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