A bit of crafty loveliness

Hi all!

I am back from very sunny and very lovely America. We had a lovely time together as a family, ate lots of scrummy american food, met many lovely people and in my case got severely bitten! ouch! I have literally hundreds of pictures and will share tomorrow but today I thought I would show a few pics of a mini book I have been working on for a friend...

I wanted to make something for a friends birthday so decided on a small mini book with prettty pictures and lots of memories.( I am praying she isn't reading this!) I always try and do something a  bit different for someones birthday and a mini book is so personal and unique and nearly always brings out a smile!

This style of mini book is so easy to make and looks really effective. I always have certain things that I want a mini book to be. First and most importantly it has to be tactile. An album goes on your coffee table and yeah it is meant to be handled but not in the same way a mini book is. A mini book has to be held to open, you interact with the pages. Therefore I try and add as many textures as I can...

Here I sewed around the acetate pages, used twine and string and wrapped the whole book up in soft chunky wool!

The basic formula (is that the right word, sounds a bit too much like maths!) for this book was that I chose 4 pictures of my friend. These pictures I sandwiched between acetate and pretty paper and then sewed around them, adding embellishment on top of the acetate as well.

I then found a load of old tags (save ones from clothes, they're so strong and many are really pretty) and decorated them adding rub on words to relate to the message I was going to write on the back. I punched a hole in every page and threaded the whole lot onto a book ring. The result is a book with all different sized pages that looks really quirky!

I personally prefer a book that hasn't regular sized pages because i think it makes it more exciting being able to see what is coming next, but really that is just my preference! I finished the book with some little tags and sentiments.

Although it isn't big I really like the end result and managed to use all my favourite scraps of paper i had been hoarding up! (oooh another good thing about mini books is that you can make a whole one and not break into a new piece of paper! Gotta be good!) I also used some little bits and pieces I found in America. Don't you LOVE the woodgrain stamp I found!!!!

So..the Abi forumula for a mini book. Hope you enjoyed seeing how I scrap. This really is just my way of doing things and certainly isn;t the "right" way if there is such a thing!

Hope everyone has had a fab week, i need to catch up on so many blogs! Thanks for stopping by again!

Loves xxxxxxx