Monster Train Books!

So, in September I thought to myself, "I love that Monster train mini by Laura Dennison! I should make Nate & Evan (my nephews) each one for Christmas this year!" I bought the pattern off her Etsy site (http://www.etsy.com/shop/followthepapertrail) If you have not heard of this woman - Go, Do Not collect $200 - GO to her blog and check her out!!! Her blog is http://followingthepapertrail.blogspot.com/ She has a creative mind like no other! Amazing!

Anyway, I bought the All Aboard train template off her Etsy site. It gives the dimensions and instructions for making a train mini album. I figured I would get started early so I wouldn't be down to the wire for Christmas. Sure I finished yesterday (12/21/10)! But it is finished!!!

I decided I wanted this to be a gift for the boys and not for their mom so I decided to change it up a bit! A mini album with tags, journalling and pictures wouldn't be as much fun for the boys as a Children's book about monsters riding the train! I decided that each monster tag would have a story on the back with the monsters' name and why they were riding the train. I figured this would be an interactive book for the boys! They could swap out passengers and have fun learning about different occupations and activities.

It was challenging to come up with 24 stories, names, not to mention have them fit in a 2" x 3" block when printed! It was fun though! I felt like J.K. Rowling (OK not really but still! LOL!).

I first made 2 trains - I wanted them to be the same but different. I used different paper collections to accomplish this. One is made using patterned papers from the Offbeat Collection from Basic Grey. Fun bright colors! The other train uses the Orbit Collection by Crate Paper. Once the books were completed it was time to start making monsters.

Each train holds 12 monsters - yes that means I had 24 MONSTERS to make! I decided to make things a bit easier on myself and used the 12 monsters Laura designed (instructions included in pattern) and invented 12 new monsters of my own! This was a lot of fun but mega time consuming!!! Each train has a mix of Laura and Amy Monsters. They came out great!

I bound the book with my Cinch from We R Memory Keepers. I LOVE this thing! It is so easy to use and in this case I needed the function of shutting off certain holes. It worked great! I also decided to laminate the tags so no monster parts would come off when going in and out of the pockets. Plus they slide in and out much easier now.

As you can tell, I am just thrilled with how they came out! I know the boys, ages 3 and 5, will have no idea how many hours I spent making these but I hope they will get a few hours of joy from them! Thanks so much for joining me! More train pictures to come soon! Happy Holidays!