Home is Where the Heart Is...

Being expats we tend to move about and live in different houses so I thought I would make a mini book to document the ones we have lived in over the past 10 years. I sometimes get confused about which master bedroom was in which house and I think my memory won't improve with age, so this will keep me straight!! ;)

I chose the lyrics from the Beatles song 'There are places I remember' as the first page.

I used different sized pages and pockets with tags to take the extra photos.

Check out the Zutter Zisters DT work for this month, you won't be disappointed!

Baby Pink Octagonal Exploding Box

Decided to have another go at making the octagon exploding box and used my instructions, just to check that I had covered everything, and they seem to be ok! ;)

I'm thinking maybe to offer this one for sale in the compound, seeing as how I don't actually know anyone with a baby girl. I could use the money to go toward the kitten vaccinations so that they have a better chance of finding homes, having five of them done will no doubt cost a heap of dosh!

I wasn't sure about the yellow with the pink... but I think it works to stop it being too over the top pink, what do you think?

This one is the spitting image of Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss!!

Little one ear coloured is cute...

Does this one look like Groucho Marx to you? Uggily little divil!!

And this little face reminds me of a gremlin....

Aaaaaw, sweet little things...

Chipboard Book

A mini book I made for a little girl down in the complex who had a birthday last week. She loves popping in here to see what I have been up to and loves to do anything crafty, so I thought she might like this to put her summer holiday photos in.

It started out as a child's board book. I pick these up in charity shops when I see them, they make great mini books or just chipboard covers - 3 pairs from one book!

I learned the hard way not to just leave the book intact and try to decorate it... my pages tend to be on the 'fat' side and the board book usually ends up not closing at all. I now remove the pages from the spine and trim them up and punch them with the BIA.

Because the books are made for very young children they tend to have a very shiny coating on them so that sticky finger marks can be wiped off... this makes adhering paper to them a tad more difficult so I always give the pages a good sand down so that adhesive keys to them.

I also made her a little box to keep the book in. I thought if she collected stuff from her holiday, postcards, pictures etc that she has somewhere to keep them all ready for when she starts to fill the book up.

Lots of pockets and tags for her to journal and add things.

I used Luxe papers for this project and a 1" red o'wire.

New Home Card

So my son moves into a flat on his own next weekend, to date he has always shared with Uni friends, so this will be a very new experience for him. Couldn't find a new home card in the local shops so I have had to make one.... now don't laugh... you see that blurb about me on my blog? It doesn't say card maker... it say I love to make mini books!!

On the inside I made a recipe card for a really quick and easy pizza that takes 10 minutes from start to finish.

and a pocket with a tag wishing happiness in his very own space and some money to get some food... which hopefully will make up for the dire attempt at card making!!

Octagon Exploding Box Instructions

This is the template for making the octagon exploding box... right click and save it to your computer.

You will need to insert the picture into a Word document to be able to use it.

Once you have it inserted into your Word document you need to make three different sized templates from it.

In your Word document, if you right click the picture of the octagon you will get a drop down box and one of the options is size. Click on this and you will get a window like the one in the screen shot...

The largest octagon is 15cm so using the height option, change it to 15cm. Print this off.

Repeat this to make the medium size of 11 cm. Print it off.

Repeat once more to make the smallest octagon of 9cm. Print it off.

Cut your templates out.

Take the largest template and stick it to your 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock with temp Herma.

Now take your ruler and lay it across the template at opposite angles and draw lines to make the 'legs' of the shape as in the picture above.

The largest template has legs 3 1/4" long.

The medium template has legs 2 3/4" long.

The smallest template has legs 2 1/4" long.

The scribble bits will be removed when you cut it out.

Repeat this for the other two sizes. Score the legs so that they fold upwards.

Are you still with me? ;)

Your three sections are now ready to be decorated with pattern papers.

You will need to adhere the medium section to the centre of the large one, and you can either offset them as I have done or keep them lined up. I like the flower effect of the offset look.

Now adhere the smallest section to the centre of the medium one.

To make the lid, I used the large template and added an extra 1/8th" to each side so that it would sit on top of the bottom bit nicely.

To make the lip of the lid I used the width of my ruler and drew lines as in the photo above.

Now... when you see the next photo... don't have a hissy fit... it is simpler than it appears!!

Place your ruler across the template just like you did to make the 'legs' and draw in the straight lines. these are the score lines. You need to cut one, score one, so that you have small triangles to glue to connect the pieces and form the rim.

I decorated the rim with ribbons glued down with DST and this also ensure that nothing comes apart when you start to use it.

I also cut another smaller rectangle out of cardstock and sat this platform onto the top of the lid with foam pads.

Add your papers and decorations and it is ready for the photos and journalling.