And the winner is...

TracyW who said...

That is a gorgeous book Ifa. Agree with someone earlier who said the book screamed 'nature' to them - do you have photos of pretty things, places that you visit on days out etc.?

Tracy, please email me with your address so that I can post it to you.

Thank you for visiting

I am so pleased to have been invited by Rebekah to play this weekend and even more thankful that so many people have visited and left some great ideas. I am loving the nature inspired ( perfect for my visits to the Botanic Gardens ), the childhood memories ( though I am really lacking in photos until I went to boarding school aged 12 ) but my favourite at the moment is a book full of pretty things that inspire me.
I will get my random number generator ( my little H ) to pick a winner this evening and will post the name of the winner tomorrow morning. I hope that's ok. See you tomorrow.

A little nothing...

I have made a little book. It is currently sitting here, empty, just waiting to be filled with wonderful memories. I don't know what that is. For now, I am calling it "A little nothing" hence the title of the post.

I started with a sheet of Prima paper ( Shabby chic morning poetry ), a Hambly overlay ( big vintage circle ), 3 sheets of Bazzill Cardstock with an edge ( Small rectangle ) and various embellishment. Some embellishment from this stage made it on the minibook, some didn't but plenty more appeared!

I started by marking holes for the cover. I marked a line right in the centre of the Prima cardstock. I marked at 1" interval along this line, starting 1" away from the top edge and ending 1" away from the bottom edge. So there should be 11 marked points along the centre of the cardstock. With some paper clips, clip the clear overlay under the cardstock. This enabled me to punch straight through to the overlay without having to mark out again plus the overlay would have been too slippery to work with independently. Punch out those 11 holes. I've used a Clikit hole punch but I guess you lucky owners of the BigBite would be laughing LOL.

Then I did the same to the centre of the Bazzill cardstock with an edge. These are 6" tall so I made 6 holes on each.

Next comes the binding. I have used a thin ribbon for my book. It helps if you have an emboidery needle with a large eye that you can thread the ribbon through. Unfortunately I couldn't find mine and had a torturous task of threading the ribbon through each holes. I got there in the end. You ribbon needs to be about 30" ( 2 x12" plus a little bit extra! ).

If you havent, fold the pages and the cover in half. Arrange the pages inside the cover. You might notice that the overlay doesn't really want to fold...that's ok, it is quite nice as it is.

Starting from the inside, push the ribbon through the top hole, leaving about half the length of ribbon on the inside. Your needle should now be on the outside at the top hole.

Push the needle through the second hole, go over the ribbon on the inside and push out again. In the photo above, can you see the loop over the ribbon ? Continue like this until you have all sewn through all holes.

The book now looks like this. I simply tied the two ends at the bottom. Can you see in the photo above ?

I then added some pretties to the front of the overlay. I have been unsuccessful in the past when I've used glue on overlay so I resorted to a stapler. If you think stapler is too harsh, you could also sew with a sewing machine or by hand. I have used a Prima canvas tag, a little flower and a Tim Holtz ticket.

On the flower I added a little bit of Prima lace, a sparkly buckle, and a little red leaf ( previously, looking unloved and lonely ).

I don't often get the chance to do pretty so I am a bit stumped as to what I could fill this book with. Leave a comment for me here with some suggestions, please. I will put all your names in the hat and draw out one lucky girl who will get the book ( I will make a duplicate! ) plus some more pretties to finish it off, some Cavalini butterfly stickers, some frames, some pretty brads....you can check them out below.

Happy birthday Rebekah. Laura Godfrey is next in line. Please check out what she has made at Talking Scrap.

You're invited

I have been invited by Rebekah to participate in a blog hop on occassion of her birthday ( shh, she is waaay younger than me! ). She kicks off at 7PM GMT on 19th March. I hope you can make it. I don't know who else is joining in but it should be a fun. I am putting the finishing touches to a project to share with you all. I am hoping it will be all pretty and girly (sigh, wistfully, you know, I don't get enough opportunity to do pretty. )

Wanna see ?

Wishes do come true

Ok, slightly soppy today. Actually the word that came to mind is Malaysian se -mo-nel, a word from my school days. I am not even sure this is a proper word or even if it still in used. Funny how, being bilingual, some words come unbidden in one language and not the other LOL.

Right, back to the LO. This is for A, celebrating our 19 years together. I don't have a recent photo of us together so I've used one that one of the boys took during a holiday a couple of years ago. I know it misplaced the photo somewhat but better get the story down, is my mantra.

A has always been great at making my wishes come true, from the time he baked me a black forest gateaux over 20 years ago, taking me on holiday to places I wanted to go, nearly buying me a flash car ( but I changed my mind LOL ) to buying me a sofa to do up this year.

I have always struggled with black and white...or rather I struggle with black. So this layout is trying to conquer that phobia. I have left the Prima paintables pretty much as it is and didn't even used any other patterned paper. And then I introduced loads of colours using embellishments. As you know, I love to put loads of little embellishments on my layouts so there you go...the more the merrier.

Life changing choices ?

This might the first of many! J is currently in year 9. In September this year, he will start his 2 years of GCSE courses. Admittedly, in most subjects they have already started doing this but we have now been asked to decide what subjects he wants to do for GCSE. All the boys have to do the 7 core subjects ( maths, englishx2, sciencex3 and french ) and have the option to select 3 others.

Greek and Latin were the obvious options. He has been doing Latin for 3 years and does really well at it. I am not sure where he got this from because his dad hated Latin and got through 'O' Levels by memorising text for his translation exercises.

J's Greek teacher has said that J has a real gift for Greek and should he decides to do Classics, he would sail through it. Whilst J enjoys Greek, I think, the thought of sailing through something really appeals to him. LOL. His teacher also said that she is having to brush up on the Greek to keep up with J. Well, she is not the only one, I had to brush up on my maths to do a Cayley Olympiad paper yesterday but that is a story for another day!

The third choice could have been history (he would definitely get an A* said the teacher), geography ( he needs to up his game and the course involves doing coursework and field trips...yuks! ) or religious studies ( didn't get to speak to a teacher because they all left early from this department ). And he has opted for RS. I think this is a wise choice. I love how RS is taught, how religious believes aren't necessarily gospel and it is a matter of looking at a point of view from all aspects. I think a lot of good life skills could come out of this one...arguing a point and yet showing understanding and tolerance. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all have this ?

ps: sorry, nothing pretty to share but my sofa came. I have some woodworming treatment to do on the frame but it looks pretty much like the photo...like a bird's nest.