And finally... Birthday Book Number 4!

Yes, this is the last of the birthday books that I made last week... this one is mine and I used Graphic 45 papers that I have had for ages and ages.... 

and it opens with me and my January birthday...

and my nephew

onto Christopher 

my Mum,

Chris in May with my niece,

Eldest brother and niece in July

and second eldest brother also in July...

My nieces and nephews...

and my little brother to wind the year up...

with photos of my niece and nephew and my Mum.

I had great fun making these, they have a purpose which suited my need to make something with a practical application as well as just looking nice.

Birthday Book Three

So this is the cover of Birthday Book number three... for my little brother, Gary.

Front page is a photo of his two daughters.

Same format as the others is photographs of family members for the relevant month.

This is May and Chloe and Chris and their birthdays.

Busy July, Sandy has her birthday and two of my brothers.

Gary in December

and the final page is another photo of Sandy and Chloe.

Another stash buster, I bought these papers in Canada and have managed to make at least 3 different mini books from the pack and there is still some left! 

WOYWW 287

Good grief, the days are disappearing at a rate of knots on the one hand... my being ready for Christmas seems to be escaping me at every turn and waiting for the replacement worktops for my kitchen seems to be taking so darn looooong... they are 'hoping' to have them ready to install on the 17th December... which is worrying as it doesn't really leave much in the way of margins to make this a total disaster... and let me tell you, since September I have spent way too much time without worktops and a sink and tap and hob.... especially when originally it would all take 7-10 days.... yeah... they just didn't specify that those 7 - 10 days might have weeks dispersed through them!! ;)

Anyways... enough of my moaning... you aren't here for that but to see my workdesk on this chilly frosty December morning!  I am working on a large envelope style book... it is a work in progress at the moment... which I am making for the same lady that I had a gift wrapped for her birthday last week... she liked her scarf... was totally appreciative and enjoyed the lunch I treated her too but she loved that envelope style packaging I wrapped her gift in... LOL... no, honest, she hugged it to her chest with glee because it had her name on it.... and told me she was going to use to keep her letters in....

So for Christmas I am making her an envelope book to keep her letters in, and a section for postcards and another for notelets and another for bits and bobs and writing paraphanalia... you get the idea?  This is the front cover... it is supposed to look like an airmail letter.... 

oh and look what I got!!  From Toni aka Misteejay, my first Christmas card and the most beautifully hand knitted scarf you could wish for...  thank you so much Toni, it is wonderful!!

and I got this in the Black Friday sales... online... I didn't leave the house to battle the people in the street... so now I have a fabby new printer and can print things again!!  Yay!!!

What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday 9th February 2011

It's been a busy week, with snow and shopping and finishing the chipboard book I started last week but none of that is on my workdesk today... no, I have been rejected.  Yes, totally rejected, I am crushed.  Last month I made a book for Chris to keep all his interwebs stuff in - websites, passwords and that sort of thing.

This is the book in question with its lovely big fat nobbly bead and leather tie.  OK, I admit, when I was adding the bead it did cross my mind that it wasn't really his type of adornment.  Anyways, I made a similar version for Alister, who's birthday it was at the end of January. But, being me, I cannot duplicate stuff, it's boring, so I made a few changes. I decided against a big fat nobbly bead as a closure and went for the hidden magnets instead which gave it a nice sleak clean look.  Yep, Chris saw it... and decided that he wanted the same thing!!  He gave me back his book with the request that it be like Alister's.

So I sort of ignored it and hoped he would forget and be happy with what I had made...

But it kept turning up on my desk.... so here it is...

dismantled....

with the circular section removed to bury the magnet...

and then covered with paper and the other matching hole made...

and finished.... with not a bobbly bead in sight!!

Now, I apologise for the weird colours of the photos, I am in the basement and depending on how sunny or not it is outside the photos change colours and I did mention last week that I would have to look into getting a light box to photograph things.

So I did! Got up early this morning and had it done and dusted in an hour...

It's about a foot and half wide and high and I had a couple of lights for shelves sitting in a drawer so used them.  Hopefully now my pics will be lovely and actually show up the colours they should be!

Happy Valentines Day to all, hope you get lots of chocolates and roses by the dozen!!  I won't, because Chris went to the scrap shop with me at the weekend and I got this....

and this....

to keep all my papers nice and tidy!!  I know, spoilt brat.... ;)

The Cat Files

I decided that having bits of paper and vaccination records and such like all over the place was not going to do much good when it comes to export Pandora and Tom-Tom home so I made up a book with pockets and things to hold all the important stuff in one place. I have kept the cover deliberately plain as I want to be able to carry it in my bag and didn't want embellies to be squished or torn off.

This is Pandora and the pocket with her vaccination documents.

A transparent pocket with all the vet contact details and Tom-Tom's documents.

Another transparent pocket to hold the bar code strips for their chips and a few blank pages for me to be able to add export documents and such like.

I wanted to keep all the bits from falling out and being lost so I used a piece of elastic to hold the book closed and keep all the stray bits of paper safe. I used eyelets to hold the elastic ends in place inside the back cover of the book.

 and made a wee half circle with my trusty Crop-a-Dile so that the elastic will stay in place.

WOYWW

Is it Wednesday again?  Where did that week go?  Wel, it's a beautiful morning here, bright sunshine and a cool start, obviously plans on warming up a bit as the day progresses!!  But, you aren't here for the weather report are you?  So here is what is on my desk at the moment... and has been for a couple of days now so perhaps I will actually get it finished today and can start on something new!  If you are wondering what I am rabbiting on about check out the Stamping Ground and see what is on lots of peeps desks today!

It's a mini book for my neighbour who is leaving at the end of the month.

and to the right of my desk I have a table that I use for cutting larger items and this is what is on it... Tom-Tom enjoying the sun shining through the blinds... not sure what he is laying on... hope it survives!!

Tag Board 'Book'

It's my friend Trudie's and her husband's 25th wedding anniversary this Sunday so I sat and had a play this morning and came up with this.

Trudie has taken to scrapbooking after the classes I have been doing and is now a full blown scrap addict just like the rest of us.  When we were at the Ladies Valentine's Lunch Trudie picked the gift that I had wrapped... for the tags I had tied it up with!! LOL  Sadly, she had it 'stolen' from her during the present laughter and had to pick another gift... which I promptly 'stole', so she had to go and pick another gift... which Rose 'stole' from her immediately after that!!  Poor Trudie, she didn't stand a chance and it caused much hilarity among us women.  I thought a tag type book would make up for it... and she can either fill it and leave it as is or she can break it up and use the tags in an anniversary album of her own.
I have to admit, I find it very restful playing with chipboard, all that therapeutic sanding and inking is such a relaxing thing to do. 

I found these little glass bottles with cork tops in a cheapy shop in downtown Jubail so I filled it with a mixture of Doodlebug sugar coatings and it looks quite cute hanging off the front cover.  I paid a fortune for those sugar coating things and have never used them because it always leaves a sugary trail on anything I have done.... so it's great to have found a use for them at last!! ;)

Just a quick catch up...

My Mum mentioned she had been on my blog and it was still talking about Thanksgiving... so I thought I had better take a break from scrapping and shopping and doing 'stuff' and announce that I am still here... just a bit snowed under - if a person in the desert can be snowed under!!

So this is my Journal Your Christmas book for this year... I have completed half a dozen pages so I am lagging behind the prompts... will promise to buckle down and complete some more in the next couple of days!!

This is a canvas I have done for my friend Ping for Christmas (think I am pretty safe putting it on here as her internet speeds are as awesomely slow as my own so blog hopping is not part of her agenda)!!

Here are some close-ups of the bits... I may not have finished tweaking it yet... depends on my available time before Christmas!!

This is another Christmas pressie, for my friend Trudie, its one of the picture frame versions so stand up as a display album.

Here's a close up of the flowers and pearls and bits!! ;)

Oh and look what I had the compound joiner knock up for me!!  Two little cat houses for TomTom and Pandora... of course, neither of them is willing to step in and look around.... what did I expect? LOL

Her's TomTom looking so cute and obviously preferring the old cardboard box!

This is Pandora who prefers the back of my sofa for any napping....