Tell A Story with BoBunny

Children’s board books – usually we end up donating them to the library or placing them in a garage sale. Several years ago, as I contemplated which books to put in a sale, I began to consider the board books for reuse. The books might bring a quarter or fifty cents at a garage sale –it seemed hardly worth it considering they could be altered into a fabulous keepsake! The book used in today's project, “Don’t Eat Pete”, was given to us secondhand. The attached tin was filled with Cheerios at one time, and the book itself was a game board of faces who might be “Pete”. I knew this book had altering potential, and set it aside.


Because BoBunny loves to recycle and reuse I am honored to share this "reuse" project, given a new life and a face lift with BoBunny’s wonderful Gypsy collection. The tin is the perfect storage for all the fall treasures our daughter, Abby, is sure to find, and already contains some of her treasures from last fall. The original spiral binding was plastic and purple. The fastest way to alter the binding, and the tin, was to coat it with spray paint suitable on both metal and plastic surfaces.

BoBunny's Chunky Chips Alpha Clear letters were colored with a light coat of acrylic paint, and allowed to dry. Once dry, I sprayed a brown sparkle mist on the letters, which not only toned down the brightness of the paint, but added a sheen of copper on them as well.


A happy circumstance is that each page in the board book measured 5 5/8” x 6”. Once I made that discovery I was thrilled to be able to utilize BoBunny’s Gypsy Collection Cut Outs as my base for each page in the book. I used a border punch and added strips of Gypsy Spice on several pages to balance the spread.


This project provided a great opportunity to use a series of photos I took last fall of our daughter, Abby, playing in the leaves. I really had no plans for the photos on a layout as they are too similar to one another. Our daughter loves to read stories, and she makes up her own as well, creating little books. She inspired me to make up a story, in which Abby is the main character.

Once the photos were matted and added to each of the pages, the story came next, which I chose to narrate with journaling strips. With the pictures and journaling in place it was time to embellish. Since the mini album has a fall theme I wanted to use leaf embellishments. I stamped leaf images with brown chalk inks to various papers in the Gypsy collection, and cut them out using a micro-tip scissors. Tip: to allow the paper design to show through apply ink to your stamp lightly. The leaf cut-outs, as well as flowers from the Gypsy collection, were bling’d with shimmer and sparkle mediums. BoBunny cardstock stickers were used as well. The stickers offer amazing “faux dimension” with the use of drop shadows in the designs. This gives the illusion of depth without adding bulk to this mini album, which I needed to avoid since the spiral binding is not expandable.


I know Abby will love the finished book, which I titled “Fall Treasures – A Story”. Her 7th birthday is coming up very shortly, and I am excited to give it to her. Not only will she love to discover her treasures from last fall in the tin, but she will love that she is the “star” in her very own story.


The next time you have a series of photos and you are not quite sure what to do with them, consider telling a story in the form of a mini album. BoBunny’s 6x6” cut-outs offered in all of their wonderful collections make it easy to create a wonderful keepsake book with very little effort. No matter the age, everyone loves a story – it can be sweet or silly, adventurous or romantic. Let BoBunny be a part of the next story you tell, and it will be treasured from one generation to the next.

Bo Bunny Supplies Used:
Gypsy Collection – Papers: Henna, Spice, Gypsy, Saffron, Cut Outs, Combo Stickers, Fall Favorites Cardstock Stickers, Heart & Homey Cardstock Stickers, iCandy Jewels (Gypsy and Touch of Spice); Harvest Ribbon in 5/8” and 3/8”

BoBunny even offers a 6x6 board book if you don't have a children's book to reuse! The item number, should you like to request one at your store, is BB333.

For additional images of this project, to read the entire story, or to learn how I preserved the leaves used, hop on over to my personal blog. Happy creating!

Rita S.