Making all my Christmas cards by hand this year instead of just buying them, has really put me into a crafty sort of spirit even now that Christmas is over. It creates a lot of clutter on the kitchen table, but I love having all my papers, scissors, inks, tapes, stickers and so on spread out around me while I decide on what touch to put on a project next.
While I do plan on making more cards because it’s always nice to have them on hand, I stumbled across a different crafty thing to make…
Smash books. First, an intro.
I came across the idea by accident, but I loved it. I’ve been calling it punk or messy scrapbooking. Scrapbooking for the rest of us, you might say. I was tempted to buy the book and products featured on the video, but I found many more instructional videos on how to make your own. I decided that I would try out making my own and then decide if I wanted the ‘brand name’ stuff.
Using blank greeting cards torn in half (because it was the most decent and sturdy cardstock I had on hand for the covers), I set out making two different ones. I’m going to stick all the pics behind a ‘more’ tag, though, so people don’t have to wait for the page to load if they don’t want to.
The first is for a friend I have on the east coast of the US. I don’t actually know much about her as far as favourite colours and such, so I let the muse guide me as it wished.
The second is for a penpal of mine here in Australia. She likes gardening type things and native plants, so I knew I wanted to make hers bright and nature-themed.
More are coming up. I feel like I have the hang of them a bit now, so I’ll be making some bigger ones. I’m still not entirely sure about how I feel about them on the whole, but I am enjoying making them for other people. I even picked up some pretty paper to make one for myself.
