The Birthday Weekend

Over the weekend, we celebrated my DS' 14th Birthday. 

(Thanks, Amy for the photo-grid template!)

A few highlights of our day - my nieces & nephew, plus my mum and her friend all came for lunch & tea on Sunday and we had a celebration.  It was also little E's 3rd birthday last Monday, so she had a present and cake too. 
J. was very lucky and had some nice presents and plenty of pocket money!  He was pleased with his cake and very happy to have the gifts he had asked for from us.

Also, I made a couple of things for DS' birthday:

A Birthday-Scrapbook-Card (!)

It has a concertina spine, with a ribbon to close it.

Inside the cover is a birthday greeting and a big photo of the family, then I filled it with memories of J's year...

On Sunday night I printed off some photos from J's family party at the weekend and put those in the book before I sealed its envelope.
I left some of the final pages blank, so he can add a few photos himself - especially as he and a friend are going on a Birthday Treat in a couple of weekends' time, to a tree-top adventure place in nearby woods.  J's dad is supervising, but I'm allowed in with a camera, so hope to get him a couple of good pictures to remind him of his day.
J was really pleased with this mini-album. I'm glad I took the trouble to make it - he appreciates the scrap pages and photo books I make - they last far longer than just a birthday card.

I also made this:

An A4 (letter sized) sketchbook, for his various drawings and writings.  It has a hard cover, with a hinge to make it easy to open & turn the pages.  The covering paper is one that J. chose himself, while we were shopping on holiday.  It may not show very well on the photo, but it's a lovely dark green hand made paper and the bleach-stamped flowers are creamy coloured.

And finally, yesterday I finished this Scrap Page for J. as well:

J. queued for 45 minutes at the Village Carnival, to have a go in one of these water balls.  He loved it and when we were on holiday at Wells, he had another go.  He had a great time messing around, falling down and trying to make the ball move across the water.  I commented to D. that we should call him "Rhino", after the little hamster in the Disney film, "Bolt" - and that's where the idea for this page is from. 

I printed off some graphics from the Disney Bolt Webpage and used them for the title and instead of embellishments.  

The shiny letters are some dome stickers with mirror backs, which I have had for ages.  They reminded me of bubbles - or water balls - so I used them. 

I made the film-strip photo mounts, by cutting rectangles from a strip of cardstock and using a great little edging punch that I have.  (It's also fab for threading ribbon through - see this page here!)

I mounted the large photo and title cut-out on foam pads, of two different thicknesses, to add a bit of extra dimension and interest to the page.  I think it worked ok!

Overall, I'm really pleased with my "makes" this week.  Two great books and a scrap page, all for J!  (I also made a photo album for a customer, but more on this another time)