My first homemade gift of the season ...

Ok, so it is homemade but I won't be using it for Christmas :-)  While looking on Pinterest for things to make as gifts this year I found this pattern at a very nice blog called The Cottage Home.  It is a fabric notepad holder and was very easy to make.  I shall definitely be making more!  I made this one for my mom for her birthday today.  I hope she likes it :-)  I think she will.  I used one of my fav buttons that I have been hoarding for years on the front (sorry the photo is not great) and the solid red will bring back memories.  I wonder if she will remember where it is from?  It was a scrap left over from when we made a baby quilt when I was expecting The Extrovert.  We used it in everything from the bumper, headboard, curtains, diaper holder and quilt.  The Princess and I went fabric shopping yesterday and found the rest of the fabrics.  When we walked into the store they had just marked almost all their fat quarters down to half price, YEAH! 

Cover

Who would have thought that it would be so difficult to find a notebook to put in the inside!  I eventually found one this morning but it had a Disney Fairies cover, opps :-)  So I covered it to match.  No one will ever know if you don't tell them as my mom won't be reading this... shhhhhh.  The top is loose to cover the spirals but still allow it to open easily.

Inside with notebook on the right

Inside with notebook moved out of the way :-)

I stamped on a scrap of twill to make a name plate for the back.  It reads 'My Mom'.  I really need to get myself a tiny alpha stamp set so that I can stamp out longer messages.

The back

I really like the way it turned out and I can make more quite quickly.  If any of you like to sew I would recommend The Cottage Home as the instructions were very easy to follow and the cutting guides were explained properly.  I will modify a few parts for my next one as I have an overlocker/serger which will make the finished result neater.  But I always follow the pattern the first time :-)  Saves on mistakes!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!!!!

Chipper

P.S. Do you like my new music????  Does it feel like Christmas???  :-)  If your sound is off, please turn it on or you will be missing out!

Christmas Album pages

I sent the early hours of Tuesday looking on Pinterest via my phone while laying in bed relaxing on my day off.  There are a few modern gadgets that can be wonderful, especially when it comes to wasting spending time on the world wide web!  After some inspirational browsing I felt like finally tackling some Christmas scrapping and I made the pocket page on the previous post followed by the pages below.  With the exception on the title page the rest will be completed when I add the photos as I have no idea what will go on each page.  It is quite relaxing scrapping this way especially on the smaller size.  You may notice that there are occasional gaps in ribbons and cardstock, these will be covered by the photos.  A4 card is frustratingly smaller than 8.5in so my metallic cardstock is just a tad too short width ways!

Two of the above pages can even be turned, so who knows how they will turn out!  I then spent the afternoon of my day off sorting out all the sites I had found in the morning and pinning to my new board.  Who knew one could lose oneself 'pinning' for 5 hours!  But it was a lovely way to spend a day to myself :-)

Happy Crafting,

Chipper

Pocket page Challenge

I made the first page today for my Christmas album.  I also used it to complete the pocket Challenge over at Shimelle's for her Christmas crafting weekend.  I used an acetate sheet from a Making Memories journaling book to make my pocket.  We are back in the land of HOT Christmases and I REALLY, REALLY miss the thought of snow at Christmas.  I am going to use this page to write down some of those thoughts.  But first I will wait for it to get really hot as that is probably when I will be most honest!!!  I also added some buttons, stickers, punched snowflakes and Cricut snowflakes.  Along with some stitching and the obligatory bling, cause it is Christmas after all!

Thanks for stopping by,

Chipper

Thank you :-)

Thanks for the comments left on my previous post.  Sometimes gift selecting can be a challenge ... especially when I don't like to just give a gift certificate.  I took your advise and looked at Pinterest.  I had looked there before but I think I was looking with blinkers on.  I never thought to actually click through to the original sites and that they would have even more info.  What a few days I have had!

Well I have found some things to make and now I have to go off and price the needed materials.  If any of you are interested I have pinned what I have found so far HERE.  I shall keep adding to it as I am still looking for more beauty product recipes.  Instead of making all of those beauty products, which would kill the budget, I think I might compile them all into a mini book for my teenage niece to make herself after Christmas.  Sort of like a recipe book for beauty :-)  My favourite find of the day was THIS for the small people in the family.  Lets hope I can find some great value fabric, even better if it had a Transformer print!

Thanks for the pick me up :-)  I really appreciate it.

Chipper

Need some help please ...

For those few special people who read my blog :-) I would like to know if any of you could lend me a hand.  I am feeling kind of low at the moment and struggling to really get into the Christmas spirit.  I am looking to make as many presents as possible this year but have limited time and funds.  I had thought to make up a few hampers with some baked goods and other craft things.  They can't only contain baked goods or I will be baking like crazy every night for the few days leading up to Christmas!  So it is the 'other crafty' things that I need a bit of help with.

Do any of you have any ideas that could make special Christmas gifts for both men and women??  Or have you possibly seen a good blog that you can recommend which has some gift ideas?  Any suggestions would be great :-)

Many thanks,
Chipper