Christmas gifts mini album

I saw the idea for this mini album in an issue of Scrapbooks etc. magazine. This is the first mini album I have created so I liked the simplicity of having just a photo on one side of the page. I decided to do it about the Christmas presents that Grace received this year so that we would have something to look back on. whether I will manage it every year is another question.

I began by printing all the photos out of the presents. Where she received multiple presents from people I created collages with Picasa

I then cut the co-ordinating papers in 5" squares and glued them onto the backs of the photos. The tags were made from the same range of papers and simply state who bought each gift.

I finished the book off by rounding all the corners and punching down the left hand sides.

It was my intention to attach the album with rings but they have not arrived from ebay yet so I used ribbon. I think I prefer that because it adds to the whole gift wrapped idea.

The only problem with it is that it is quite bulky with each tag having a ribbon tie so the pages do not lay flat but never mind.

Homemade cake stand

I spotted a project in Your Home magazine about a year ago to make your own cake stand and since then I've been on the look out for plates and glasses to do this with. I bought the glasses from a charity shop soon afterwards for £2 but didn't get the plates until last week in the Dunelm sale. The line was being discontinued so each of the plates cost 99p and the saucer on top - which was supposed to have a cup with it but didn't - was 50p.

So I finally sat down to make my cake stand and I'm rather pleased with the result.

It was so simple to make I want to make it again but there's only so many cake stands a girl needs!

Jillibean sketch contest entry

Not manged to blog for a while especially with Christmas but my new year's resolution is to make more use of this blog so today is a good day to start. Here's my entry for the Jillibean sketch contest.

I really enjoyed making this - especially because James looked after Grace while I was doing it so it was nice to spend some time just for me.