Thursday, April 19, 2007

Minibook Madness!

Yes indeedy! I have a veritable banquet of minibook loveliness to share with you this afternoon, as taught by two of the fantastic Scrappers Unlimited team at the retreat!!

First up is the ultra-talented Ambers' oh-so gorgeous Basque Book. You may remember I got her scrummy box and planner in the swap :) I'm not usually a minibook fan - I like all my projects stored nicely in my albums, however when I saw this little scrummy bundle I couldn't resist the opportunity to learn how to make such a gorgeous little book from scratch, including the covers and spine. Fabby! It's got ten pages altogether, but to save old blogger from a meltdown I've just chosen two of my favourite :) We used a Cropadile to make the holes in the covers - I'd not used one before and to be honest, if I can do things in a simple way without the need of expensive tools I will, so up until now a good old punch and hammer has always sufficed. Buuuuuut, watching the Cropadile go through the thick board like a hot knife through butter was amazing - I loved it (sad I know!). After the class I toyed with treating myself to one all weekend, I played with other peoples' Cropadiles in the crop room and spied that there was only one left in the shop. Yep, I did agonise over it, but in the end decided it was something I could wait to ask for as a pressie sometime. So you can imagine how chuffed I was to get one as part of my prize for the Box & Planner challenge! I spent all Sunday evening mooching around the house punching holes in random objects (again, I do know this is sad!!). It's amazing - so far nothing has been too tough a challenge for the pink handled beast. It even easily sliced through my really thick work diary cover (whoops, forgot that technically that it's my employers' property and they can recall it at anytime! Might thread some ribbon through it though - it would look ever so pretty! Imagine explaining that one away to the Chief Exec!!). Not yet tried setting eyelets with it - hey, that's a whole extra days worth of playing there!!!

The second mini book at the retreat was taught by Fiona, the unrivalled queen of stamping and altered art! And when I say mini - boy do I mean it!! The finished project measures about 2"x1". Incy wincy I tell you!! This was such a fun project to make!! I'd never tried shrink plastic before, and for a time during the shrinking process I thought I'd never want to try it ever again - I knew it gets all crinkly and folds up on itself, but I seriously thought that my cover was going to resemble nothing more than a screwed up ball of plastic by the end of it, and it took both Fiona and Sue to hold it down and unfold it with sticks as I applied the heat!! But the end result is gorgeous and I'm just dying to get my hands on some shrink plastic to make some more as weeny presents for the special people in my life lol!!
I was unsure about what the journaling should be, but a strange thing happened which provided the ideal solution - isn't life just grand like that?! In general conversation I told my sister that two lady birds had landed on me within a couple of days. She, being chief of all things superstitious, told me that this was supposed to be lucky, and asked who it had landed on next as they would supposedly be my true love. I laughed because they'd each flown off pretty much into obscurity!!
On Sunday we spent the afternoon in West Wales, with my sister and her family and also taking our little nephew Harrison. Whist we were sitting eating a well deserved icecream, I turned to Lee and noticed a little Ladybird sitting on his neck. I had time to take a photo and make everyone look, before it flew up and landed in my hair!! My sister immediately reminded me of the old wives' tale she'd told me earlier that week - and hey presto - my journaling was born!!
I will point out though that the ladybird did not fly back to Lee, but again flew off into obscurity! Thus proving that whilst I am Lee's true love, he is not necessarily mine lol!
Just joking of course!! Anyway, enough waffle - here's the incy wincy book!!

8 comments:

Cee in SF said...

Now, I want a Cropadile. I will and have spent terrible sums of $$ on scrapping tools. Thank goodness your restraint paid off!

That teeny weeny book is adorable. I'm gonna be putting my scrapping tools to work so that I can churn one out for Mother's Day.

Ladybirds=good. Other birds=bad.

Thirteen Pink Ladybirds said...

Ooooo, love, love, love ladybirds! What a great pic - so tiny!

Love those minibooks - they are both really beautiful.

Di said...

Gorgeous Nat, I love mini books and yours are just fabulous.

Mmmm, a Cropadile, yes I would love one too, but I guess like you, I tend to think I can get round it some way without buying an expensive tool......but, that Cropadile sure sounds cool.

Anonymous said...

Wow! That tiny little mini book is so cute - gorgeous too! :o) Love the journaling, very sweet.

And Amber's book is simply stunning. I saw it in the flesh at the SW crop and thought it very scrummy indeed xxx

Lisa said...

Love the minibooks!! Stunning! & now I need a Cropadile too!!!! xx

Anonymous said...

Both of those books look lovely and the mini one with all the beads is gorgeous - soooo tiny though, not sure I could write that small!!

Tina said...

I loved the Cropadile too, even though I thought I didn't need one. May have to put it on my Christmas list!

Love that book: gorgeousness itself!

Beth said...

I love all the work here Nat, it's wonderful. Lol about the ladybird too, goodness knows where it would fly from me, ha, ha. As for a cropadile, it is fab, I love it, so simple and easy to use.