[nruio]

nruio -- Awesome job! Love how it turned out! Those binder rings are really neat and I love the "Seattle" deck. That cover is great -- did you decoupage that, or... ?

Since you showed couple of your craft-related pages (which I love!) from yours, I thought I would share this other one from mine (if you can stand yet another picture from me):



(Aren't we lucky?!)

I actually made this for my honey for our anniversary a couple of years ago, but with Valentine's Day fast approaching, I thought I'd share. This is so easy to make, but it has a lot of impact -- who wouldn't love to get this?

I want to say right now that I am not claiming this idea as original. Unfortunately, I made it over 2 years ago and now cannot find the post/site/etc. where I found the inspiration. As I recall, the one I saw was far more elaborate than mine. If you have seen this before, please feel free to post links in your replies.

All right -- let's get to it! Here is the front of my little book -- it's just a deck of regular playing cards with holes punched in 'em, held together with 1 inch binder rings (I got mine at OfficeMax). For the front and back covers, I used my Xyron sticker maker  to cold-laminate pieces of cardboard with scrapbook paper on them. This is certainly not a requirement for the project, as I think we craftsters could think of a million different ways to make little covers for a book like this:


(Our initials are B and K.)

The possibilities for this project are endless, but I didn't do anything fancy. I just wrote down the first 52 things that popped into my head, printed them out, ran them through the Xyron (you could easily use glue) and stuck them to each "page":



Some were sweet (like that one) and some were wacky:


(Just to clarify -- I meant physical comedy with that one... not people actually getting hurt!)

Here's a better shot of the binder rings and also you can see how fat it is (which I really like):



Here's a picture of the back... nothing fancy back there, but it makes a nice matching cover to the front:



Looking at this project now, thinking about all of the creative minds here on craftster... I think someone could really make a masterpiece out of this! Mine is so bare-bones. Perhaps I need to make a sequel...

I made this crown for my mom's 60th birthday, which was actually last month. I had intended to post it then (cause I'm so darned proud of it), but the holidays and whatnot got in the way. So here it is... a crown for my mom. Cause she's a princess!

Here's the front:



(note "+ sexy!" embroidered in the bottom right hand corner)

I made it using heavy-duty double-sided fusible webbing and I appliquéd a variety of stuff on it. On the left side, you can see the champagne bottle, plus a little charm that says "Happiness" on the back. I hope that's also what it says on the front. :/



On the right side, there's dice and a little good luck charm. Because I hope she's got plenty of luck this year. When I gave it to her, I inadvertently said, "I hope you get lucky this year." I didn't mean it that way. There was much eyebrow raising and elbow nudging.



Once I had the crown all laid out flat, I realized I hadn't thought it through how I was going to make it round. So I came up with a goofy idea that ended up making a really nice finish. I cut a piece of plastic into a square, finished it off with fabric, added grommets and laced up the back. This sounds weird, so I'll show you pics. Here's the inside (where the plastic square is):



The piece of plastic was stiff enough to turn it from a tear-drop shape into a circle shape, which is what I wanted. You know, cause crowns are usually round?

And, since I wanted to turn it into a "feature" (rather than a bug), I laced it up all pretty on the outside:


(Note the hearts... cause I love my mom. Aw.)

Even though I call it a "crown," it's more like a tiara -- it sits on top of her head. My mom has short hair, so I incorporated loops inside to put bobby pins through (there's a loop on either side, for a total of four bobby pins):



I was kind of nervous about giving this to her, but she really loved it. The best part was when my grandma said, "Why does it say 60 on the front?" I think everyone's in denial.

[amaryllisroze]

Here is the first half of kaesea's journal.

My journal came today! YAY! It's great! I've stacked each spread so that we can see a little more detail on the individual pages... imagine them side-by-side, if you wish.

Without further ado...

From amaryllisroze:

It says Lighting Bugs... bugs...bugs.... and that lace goes along the top of both pages (sorry, I realize this one is hard to tell that it's two separate pages). Love that moon face!

From rackycoo:

I love these pages so much that it hurts! These are yearbook photos and she's doodled on them! Oh, Spence Lemonds! You're so dreamy!! (Hard to see his name, but he's the one with the heart drawn on his photo... of course!)

This spread came with a great little tag:

I'm transported back to middle school, only without the crippling self-doubt and revolting pimples! Thanks, racky!

From Stifflersmom:


This one suffers a bit from my stacking -- it says SEW. I love it -- it's perfect for me! I love, love, LOVE all of the vintage buttons and notions that you used... the pattern for the background... everything!

From Katxena:

Hee hee! Ten-is-shoe! Great work on this spread -- love the shoes and the way it all goes together. The background uses about a million different textures, but they blend perfectly. Fabulous! (Plus, the first shoe is a Converse All Star, which is very near and dear to my heart!)

Aaaand... from goatgoddess:

Hers is the one spread that benefits from my layout -- A is for Art! She used dictionary pages for the background (a personal favorite of mine) and that guy on the left is "standing with arms akimbo!" Love it! Akimbo!

Thanks to all of you -- this was so much fun. Can't wait to see the last few books show up... this swap is an absolute treat!

[amaryllisroze]

I had forgotten that my journal was so small! I made the smallest journal of them all in this swap. Guess I'm lazy. Also, I want everyone to know that... I'm sorry, but... well... mine is the best. Yep. I know it's cruel to compare, but... well. It just is. I love every little bit of it. Love it!

Along with the smallest journal, I think I have the most pictures. I... just...couldn't... stop. I wanted to show every little detail. So sit back and enjoy the show...

I can't remember if we ever posted photos of the blank journals that we sent out. I posted mine on my blog, if anyone is interested in checking it out.  But that's not really the good stuff. Here's the good stuff...

First up, a lovely amaryllisroze-style spread. Vintage and lovelies and numbers, oh my! What a treat this one is:


Here are more detailed views of those pages:



Next up, we have the famous rackycoo. The title at the top says "The letter T is for tags" and boy is it ever! Not only are the tags numbered on one side:


They have lovely "T" illustrations on the other: Teeth, Toe, Top hat, Triplets, Trout, True love, and Turtle. Also, on the dictionary pages in the background, there's an embellishment around the entry for "tag." Love. It.  Here's the reverse side:


Here are slightly more detailed shots:



Oh, Stifflersmom! The little book you made is just incredible! I can't get over it. These photos do not do it justice. Here is the entire spread (the book came off and I'm not entirely sure where he re-attaches, but here was my guess):


That hexagon on the left is actually a little book. An amazing little book (how did you make it all texture-y and shiny? Time for a little tutorial on the coolness of the cover of this thing). Here is a picture of it, partially open:


And then you realize... it was all cut from a single sheet of paper! Wow:


It says: "Fiddle-de-dee, fiddle-de-dee, The fly shall marry the bumblebee. They went to church, and married was she, The fly has married the bumblebee." It's awesome. Here's the sweet back:


I can't stop touching that book!

Katxena... did you make two spreads in my journal? Because I have an extra and these two look as though they go together. Someone pipe up if I have mis-credited, but I think Katxena made the next two. And... I love them both.

The photo does not show it very well, but there are strategically placed grommets on the heart diagram on the right...





... and the grommets get used in the next spread. (Fish bubbles!)





I love both of these spreads -- there is a lot to see and touch. They're awesome.

And the last one is from goatgoddess. I admired this technique so much when she used it in Stifflersmom's book, so I'm glad I got it in mine, too! She printed text on transparencies and overlaid the photos with them (I know because I asked her!)

The photo I took is not great because there is a glare from my lamp, but it allows you to see how cool and shiny (super shiny!) the page is. It's really a great effect in person:


Here are some shots with less glare:



Whew! Sorry everyone for prolonging the swap anticipation just a little toooo long today. I'm still making friends with my new camera and, despite the upgrade, I am still not good enough with it to get good photos, so it was a bit of a fight.

amaryllisroze, I'll put your journal in the mail tomorrow and this round will be a wrap! Thanks so much, everyone -- I'm looking forward to sending this out again (with bigger binder rings this time... I forgot it would be getting fatter during its travels!)

Just had to chime in with my "Thank you" for this great tutorial. I used it to make this little wristlet several months ago, but forgot to post at the time.

Many, many flat drawers:



(Be sure to have a good map or a good memory!)

I didn't even know about this quilt challenge and was just going to post something that I thought was a useful idea when you don't quite get the quilt done in time (oh, that doesn't happen to anyone else, does it?)

But then I realized my little project actually qualified for entry into this challenge (it's a quilt that I made entirely myself and is under 12x12) so I thought I'd go ahead and enter it. It's 5"x5.75".

Basically, I was working on a baby quilt for a friend of mine. She's due in February and had said she wasn't going to have a shower, so I thought, "Well, I've got some time to finish this..." Turns out, some friends decided to throw her a shower anyway. I knew I wouldn't be to finish the entire quilt in time for the shower, so I used some of the fabrics from the quilt I'm working on and made a little mini version of it.

Then I used the machine to write IOU on it so that she'd know -- I owe her 1 quilt!



The shower was this past Sunday and it was well received, so that's good. I felt a little dorky giving an IOU, but she thought it was funny and several other party-goers had a good time thinking of other things she could use it for (coaster, washcloth, etc.)

If all goes well, I should be posting the actual quilt here quite soon!

[now]

I'm de-lurking in this thread to post a couple of ATCs. Sorry I've been late to the party, but here I am -- a Thursday poster. Since I missed last week, I am posting two. I've decided to do the alphabet, so that should keep me busy for half the year. 

A is [lamely] for apple. I tried to think of something else, but the phrase "A is for apple" just wouldn't get out of my head! So I went ahead and put it on an ATC... now it's out of my head (that'll teach it!)



B is for buttons. I'm not super thrilled with it, but it's done. The one thing I like about it was that I cut the card into a B silhouette. As anyone who has seen my ATCs before knows, I sometimes round a corner or two. When I rounded the upper right one on this, I thought, "Hrm... I could round the bottom, cut out a notch and have a B." So that's what I did.

And here was my contribution to taloola's book:


It's made from fabric and the symbols represent air, fire, earth, and water.