Easy D.I.Y. Wedding Guestbook

Hi all! Back today sharing another wedding item. This time, its a “day of” element that everyone usually utilizes. The wedding guest book! This is such a personal item that it makes perfect sense that you would want to do it yourself…

The great thing about this guest book project is that you don’t have to worry about book binding glue, the super thick case bound covers, etc. Nope, you can make a guest book out of Cut Card Stock paper and with a little care, it will last too! Give yourself a little time as this one is fairly time consuming to create.

Preparing the Sheets
I used Curious Metallic Cyrogen White 89lb Cover… Just a preference because the metallic finish seems more “wedding-friendly” and important. I am also a big fan of how purely white this sheet is. Very appropriate to the sanctity of this event. Be prepared to use up to 25 cover weight sheets for this.

Be ready to do the SAME thing to multiple sheets. You will be measuring 8″ from the right side of the sheet to lightly mark your score line (used a scoring tool or if you don’t have one, the back side of an Exacto knife works well too). Then you will make 6 equidistant marks for your 3/16″ drill holes. I used a Crop-a-Dile tool since the hole locations are varied and are impossible to make with a normal hole puncher.

You only really need to mark one sheet and then use it as a reference for the rest of your sheets to avoid unnecessary graphite that you’ll have to erase later.

This tool has multiple functions and is great for random/varied hole punching

It’ll be boring, but you’ll have to do the SAME thing to all 25 sheets!

The cover
The cover gets more interesting. Like many guest books that you’ll see. I created a little window for the cover and combined it (affixed with glue) with a backer page. Underneath the acetate, I chose to write out a couple’s name, with the wedding date but this area is also PERFECT for an engagement photo!

Just trim a window out in the center, size can vary, but be mindful of what will be going here so its not too large or too small.

Turn over the cover and tape a piece of acetate on the edges (be sure to do this neatly so that nothing can be seen when you turn it back over)

Once you include whatever you will place underneath the acetate, you can bind these together and move on to the binding portion!

The binding
Before you begin to bind the guestbook, you can opt to add eyelets to the cover holes only… This just finishes the look in my opinion and as this element begins to age, you won’t have to worry about the trimmed holes fraying. I used silver to go with the ribbon I chose.

Again, affixed with the same Crop tool…

After the eyelets are affixed, you can gently thread your Cut Card Stock silver ribbon through ALL the sheets. (Tip: Start in the back and come through the front. When its time to go BACK through, add a little masking tape on the ends of your tape to give it some body so you can pull it through. Works like a charm.) Once you are done, trim the excess of the back.

Decorating
Now the fun begins. Soooo many different ways to embellish this guest book. I found some patterned paper that went with this ribbon PERFECTLY so I had to use it. I thought I’d use a lot more of it, but the punches of this stock seemed like JUST enough, so I stopped. I further embellished the look with a strip of adhesive rhinestones vertically on the end.