Birthday Giveaway: IS NOW CLOSED!!!

I have been planning this giveaways for quite sometime now. I thought the best time to do this would be on my birthday month which is August. Because we will be taking a mini vacation from August 15 - 23, it is a good time for me to post my giveaways before I leave.

I will draw the lucky number when I return on 23 August. I will have giveaways on my other blog Notjustnat as well, so please go over and enter there too.

I wish everyone whose birthday is in August a Happy Birthday, and I hope that someone will remember and bake you a birthday cake. If not, have one from me HAPPY BIRTHDAY...!

And here are my giveaways:

1 - A handmade Coptic stitch book made by me using a discarded dust jacket for the cover. The pages have been left blank for you to fill in with your activities. Animal lovers would love this book.

2 - A CD book with handmade a Japanese paper cover. The pages in this book are black. You need to use a silver pen to write on it.

All you need to do to enter is:

a) Leave a comment on this post; b) post this link on your blog; c) Sign-in as my follower and please mention on your comment that you have done so.

Please include a blog or email address so that I can contact you.

The Giveaways end on Sunday August 23rd EST at 6:00 pm. The winner will be drawn by random generator system and be notified asap.

It has been fun planning and making the giveaways, and I hope the winner will enjoy using them too. Don't forget to go over and enter for the giveaways on my other blog: Notjustnat

as well. Please pass on the word to any of your blogger friends.

Good luck everyone and thanks for visiting...!

Gifts For Friends

It has always been my belief that giving a gift is an art. It gives pleasure to the receiver and it gives a greater pleasure to me as a giver. And I feel blessed to have many friends that I can give to. I make a lot of my gifts myself. For the reason that I can not always afford to buy gifts. Another reason is that I am very choosy with my gifts. I don't like to receive trashy stuff so I don't like giving trashy stuff either. My blogger friend Serena who I have been writing to for a while now is expecting her second child and Sophia her first, is expecting her little brother so I thought they both need a little treat before the busy time ahead of them.

I made this journal for Serena knowing that she is very fond of journal writing. The quilted cover is free motion machine ebroidery with a single rose on it. In the center of it are three silver rose charms with a few hand embroidered leaves.

I free motioned Serena's initial on the back cover. It is a very personnel journal for you Serena. I have left a lot of room inside the journal so Serena can save keepsakes in it. The tie and the edging is the easy part of the journal. I get braid, yarn and cord together and zigzag by machine. Once I have enough length I hold the finished cord against the edge of the journal cover and zigzag it to the journal's edge. This was the first time I tried this and it worked out really well.

Serena's daughter Sophia turned two last month so this is her birthday present that she can learn about her new baby brother. I re-purposed this Little Golden book by making it into a journal. I cut the book apart and inserted blank pages and the original pages together. I then bound it using Coptic stitch technique. Serena told me she received the parcel today so I am not spoiling her surprise by blogging it here.

Polka Dot Swap

I made this book as part of a polka dot swap that I took part in. The Polka Dot Swap was organized by Stacey in Auckland, NZ. I really enjoy the swap mainly because it does not have too many restrictions and I could choose my swapper who lives locally. Another fun thing about this swap was that it gave me a chance to get some polka dot fabric that I did not have. Some of the items have to be handmade so I made this book as part of it.

As I have mentioned often in this blog, I only use recycled materials for my books. The cover of this book came from a discarded book jacket of the Oxford Handbook of Personnel Psychology. I love the vibrant colour of the cover and it has all the colour balls that are perfect for a polka dot swap. I did not know at the time that it would come in handy.

I used yellow as signatures (pages) and the paper came from a recycled photocopy paper. When I finished the stitching, I used the same thread to make a cord for the bookmark.

Altered Books

I know I have not been making any books lately, but I do have some books that I should be showing on this blog. One of them I was so lucky to receive for my birthday last year from my friend Lynette.

This book looks like an ordinary book on the outside. Yes it was once a book titled 'Australian Short Stories'. With Lynette's creative thinking she turned this book into a sewing caddy. Lynette knows that I am a collector of sewing gadgets and this one is a unique one that I was lucky to receive.

In 2008 our sewing group SBOV (Sewing Basket of Victoria) had a birthday challenge. This book was my birthday challenge that Lynette made for me. Lynette cut out some of the pages from the book and lined it with fabric and paper. She went over it with clear varnish to seal it. On the top part of the book she decorated the scissors and nested them there nicely. On the lower part of the book she made me a needle holder that fitted there neatly.

Little Golden Books are all time favorites of my daughter. In her collection there were some Barbie books she used to read. I have kept all of my children books, and with my book making skills I turned this Barbie book into a Journal. I inserted some of the original pages amongst the blank pages of the journal. I am delighted to give new life to an old classic book.

COPTIC STITCH BINDING

Okay, finally I have managed to uploaded these photos into a group of 2 x 2, wow, it's not easy!!!
Anyway, lets get on with the blog.
These are two of my handmade books. Both of these books were bind using Coptic stitch binding. I used book cloth for the cover for the one on the left. Putting window on the cover was quite challenging, but it gives a lot of potential to insert pictures, letters or other interesting motives in the window. The red and yellow book came from a tea box El Arosa Tea. I picked it up from a waste paper basket at the Coptic Church in Cairo when I visited there last year.














I made these books for presents. The redwork book was for Georgina's last birthday. I did her initial in redwork embroidery and Coptic stitch binding.
The book Ine's of My Soul was for the university librarian. The dust jacket came from a book of that title. She had since read the book. This book was also used Coptic stitch binding.













Enjoy

STEVE'S BOOK

Steve Langan saved this red dust jacket for a long time. When he knew that I use dust jacket for handmade books, he gave it to me. I then made it into a book and given it back to him. He just loved how it turned out and couldn't bring himself to write on it. I have borrowed it from him to enter it in an exhibition we are having on March 31.

Graham Harrison's book. Graham's book made from a cover of The Journal of History of Idea. Before we send journals to the binder we removed the covers and some of the covers are very beautiful like this one. This book was bound using Coptic stitch binding and recycled photo copy papers for signatures.

Concertina Book

This is a Concertina style book with pockets. I made it for DH Father's Day gift. It contains old coin, measuring tap, safety pin and a husband of a sewer must have a sewing kit. It is a cute little book for HIS desk