Introduction: Simple Personalized Cards/upcycled Hardcover Book (Mother's Day Edition).

By www.facebook.com/CraftsDiysAndEv
About: I'm a creative nobody who needs a job at a sweatshop.

I was playing Apples to Apples one night, when I had a vision for another Mother's Day gift.
You may not want to play them like Apples to Apples, but the concept is great!

Vision:
Front- Photo or drawing of family, friends, pets with identification of some kind. (I drew a plaque for mine)
Back- special message, poem, favorite memory written or typed. 

Link to, Dawn from DragoArt's, Alien tutorial (pictured below).

http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/11999/1/1/how-to-draw-alien-easy.htm

Step 1: Materials.

-Ruler
-adhesive of some sort
- scissors
-writing utensils
- 4x6 index cards (any size is fine) double blank

Optional
- hardcover book
- details for hand made book at end.

Step 2: Hand-drawn Portraits.

Well, I'm a bit skilled... in drawing only portraits of myself. 
This is an issue for folks who didn't constantly draw comics of themselves in class while the teacher was lecturing.
I'm not sure if I should give any type of drawing advice to beginners.... but I will say that perfect circles are kind of hard, so practice drawing those, because they make up a lot of cartoons. Tracing is not my forte. :(

Tip: For caricatures or cartoons, with a felt tip pen, mark the rim of the whole drawing. Go in after with a thin tip pen to go over the finer details. (picture 2)

I would personalize these portraits (not sure if I should keep calling them portraits) by incorporating inside jokes, funny family events, anything that's going to spark positive emotions from the gift receiver. Anyone who has written a message should have a portrait. It can be of them or not. 
Color is optional. Borders are optional.

Step 3: Photos/obscurity.

If one is not skilled in drawing, the easiest way to overcome is with a nice camera or old photos you wouldn't mind potentially destroying. ;)
 The same outline of writing a special message applies to the photographs if you want. Tear-jerkers or baby pictures are great for ultimate annihilation of store bought gifts from your relatives. 

I think there are some folks out there who would appreciate a message from Alien, Pee Wee Herman, Mark Hamill or maybe even Irving Berlin. It all depends on what the likes are. This project is hopefully versatile enough. 

Step 4: Fin or Semi-Fin.

You are (perhaps) done!
If you are done with your portraits and would like a nice idea for displaying them, https://www.instructables.com/id/Old-Book-New-Sketchbook/  This is a very interesting idea for display. This does take a bit of calculator knowledge. If you've printed the pages for a planned out book, page count and order is essential. 

Write what was going to be on the back on a separate sheet of paper. Glue, tape, staple the portraits to the pages of an undesired book. I read that taking out every other page of the book would make fitting the cards in better. After the glue is dry, write, type the message on the back side of the portrait. 

I hope this idea was helpful and useful. Be creative!
I also hope you had fun!