Now I am not really a scrapbooker, but I am a hoarder and find it so hard to throw out things like tickets and other little mementos, so I have been pondering about the whole Smash book idea as a way of being tidier which such things. While I was looking at of the shelf products I remembered an A5 book with greyboard covers and kraft pages inside I bought at The London Graphic Centre a couple of months back for the bargain price of about £3.
To decorate the cover I used a Marianne A5 paper from the Country Home collection. This is like a small version of the Kaisercraft Basecoat collection but does have some words as part of the designs. I overstamped with a Kaisercraft butterfly vintagey collage stamp, I added a couple of strips of fabric tape, a stamped library card using a Memory Box stamp with a Prima sentiment and the pen nib is a Jenny Bowlin clear stamp. I added a sentiment with some self adhesive letters, some words from a pack of pre-printed sentiments and finished off with some black gem swirls.
For the inside cover I used an old ledger paper, I can't remember what make this is as I collect these kind of papers like a magpie whenever I see them. I added a simple sentiment that I love and seemed so appropriate for a book of lovely memories using a stamp from the recent Kaisercraft launch and a simple strip of washi tape.
You may notice I have taken the paper right up to the spine of the book. I hate to see a gap, so I carefully tore out a page from inside the book to use as a template, marked where each hole needed to be on the back of the paper and then used a small hole punch to make the holes, carefully snipped each one through, added some glue to the receiving surface and gently pushed each hole in place, closing the snipped gap with a pokey tool, ending up with a virtually invisible join.
Last weekend I found a date stamp for £1 on a visit to The Range so I am now all set to go with my Smash Book at a snip of the off the shelf price.
It seems like we are in for some stormy weather over the weekend and the lovely gentle autumn days we have had may be coming to an end. It's hard to believe only a couple of weekends ago we were picking fruit like this. Now safely stashed in the freezer or chutney jars.
As the colder weather has started, I have now made a little temporary craft area indoors as my winter craft shed evacuation is needed. My desk is made from a piece of recycled chipboard covered in green vinyl leatherette which cost me the princely sum of £3.50. I feel I have managed to be at least a little frugal recently (maybe making up for the new dies and a gorgeous set of Quietfire stamps that arrived in the post this week!). Next week we have a new woodburner being fitted so I will probably find this area a little too cosy given the current unreliability of my own thermostat!
I hope whatever you are doing this weekend, you keep cosy and safe in whatever the weather chucks at us!
Elaine x
