. And weddings. And new love. And I love Kyra. : )
I immediately saw in my mind’s eye the end result. It involved no fluffy, distracting “stuff”. It involved edge-to-edge pictures. It involved a lot of pictures from their engagement shoot. And most importantly, it would be filled with love from so many people that would be there to celebrate with them on the most significant day of their lives.
Whether you have a baby shower, wedding reception, 50th anniversary celebration, or retirement party coming up, here is one way you could put together a guest book. It’s simple and classic. You just can’t go wrong.
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1. Always, always start with your album first. Make sure you know exactly what size you’re dealing with before beginning a project. We decided on a cute & practical 6″ x 6″ size.
2. Prepare your photos for printing. Using digital editing software (I use Photoshop Elements), get your images ready. Because of our 6″ x 6″ size, I created 12″ x 12″ canvases (yay that Costco can now print that size) and put (4) 6″ x 6″ images on each canvas.
3. Print photos.
4. Trim photos.
5. Insert photos. Note: For this title page, I knew this picture would be the title page so I added the text in Photoshop first.
6. Insert blank pages. Note: I decided to put a photo on every left side of the layout and a blank page on every right side. This particular album already came with blank cardstock in each page protector, so lucky me, I saved some time there.
The album is ready for guests to sign! At the reception or party, just take some of the blank pages out and have them on a table with some pens. As they fill up, place them back in page protectors and pull out more blank pages. By the way, I would love to give credit to this awesome little album but nowhere is it branded (and I’ve had it on-hand for years). Sorry.
Jason & Kyra now have this little book of family & friends waiting for them when they get home from their honeymoon. May it always serve as a reminder to them just how loved they are.
anyway you could tell me how to get an edited photo back into iphoto once i edit it in photoshop elements 8? Can’t seem to find this out anywhere! Thanks so much! I want to send the edited photos to an online photo developer and then put them in Project Life!
Thanks
Mila
From iPhoto just import into Library (under “FILE” menu)
Beware! If you do this directly though iPhoto you run the chance of corrupting your file. The Bridge works best for working with photos in PSE. Last year I did about 10-15 hours of research on this because a client wanted to locate her files in iPhoto through PSE. It froze every time. Maybe this is just her Mac, but I always say ‘better safe than sorry’!
I made something very similar for my grandparents anniversary party! It’s a great keepsake!
Wow that is a gorgeous book, and so, so simple!
Awesome way to utilise some of those spare little albums I have stashed away – and I can work it into my OLW too! Yay.
You mentioned that you edited the photos in Photoshop Elements. Do you use the PC or Mac version? If you are using Mac, do you ever use iPhoto? If you use both, what prompts you to use one or the other?
Hi Billie Sue
Becky does use Mac and iPhoto… she mentions this in one of her blog posts.
I love it!!!! My daughter just got engaged and I love this idea for their wedding. Thanks so much for sharing this!!!
A friend of mine did this several years ago. We called it a yearbook style guestbook. We ran into several problems. It didn’t have removable pages (as yours does) so it was difficult to get it around to everyone to sign during the reception. I think they ended up missing several tables.
Another problem was that some of the groom’s friends started writing goofy (and somewhat inappropriate) stuff. Once again, the pages couldn’t be removed, so they were stuck with a book with grandma’s love on the front and “don’t let her boss you around too much” on the back. Ugh.
So my suggestion would be to get the pages passed around and gathered back up before the serious drinking starts.
Great idea Becky! And Great photos! You’re a natural at photography and I love the simplicity of the book.
When I want an edited pic in iphoto, I drag the image from adobe bridge and just place it over my iphoto icon on my dock and then it uploads that image into iphoto. You can also make a duplicated photo, drag to your desktop, then drag it to your iphoto icon, or open iphoto. I’ve never had a problem. You can also do one pic at a time or many pics all at once. Easy!
This is a gift of love they both will treasure forever! What a creative spin to the once-boring guestbook. Great idea, Becky, thanks for sharing!
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What a great project. Thanks for sharing.
Awesome idea-I may suggest it to my husband’s cousin who is graduating high schoo this May. I’d love to put one together for her. If you have any ideas of what to do for pictures I’d love to hear them. I was thinking either pictures of her throughout the school years or pictures that she has taken during her Senior year.
Just for the future if you ever need 6×6 prints again. I do this all the time and print them at Costco as well. For the same price of $2.99 you can also put 6 of your 6×6 prints on a 12×18 print and then cut them. Saves money if you are printing a lot!
I think I’ll do something similar for my daughter’s birthday party. We’re I’ll use the pages to let people leave messages and “sign in” and then use photos from the party to create an easy album. Great idea!!! Thanks!
an incredible idea! Love all the photos… I have no occasion right now, but will certainly be storing that idea for a future project! Thank you for sharing!
When will there be more project life ??? I have a friend that wants to start scrapbooking and she wants to start with project life but can’t buy it???
Thanks
LOVE IT LOVE LOVE IT LOVE IT
Love what you did here! I did a similar thing for my nephews scrapbook that I made him for his graduation. I found these really nice black pages with a silver graduation cap and had them laying out with silver pens for everyone to wish him good luck and then put them into his album.
I love this idea! Now I just need to have a party so I can make one of these! For a baby shower it would be cute to have everyone leave little words of wisdom or tips.
This guest book is so, SO gorgeous Becky!
So simple yet so beautiful.
Gloria H
I created an album once for a friend by having all guest write something on pieces of paper that I then assembled with photos each of the guest/guests – so their guest book was an album that contained a photo of each guest along with their best wishes messages. Your book is great too – makes me think that (if possible) it would be wonderful to have a photo of the each guest/guest with the happy couple (would make for a great thank-you cards).
Great idea for a personalized gift!
Great idea Becky, I going to make one for my parents 50th anniversary. Thanks!!!
What an adorable idea thanks for inspiring us!
What a lovely idea. So much more personal than the generic ones you get from a store.
Love this. So simple and beautiful. Nice job Becky. I’m sure they loved it.
Fun! A beautiful book for a beautiful couple. Makes it even better with your guest messages. Very thoughtful! How did you get the ink to not smear on the glossy pages? I am going to create one using printed photos and put in a photo album that I ordered online. Fun! Thanks for the ideas.
What a fun and simple wedding book!! What fonts did you use for the cover picture? I love the combinations!! Thank you for sharing another FAB project!!
hi becky my husband organized with me to use an album i had picked from the cm range in 2006 it was a 6×6 beautiful white album as our guest book. 2 of my dearest friends took the job off my hands of making my guest book i told them what i had planned and they ran off with it. they went and got the pics printed of the ceremony between then and the reception without me knowing. and added them into the predecorated album that they had made for us it had lovely notes from all our guests.
. its was a lovely surprise when my husband handed it to me in our hotel room that night. we cried our eyes out it was so pretty. a treasure to remember always. im shure ur neice will absolutly love it and treasure it always.
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