Mini Trunk Finished! :)

After having a no-go area in my "was-a-dining-room-now-a-craft-room" room (because the kittens were so hyperactive!), I finally managed to finish my mini--trunk and album today. To be quite honest, at the moment I'm limited to the amount of crafting I'm able to do because of the pain I suffer (rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis), and if I get a chance to play with paper every other day I consider myself very lucky :) Anyway... enough of the griping - things could be a lot worse and I really do appreciate how lucky I am.

Right... so onto the mini trunk and the gin--induced purple mini-album. Once again the mini is a gatefold  album (when aren't they these days for me? *lol*) with loads of space for fullsize 6"x4" photographs. Of course, there is also glittery-ness and OTT on the decoration (for me anyway) that you can definitely blame on the gin haze *lol*

Get ready for quite a few photographs... the mini album is about 3.5" thick with loads of pages and space, and sits vertical in the trunk.

Mini trunk next to the inspiration 'Daddy Trunk" (also made by me). The mini version is made from scraps and leftovers only.

The cover first, then the pages flipped over one by one... the back of the cover is just one piece of chipboard covered in the same paper as the front covers:



 Well, that's it for now folks... the kittens are climbing my legs, so time for me to leave the room and let them settle for the evening. Hpe you've all had a brilliant week so far. Remember... Friday tomorrow, then the WEEKEND!!! Yay!

Precious Mother Daughter Moments...

Beth, my youngest daughter, had been on my computer using the webcam and I used it as an opportunity to grab a couple of 'stills' of the two of us together (she is so photo-phobic!). That was in April, and looking through the photographs makes me smile so much - the two of us laughing and giggling, making silly faces and generally mucking around. The cooker timer started beeping, and just as I kissed her cheek before leaving the room to check on dinner she caught the moment ... and although it's not a flattering picture at all, I love the softness and love it shows. This was a rare layout that I had sketched, planned, and ended up almost exactly as I had first planned it. I started off with Core'Dinations card stock and the Papermania Heather Capsule. The edges of everything were frayed and inked and I used purple embroidery thread to stitch swirls (as always *lol*). The three-fold-down corner was just something I thought would look really effective, and I used a resist technique with gold ink and clear detail embossing powder before covering with purple ink and buffing the excess off - this had to be done because the Papermania papers are plain white on the reverse.

The photograph was also 'washed out' slightly, and the purple hues exaggerated to match in with the papers.  The flowers were handmade (see previous post) and the titling hand-written. I was a nervous wreck putting my silver paint pen direct onto the layout- even with a pencilled outline to guide me. I was terrified I would make a mistake on this layout that had taken me days to complete.  Typically for me, even with the amount of stash I have piled up everywhere, I had no Perfect Pearls that would match in with the colour of this layout. So, I mixed a baby blue and pale pink, and used a cocktail stick to dab it around the stitching. Using the cocktail stick wasn't as effective as using Perfect Pearls straight from the applicator bottle, but it's okay.

Well, that's it... one of my absolute favourite layouts to date - not just for the finished look, but for the crafting and creative process that it took me.