Category: PAPER

A mini book for Miss O

 

Exactly one year ago we announced to our families and friends that we were pregnant. It was a magic  nine-month wait, with lots of ups and downs, joy and tears, excitement and fear (a lot of fear!). But it was all truly forgotten by the moment Miss O was born; there was no time to even think about how life was before. And so I’m glad I did have the time to put together a little book documenting how we spent the nine months before, what we did and how we prepared ourself to embrace her to our world from the moment we found out we were expecting. 
The idea of the mini book came reading elise blaha’s blog (the mini books guru!); I put it together using a variety of plain and pattern paper, cut to 4″x6″ and bounded using two 25mm rings. The front cover was made using a letterpress machine (I talked about it here) and the title, well, it speaks for itself…we did think about her for nine months (if not before!).
I managed to squeeze nine months in about 50 sheets, above are a selection of random pages from the book.
It will be our ‘how we were before you were born’ memory and a nice little gift for Miss O when she will be old enough to appreciate it.

Christmas Cards 2011

Due to the circumstances this year (baby due in a week!!!) we had an early Christmas lunch with some of our friends. So yesterday I finally decided to make some cards to go with the gifts. I picked the idea from Tracy Kyle design, just made it more simple I guess. I used some coloured and textured cardstock paper, cut out the shape of a triangular tree and a trunk and sticked them on together on the card. For the text on the side of the tree I used a gold Pilot pen. For the inside of the card (which is not shown unfortunately as I had already written some text on all of the cards!) I simply sticked a stripe of Christmas ribbon to the bottom of the page using double sided tape. To embellish the white and boring envelope I used some gold tape and gold Pilot pen for the text. 
Will have to make some more pretty soon!!!

L Letterpress Combo Kit Review

I finally got it!!! I’ve been looking into this letterpress for months now and was not sure if it was worth the money due to its bad reviews almost anywhere on the internet. Then I came across a review from PaperCrave which led to another review from Boxcar Press, and guess what..I thought maybe it is worth trying!!! My boyfriend was in San Francisco last week……what better than this as a birthday present…and although the extra weight he had to carry…here it is, my brand new letterpress.
So I gave it a go with the basic tools provided, including some extra tips from Boxcar and these are the results:
1st attempt
2nd attempt…much better!
I can see where this tool lets you down a bit…the supplied plates are cheap, very cheap!!
You cannot expect professional results, but overall I was quite excited with the potential of it, especially if you can get customised photopolymer plates! In addition the tool comes with die cuts (round shapes only, but I’m planning to buy different shapes):
You can also buy embossing folders which give you the most amazing effect:
I’m now waiting for some coloured paint and more plates to arrive…..

Recycled Bags




I’m doing a pre-Christmas gift wrapping exercise these days. I have three different events to attend this weekend and all of them require a gift, so I thought why not experimenting with brown parcel paper, string and masking tape! I had this in mind for ages as I like the eco/recycling feel of this type of gift wrapping. Also, I finally managed to use the lino block print I made a while ago, although it still needs some improvement…I need to find a good tutorial on how to use it really!!