A Birthday Gift for a VERY SPECIAL Lady........

Evening all,

LOL I am still here, honest. I'm just pottering away in my own time at the moment rather than doing any challenges, which will more than likely continue for the rest of the year hee hee.

My apologies if I don't blog hop so much either, I only get on my lap-top for a short time in the early evening at the best of times!!!

Anyhoo, I made this for my fab big sister Karen (me being the 'pesky' one ha ha ha) for her recent birthday. It is a junk/smash journal made from 12x12 scrapbook papers. The cover is made from a large cereal packet..................

........this was covered with some wrapping paper then painted, stenciled and doodled on until I was happy.

The internal signatures, 3 in total, are 12x12 papers folded in half and stitched in using a 5 hole pamphlet stitch down the middle. I then had a fiddle and put in the 'X' stitches at the top and bottom to anchor the pages.
The papers I used were single sided and were glued together for stability and edged with various washi tapes. Some pages have pockets for tags and some have additional tip-ins for journaling on. The inside covers have vellum pockets too for some extra storage hee hee........

Hee hee hee, I filled the pockets with various bits of arty/crafty fun, either made by me or pilfered from my stash. I decorated the fronts of the tag inserts too, leaving the backs free for journaling.

I used some of my own hand-made stencils, Tando stencils, Prima stamps and various other stamps from my stash throughout the journal.

Hopefully Karen will have as much fun playing with it as I did making it.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Mahoosive hugs to you all

Dawn x x x x 

Party Bags - MY WAY!!!!!!!!

Evening all,

phew, what a relief this cool breeze is over the last couple of days, my poor tiddlies were not coping with the heat well and were getting VERY grumpy!!!!!!!!

My eldest, Millie, is six this coming Sunday and had an early birthday party at home last Saturday as two of the children she wanted to invite would have been away if we had done it any later!! There were four of them in total, more than enough for our small home lol.

Anyhoo, I decided to do party bags my way - lol CRAFTY ones........

Each of the four party bags had an individual (and all different colour schemes) hand bound pamphlet journal made from manila file folders and craft card. Each one had patterned paper, stickers and images to colour tucked into pockets on the insides of the covers.
In addition to this they each got a roll of stickers, a large sheet of stickers, a glue stick, some felt tip pens and the more traditional bubbles and couple of packs of sweets - ha ha ha ha ha not a crappy plastic toy in sight!!!!!!!!
Millie made the name tags to attach to the bags, which I had cunningly acquired for free (lol if you don't ask nicely you don't get!!!!!!!!) from our local craft shop!!

Front cover

Back cover

Inside front

Inside back

Muppet that I am though, I forgot to take pictures of all the journals before the bags disappeared!! Luckily I managed to grab Millie's before she had demolished it bless her.

Great fun to make and I was so thrilled to get messages of thanks from all the mums too.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, your time and thoughts mean an awful lot to me.

Huge hugs 

Dawn x 

How Much Fun Can You Have With Three Bits of Paper.............................????????

LOTS!!!!!!

Evening All,

I wanted to share this mini-journal with you all. I had SOOOOOOO much fun making it but I will apologise now as this is a little photo heavy!!

My inspirations for this came from Valerie Sjodin's stunning, shaped edge, hand bound journals and Teesha Moore's fab youtube tutorial for a hand bound journal, please pop on over via the links included if you fancy a peek too.

I have adapted my mini-journal to fit my supplies and make it my own........

Front cover

Back cover

Internal pages

Full cover spread

Ha ha ha, 3 sheets of A4 160gsm paper, folded, trimmed, painted, stamped, stenciled, stamped again, embellished (slightly!!), doodled, bound together with a simple 3 hole pamphlet stitch and secured with a magnetic clasp.

Stamp credits go to - Paperartsy, Lynne Perella (Acey Deucey and Stampington), Stampotique, Lindsay Mason (DooLallyPip), Bo Bunny, Lost Coast Designs, Prima and various others from my stash that I sadly couldn't identify!!

The 'colour pop' embellishments were made by colouring an old book page with distress ink, stamping the images I had chosen, cutting them out and then embossing them with a single coat of clear powder - I love how distress ink intensifies in colour by doing this.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, your time and thoughts mean a lot.

Huge hugs

Dawn

Accordion Tag Book

Evening all,

tee hee, this started out as a trial run but soon became a full blown project!!

The instructions for making this style of book can be found in Alisa Golden's 'Expressive Handmade Books' if you are interested in having a go, and there may well be tutorials on Youtube!!??

Me being me I ended up adapting the instructions as I went along as I didn't have all the supplies that Alisa had used, this is half the fun for me to be honest, I love stretching my skills and imagination if I can!!

Anyhoo, here you go........

This was relatively quick and simple to make and I was delighted with how it turned out, especially for a first attempt!!

The supplies I used were as follows -

4 sheets of A4 card for the inner pages
1 recycled food box for the cover
Thick smooth cartridge paper for the tags
Snippets of ribbon from my stash
Self altered ring reinforcers
Acrylic paints, DI's and other various ink pads
Various stencils from my stash, and
Stamp credits go to Bo Bunny, Viva Decor and Andy Skinner.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, your time and thoughts mean a lot.

Huge hugs

Dawn x

Stab Bound Journal

Afternoon lovely bloggers,

today I would like to share a small journal I have made.  I have been wanting to have a go at this binding technique for ages and finally found a bit of time to do so........

Lol, apologies for most of the photos, it is so very dull here today!!

Products used - scrap mountboard, Docraft acrylic paint and metallic pen, Paperartsy Fresco paint, scrapbook letters, Viva Decor script stamp and Inca Gold, Bo Bunny texture stamp, gold embossing powder, scrap of mulberry paper, waxed linen thread, crackle accents and last but by no means least, Tando Creative's amazing flower and arrow minis.

The internal papers have been pre-decorated using acrylics and DI's, TCW stencils have been used in places.  Ha ha, decided this was the best option as stab bound books will not open completely flat so a little more difficult to decorate once bound together!!!!!!!!

Huge apologies too for the lack of explanation but I would be here all day ha ha ha!

I am going to enter this for the current Tando Creative challenge which is flowers this month, cheeky maybe I know but I have used some flowers??!!  If you fancy a peek at the challenge please pop on over here.

Many thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to, so very much appreciated.

Huge hugs

Dawn x x x x

Another hand-bound book........

Evening all,

I just had to share this one with you, ha ha ha! Never in a month of Sundays would I have ever thought that I would find a tampon box creatively inspiring!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey ho, stranger things happen at sea so they say!!
Goodness knows but I looked at the box and it was the perfect size for making a 'scrapbook' that I had in mind and was also the perfect proportions to try out a different stitching technique that I have been wanting to have a go at...........

The pages were made from scraps of various papers from my stash. Ha ha, I took the photo with the book the wrong way up but you can just about see the pockets I put in the cover using the spare box tabs, the cover itself was covered in some k&co papers!!

Sorry about the blurry pictures of the stitching (no excuse but my son was playing peepo with his big sister behind my legs at the time ha ha). The stitch is a mixture of pamphlet stitch and long stitch that I had seen on a Youtube demo, lol the demo kept freezing but I managed to work it out myself in the end.

And finally a view from the top........

Lots of lovely pages to hopefully hold some of my expanding collage fodder collection.................

Thank-you so much for popping by,

Big hugs x x x x

Sewn signature notebook

Hi all, hope you are all enjoying this fantastic weather? Don't forget your sun-cream!!!

I had so much fun making this a few evenings ago that I decided to share it with you.
After reading many books on binding techniques I was suitably confused but the wonderful Sue Roddis' Handmade Decorative Books came to my rescue, Sue very clearly explains the technique I wanted to try and the pictures provided made it even easier to follow - Thank-you Sue.

I have used lightweight card for my pages along with very strong thread to sew the signatures.  The covers were made using a cereal box for the substrate which I then covered in some very pretty K&Co paper. I decided not to add a spine as I wanted to be able to see the stitching for future reference. I have added ribbon to kind of act like a spine and provide some support for the stitching, I then decided to add a closure for the book which was made using 2 Tim Holtz grungeboard pieces coloured using distress inks, magnets provide the closure underneath. I decided to add flowers to cover up the holes in the grungeboard as you could see the backs of the magnet through them lol.

Thanks for popping by, hugs x