Jewellery Box Mini and a little Competition

I've been seeing quite a bit of chatter of forums about people making mini books for 18 year olds and I realised that I hadn't actually seen alot of projects aimed at teenagers, especially girls. I saw this as a challenge and decided to create something that would be suitable.

I created a jewellery box with a mini book inside. I used the gorgeous Bo Bunny Garden Girl collection for this. Here's a few pics.

This is the outside of the box.

Inside the box with minibook
A sample of one of the pages.

Once this was finished I decided to do a masculine version. I did it in the style of a poker table and it is this version that I demonstrate on my videos below. The box is so versatile that it can be turned into anything; a school desk for students or a writing table for the literary aficionado. The possibilities are endless.

I am a complete novice and actually demonstrating making something on video. I was really terrified because it's a one take job - you can't undo what you've done if the video goes wrong, so I apologise in advance if the camera work isn't all that nifty or for any other recording errors. I had to do it in three parts because it took longer than anticipated.
First a few pictures of the poker table. As above the pics are of the outside of the box, the inside and a sample of one of the minibook pages.

For some reason the last picture insists on displaying the wrong way and I don't know how to fix it.
The mini book in this version is from Laura Denison's Envelope Pocket Mini Album. Here is her youtube video.



Here are the videos. The videos are a demonstration of how I made the box rather than what one would call a class. I did a lot of preparation in advance so as to keep the videos short ... well... shortish.







The written instructions are below. They show pictures of the girls version and the instructions on how to make the mini book inside the box are also included:

Jewellery Box


Now for the Competition

Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win the Jewellery Box together with the mini book. I will pick a comment at random on 01 October 2011 and send the box to the winner. Make sure to check back here on 02 October to see if you have won!!

No Wheels

I've had these photos on my table for ages waiting to be scrapped but for some reason couldn't actually get the mojo to do it.
The photos are of my gorgeous little Eli going to school for the very first time without his wheelchair. Many of you will know that Eli was born with Spina Bifida and he has limited mobility. He started walking independently about 6 months ago. We were informed by the school that he never uses his chair in school and is very happy to walk to the different rooms he needs to get to, so basically his chair was his vehicle to and from school. As he goes to school with a van, we discussed witht the school the idea of him going without the chair, so as to give him a greater sense of independence and the idea was leapt upon. Eli's doing great without his chair and he loves the freedom of being able to walk around on his own.
When I saw this sketch on the Bo Bunny blog I loved it and was immediately inspired to get scrapping.
Skech was created by the gorgeous and talented Carin McDonough. Her layouts are awesome!!!

I interpreted the sketch very loosely so I'm going to say that my layout is inspired by the sketch rather than fully based on it, if that makes any sense at all.
I had sort of decided that I was going to use the Bo Bunny Cambridge collection for these photos, but then, considering the subject matter, I liked the symbolism of using the Liberty collection.
My initial idea for the title was "Look! No Wheels", but the combination of the freedom theme and the USA style Liberty papers made "Independence Day" the perfect title. It seemed very serindipidous that these papers came out around the same time that we made the decision to give Eli his independence.
Here's the layout

Lost & Found (my mojo)

My mojo has a tendency to go on walkabout, but every so often it comes back with a vengeance. I have been quite a busy little crafting beaver over the past couple of days and have done 4 layouts. Considering that it usually takes me about 12 hours just to decide which papers I'm going to use, I'm quite proud of this spurt of creativity.
I'll display the layouts one at a time. I could come up with some really arty farty reason such as that I don't want to overload anyone's stimuli with too much artistic genius (oooh I am modest today). The real reason is because it's in the middle of the night and I really ought to be getting to bed, but wanted to massage my poorly neglected blog's ego a little, so decided to give it some attention.



This layout was created using the new luscious "Breeze" collection from My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Two papers, along with embellishments. The photos are of my dear impatient son, who didn't want to sit still long enough to have his face painted properly so he ended up with just a little heart drawn on his cheek - hence the title "Sweet Cheeks".

Tartan CJ

I took part in a Circle Journal and my theme was Tartan. I supplied 10 different pieces of tartan fabric and each participant created a page using a piece of the fabric. Thank you to all my lovely teamies who helped create this masterpiece.


This is my cover. I designed it to look like a kilt complete with sporran and kilt pin.


My Welcome and Rules Pages


"Stewart Purple Dress" - this page was created by me


"Chattan Clan" - created by my lovely sister Leah aka sixofone


"Napier Ancient" - created by my dear niece Malke Gitty aka malkegitty


"MacCallum" - this gorgeous creation was made by Jeanette aka nettyb


"Borthwick" - this loveliness was created by Karen aka kittycrafts


"Jacobite" - this lusciousness was created by Jude aka hollybank


"MacBean" - this deliciously red page was created by Ann aka annib


"MacTavish" - this gorgeous creation was made by Beth aka megbaby


"Gordon Dress Modern" - This amazing page was created by Morag aka mozi


"Thompson Camel" - This incredible page was created by Julia aka julesarooney


Sign In Page - All the participants decorated a little sporran in the style of the page they created.

Sketch Challenge

This is just a quickie blog entry with my Bo Bunny Sketch Challenge.



I used the Vicki B collection. I thought it would be quite a challenge to use an obviously girlie collection for a boy layout and I think it works really well. I punched out the flowers and put UTEE on them so that I could give them a bit of a shape.

Heroes

Here's a mini book I made called Our Heroes. It is based on Following the Paper Trails's Laura Denison's My Guy mini album.

It is made up of pictures of my dear son wearing dressed up in various "heroes" costumes - members of the emergency services, soldiers, etc.



Talking of Heroes....

I think it's about time I introduced you to my little hero - my gorgeous little boy, Eli. He has Spina Bifida and he was born prematurely. He was really really ill when he was born and we were told that he may not survive.

But our little fella is a real little fighter and he came through all his surgeries with flying colours. He is now six years old and doing so incredibly well - we are so proud of him. A couple of weeks ago he started walking independently - I should really go and show him to the NICU doctors who were so pessimistic about his future.

Now we just need to get him talking....

Here he is in action:

Touchy Feely Sensory Stuff

I stupidly showed off some of my creations to the staff at Eli's school and now I am being roped in to doing all kinds of stuff for them. They desperately wanted some sensory wall hangings, but when shopping around the prices were extortionate and well out of their budget. So I designed and created some pieces for them and the teachers are literally fighting over them.
The caterpillar and the 10 panels combined cost me around £100 to make and had they bought them from a specialist shop it would have cost the school well over £2000!!!!! So actually I am quite pleased with myself at the moment.

First is my very happy caterpillar. It is over 2m long and each section is made up of different textures and bits for the kids to touch and feel.






Next I made 10 sensory panels. Each one is 12x12 chipboard decorated with different textures.

Pom Poms and scrunched up silver foil on a yellowish painted background.

Covered with gold corduroy and some plastic chain link sewn on.

Bubble wrap and straws with some ball chain beading on a lilac painted background.

Shower mat (purchased for £1.50) and some painted foam balls on a pale green painted background.

Sequin waste, tassles and buttons on a red velvety background.

Yellow fur and assorted bits of metal on a dark blue painted background.

This one is my personal favourite. Red corduroy with some fur textured paper and coloured curtain rings with different coloured metal chains hanging down.

Used texture pasted on this one to make in lumpy and bumpy with greengrocer's grass at the bottom.

Painted background orange and covered with copper organza and then hung various different ribbons using brads.

Purple baize type material with a bit of rope and corrugated card.