FAVORITE BOOKS BIBLE

I just love reading and spend a lot of my spare time doing just that!  There are so many that I read over and over again and I thought why not make up a little Book Bible to remind me of all those that are my favorites.

I used an undecorated 7Gyspies bound book and ran some patterned paper through my printer with my title on it.

For the inside pages, I created a template on my computer to hold a photo of the book cover with a small journal block at the bottom to write why I loved the book, when I first read it and who my favorite character was.  I then scanned each of the book covers and printed them out, then stuck them to the template.  Then I wrote my comments for each one and its was complete!  Whenever a I read a book I really enjoyed, I now add it to my Favorite Book Bible.  It includes books going way back to my childhood like tales from the Brothers Grimm, Famous Five and then more recent ones The Kite Runner and any Dan Brown books.

Every now and then I flick through it and think, yeah that was a great book and off I go to read it again!  Sad really I guess but makes me happy.

Have a great day.
Hugs
Zoe x

THE CHICKEN AND THE EGG

We have several chickens who produce some fabulous little gifts every morning for us and one morning we had a bit more than usual!  One hen had laid a very small egg which when cracked open only had a white in it and no yolk and another one of our hens laid a super large egg.  She made a lot of noise when she'd finished so must have taken her a while to produce this.  I made a scrapbook page to mark the occassion and its shows the small egg alongside the massive one that Hattie the hen produced!  Usually the size is somewhere between the two.

She didn't lay again for a few days and to be honest I'm not surprised after that! 

I tend to make pages using either 8x8 or the american size 8 1/2 by 11.  I use American Craft albums which I love and I tend to buy most of my suppliers from the US too.  A little expensive I suppose but I can at least get things a lot sooner than they are available in the UK and in some cases, not available to us here at all.

For this one I chose the orange cardstock as my background for the main photo of my layout to pick out the colour of the hens feathers and changed some of the font to orange to tie the pages together.  I'm a pretty simple girl at heart and thats reflected in my pages, although sometimes I try to be a bit more adventurous and add a few embelishments!

That's all for today.
Take care
Zoe x

POLO MAGIC

I've finally finished off my mini albums from a visit to the polo last summer and thought I'd share it with you.  I've made 8 of these for all the friends that were there and made a little gift box to keep them in.  They are DL in size and I used some lovely textured cardstock that I bought on special offer at the PaperMill before Christmas.

I put a section of different patterned paper along the left hand edge of each sheet and placed the photos on the righthand side.

I used my Bind-It-All to secure all the pages together and placed a strip of pearls along of the edge of the patterned paper on the front cover.

The box I made to hold the album in was made from a template I have for a box for DL sized cards.  I adjusted the height of the box to accommodate the thinkness of the album and finished it off with a piece of tied satin ribbon.  The cardstock used for this was from DCWV and its all glittered so it makes it a little bit more special.

I was really pleased how this turned out and my friends LOVED them! 

If we ever go anywhere special I take loads of pics and make everyone an album to remember the day by. 

To be honest I much prefer making this type of thing to cards.  The memories they bring far outway the time they take to make and it stems from how I really got into crafting.  I love scrapbooking too and have at least 20 albums that I've completed over the last 5 years.

The finished album and gift box

Thanks for stopping by, as always.

Zoe x

ITS BEEN WAY TOOOO LONG

You would be forgiven for thinking that I have fallen off the planet - I confess that I am a little annoyed with myself that I have not posted a single thing since November!  My excuse however is that I crafted myself out preparing things for all the fairs I did last year and I kinda lost the enthusiasm to do anything crafty for a while.  Then Christmas came along and took over and after a relaxing January and Feb I feel in the mood to craft again! 

Been busy preparing some mini scrapbooks for my friends following a trip to the polo in St Davids last summer, which was a fabulous day out, and have almost finished.  Will post a few pics of them in the next few days. 

Yesterday was spent with my closest friends celebrating my 40th birthday!  I cannot believe how quickly that came along - where does all the time go?  I am the last of my friends to reach the 'BIG 4 0' and my actual birthday is not until Wednesday so I am relishing the final few days of being in my thirties, safe in the knowledge that am and always will be, the baby of the group!

Check back in the week and hopefully I'll have sorted my life out and posted something!

Take care for now.
Hugs
Zoe x

PRECIOUS JEWEL

Just a quickie post to show a card I made tonight for a friend of a friend.  Her grandson is being christened on Sunday and she wanted a special card with his name on it.  Having made a boxed card the other day I based it on that and came up with this...

Christening card inside the box

Inside of card

Box Lid

Must have too much time on my hands today - this is my third post!  That's it, for today at least!

Thanks for taking the time to look me up.

Zoe x

NEW PUPPY!

I just had to share a pic of our new whippet puppy Dylan!  He is just soooo ADORABLE and surprisingly for a dog that will chase anything that moves, has not eaten any of our four cats... so far!  He's growing fast and if left off the lead in the garden, will run like the wind.  He is chewing everything and I no longer have a single pair of wearable flipflops (my all time favorite summer shoe) nor any coasters left without a chew on the corner!  That being said, I would not be without him now. Isn't he lush!

TOP NOTE is TOPS!

I just love my new Top Note Die!  SU don't currently sell this in the UK but I managed to get hold of one from Ebay via the U.S.  Cost a fortune with the p&p and everything but now I have it I've been busy trying it out.

I started out making some treat boxes for Christmas for my nieces and nephews. I need to adjust the face of the snowman though because I think he looks at little sad! I also made some for Halloween which are shown in an earlier post.

I just need to add the wire handles and fill with sweet treats and they'll be ready to give out in a few weeks time (can you believe its only 6 weeks until Christmas!)

I then tried making some little note pads and spiral bound them along one edge.  I used lined paper for the inside and covered chipboard with some patterned paper to pretty them up for the front and back cover, added a ribbon and they were finished.

I've made a load of these as little gifts for friends and they are a nice 'handbag' size so perfect for all those little lists (I am a fanatic list maker).  And speaking of handbags, I saw a similar bag to the one below on a blog a long time ago (sorry I can't remember who's it was now).  As you can see I got a little carried away when I started to make these! 

These will be used to package small gifts for my girly friends this year.  I'll fill them with pretty co-ordinating tissue paper and add a little gift in each such as a one of the note pads above and a pen, some  chocolates, smellies, mini notelet cards and envelopes, a scarf, jewellery; there are loads of possibilities.  I think its a lot nicer than a square box wrapped in paper and once they've used the contents, they get to keep the package it came in!

That's about it for now.  Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a look.  I was unsure whether I was reaching anybody out there but after getting a few comments on recent posts I can see that I am!  This blogging lark is starting to get very additive!  Thanks to those that took the time to leave a comment!

Have a great day.

Hugs

Zoe x

WEDDED BLISS

The rain seems to have gone away (at least for today anyway) and I'm thankfully starting to feel a bit better so got to work on a wedding card I've been meaning to make for the last week.  I just bought a load of new papers from Anna Griffin and wanted to use them.  I had some clear peel offs from DCWV which I used for the phrasing on the front.  I wanted to break up the patterend paper a bit so used some solid silver textured cardstock and punched the lower edge.  I added some jewels along the bottom, some ribbon and a heart shaped charm and pins.  I had to stop myself from adding more bits!

I then set about making a card box to put it in.  I measured the card and added 3/4" around this for the sides of the box.  Scored, cut and stuck it together.  I then made the lid by using the same measurements I used for the base but adding a 1/16 more to the measurement all the way around, scored and stuck together.  I then cut a piece of matching patterned paper and wrapped a piece of ribbon around the middle, attached it to the top of the lid and to finish it off, used another DCWV phrase mounted on blue cardstock and attached to the top with some foam pads and some silver brads.  I lined the inside of the box with white thick quality tissue paper and made it wide enough so that is would overlap the card when it was placed inside.  Finished!

I was really pleased with how this turned out and I love the colours.  The box just finished it all off perfectly.   Off out now to take our new puppy for walk, he's adorable and VERY lively!

Have a great day.

Zoe

x

SWEET BABY

I make so many birthday or anniversary cards for people that it made a nice change when a friend asked me to make a new baby card for someone.  A pram immediately sprang to mind so I set about drawing up a template in the shape of a pram.

All I did was draw a circle to fit a pre-scored square card (my card blank was 6x6").  I then cut out and folded the circle template in half, then in half again, opened it out and cut away one  1/4 section.  I then placed the remaining 3/4 section onto my folded card with the cut out section on the top right.  You need to ensure that you slightly overhang the left side of the template on the fold in the card to ensure that you keep a join.  I drew around the template and then cut it out. All you need to do then is decorate it.  I just covered the top portion with patterend paper.  I then used my Fiskars paper punch with textured white cardstock to make the pretty 'frill' round the edge.  I punched out four 1 3/4"  circles in matching patterend paper and fixed two in position on the front of the card (if the paper is flimsy, stick paper onto cardstock, allow to dry, then punch out.  It needs to be fairy thick cardstock in order to take the weight of the card and stand the card up).  I fixed the remaining two circles  to the back side of the card, carefully lining them up with the front ones.  I then added a couple of buttons to the front two 'wheels' and finished off by stamping a little sentiment from my new PTI stamp set (I just love these!), cutting out and attaching some ribbon with a stapler.  I fixed this to the front of the card with dimensional pads to make it pop off the card. Done! 

The only thing I didn't figure on was that by adding the wheels, the card was then too tall for my envelope - stupid me!  I had to make a new envelope by cutting down a bigger one to fit which was pretty easy but I've now adjusted the pram template I made to take into account the wheels so I don't have that little problem again!

I wanted to use bright and fresh colours instead of the traditional baby motifs so I went for a vibrant stripe which I think worked really well.  My friend was certainly pleased when I gave it to her.

I loved it when its was finished and I made a few more in blue tones and more neutral ones to add to my stash.

Have a good weekend all - the weather is truly awful here (in a very unsunny Pembrokeshire) and I have a dreadful cold. However, I am dosing myself up with all manner of cold remedies (none of which do a great deal!) and hoping to squeeze in a few crafty makes this afternoon - I try never to miss out on an opportunity to mess with paper!

Thanks so much for popping by.
Zoe x

MY FIRST CRAFT FAIR

I've just finished my first craft fair!  I can't believe I actually did it but I finally did.  I spent weeks making things to sell, trying to restrict myself on the number of items I made as I had no clue what would be likely to sell well. I laid everything out on my kitchen table to see what I had and how everything would look once I got to the fair.  Here is a piccie of my layout...

I was quite pleased with it and I did sell really well.  As it's getting close to Christmas, I made quite a few christmas bits. 

Heres the front and inside of my Snowman Soup box!  I just loved these.  I saw them on someone's blog ages ago and had been dying to try them out.  I made 20 of them and I sold them all within the first few hours!  It had a hot choloate sachet, some marshmellows and a couple of Matchstick chocolates inside.

I made a whole bunch of christmas cards (3.5x3.5) and then I made a box to put them in and stamped a design all over them.  I put 8 cards and envelopes in each, cut a square hole in the front and inserted a clear acetate protector sheet.  They sold well too.

As the craft fair was held on 31st October, I thought I'd try my hand at a few Halloween treat boxes filled with chocolates and other sweet treats and hoped that I could sell them otherwise I'd just have to bring them all home again and eat the contents!  Luckily for my waistline I did sell them all.  Here's a look at what I made...

Some coffins filled with chocolate skeletons!

Dracula, Mummy and Frank - treat boxes with wire handles.

I've signed up for one more craft fair before Christmas and then that will be it for me until Easter.  I think my husband is begining to forget what I look like I've been so wrapped up in getting this made for both these events! Not to mention my bank balance buying all the card stock and stamp sets I used to create these things!