Go Sainters!!

17.4.106 to 9.18.72

Andrew is in bed trying to sleep off the fact that Collingwood got beaten in another final. I'm not being cocky because we play Hawthorn next week and they are in fine form. Still it's one step closer to that elusive Grand Final berth.

Mini-books

I think I've told you that I'm really into making mini-books at the moment. I think it's because I can combine my love of paper, scrapbooking and calligraphy. I also get to play with some new techniques to see if they work or not. I'm sure that I'll probably get over the current passion, but at the moment they are my current favourite thing to make.

Okay, here's the first one, I made this for my Mum for her birthday.

Box-board covered in Mulberry paper.

Scapwares flower stamped in multi-coloures and heat embossed with clear holographic powder

Scrapbooking tag with calligraphy done in burnt sienna.

This one I made for my sister Jenni (who happens to share a birthday with Mum!!). This is to hold some of her photos - she is a fantastic photographer and you can find her stuff here and here.

Box board covered in mulberry paper

Chipboard frame from some scrapbooking kit I've had for ages

'My Photos' calligraphy done in burnt sienna and then heat embossed with
clear holographic powder.

Photos is one of Jenni's printed on archival inkjet canvas paper

These books are really easy to construct, especially since the box board goes through my guillotine, I really hate having to cut board with a craft knife. I've been using the Crop-o-Dile Big Bite for the holes and the eyelets and I must admit that I'm trying to use up some of my supplies so sometime I have absolutely no idea who made the embellishment that I have used. Still if I'm going to post them with details I might have to start taking some notice.

Jenni and I attended a workshop on making mini-books on Sunday and I'll post those in another post. Similar in construction although I learnt some new techniques for folding paper and adding a spine and the bling that we used to decorate them was quite different and not what I'd used before. I love it when I can incorporate new techniques into what I'm already doing. I'm currently making another book for a friend of Andrew's and need to finish that.

I usually have an idea in mind when I start but just allow the creative process to take over and the book evolves of it's own accord. These books are for sale if you are interested.

Broomecam

This is Andrew on Broomecam last week. He was in Broome for work and as you can see he was working really, really, really hard!!

How cool is this!!

How cool is this layout? I was reading my latest issue of Creating Keepsakes and this is in the computer tricks article from Jessica Sprague (only the coolest of digital scrappers!!). The scalloped edged circle was a download from the CK site, also another cool thing! I was amazed at how easy it was to clip the photo's to the cirle mask. You don't actually crop the photo either it's just sitting out of sight in the background. I love that I can save this as a .psd file and play around with it at anytime. I've done this with a canvas size of 8 x 10 so it means I can get if printed if I save it as a JPEG. I have been toying with the idea of doing an album in this way, all done on the computer then printed as a photo and pasted to cardstock. I especially want to do an album of Bailey and Nathan's 10 weeks in hospital and I think that this could be the way to go. I have some more mini-albums to post, but as I'm maximising the time that Grandma and Grandpa are here it will have to be another post! Till then, enjoy.