Pictures to share- Thanksgiving

My sister had major back surgery in October and was not going to be able to do much for several months. Our middle son was off working and wasn't home and our sweet daughter in law and 2 of the granddaughters took a trip out to San Diego with her mom for the week of Thanksgiving. We usually go meet with my sister and her family for Christmas but with Sonny having his other knee replacement on December 11, we knew we would not be able to go anywhere for Christmas. So I prepared Thanksgiving dinner and we took it over to my sister's house and spent the day with her, her husband and son and our youngest son Sean, DIL Carmen and DGD Molly. We had a wonderful time. Carmen had a timer to take a photo of all of us together. And the weather was gorgeous. 

And yes there was still a little fall color left in our area. Not so much now.

Here are a few more photos.

Me and my son Sean and Miss Molly and then Molly with my sister Susan. 

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Another thing I forgot to put up a while ago...we had another bear sighting. Now we think they have gone into hibernation as none has been seen in about a month. But this one was so funny and looked like he was posing. 

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They had to take down the feeders until the bears went to bed as they were tearing them up so bad. Speaking of feeders and deer...Sonny has had a wonderful hunt this year and tagged out. First time for him to ever do that. All the meat is in the freezer but still needs to be processed into hamburger and sausage and steaks. We did smoke some for Thanksgiving and it was wonderful. But he is thrilled over his head mounts. He does all his mounts the European method which is bare skull mounted on wood block. Most he hangs on our porch wall but these this year have gone up in our living room. 

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I finished all the books and decided they were a little too overstuffed so am taking some pages out and making a couple of extras as know they will make easy last minute gifts for Christmas. 

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Now I'm working on using up tee-shirt scraps...crocheting them into a bath rug. Also working on the wedding ring quilt top for my one granddaughter getting married next year and a baby quilt for another DGD due this spring. Photos will come later. 

Little book gifts

I finished all my little books for gifts and it amounted to a total of 19 completed books. I had finished 14 for the gifts and then made several more..2 Thanksgiving themed ones, 2 Christmas themed ones and another gift for a friend facing surgery. Making these books were a learning process for me. At first I tied the closing ribbon to the ribbon that held the books together and there is nothing wrong with that. But later I glued the ties into the inside covers and covered with paper to hide it. 

So here are my steps..(somewhat)

After painting the books with gesso, the red of the original books showed through but when painted over the gesso, it covered them fairly well. Then I decorated the covers. 

The top book shows how I tied the closing ribbon to the back ribbon. It is nice but not as finished looking as the other 2. I had a friend to visit me while working on the books and she gave me hints on how she wanted her book done. Hers is the one covered in lace. 

I had measured the books to cut the inside pages and only cut them 1/4inch smaller. Later as I progressed to more books, I cut them a half inch smaller and it made a big difference in closing the books. I used old wall paper scraps from some wall paper books from my teaching years and cut 10 for each book. I was planning on just using one page but the backs were ugly so in the process of adding pockets and hang tags they needed the backs covered. So I cut scrapbooking paper and some old handmade paper I did years ago along with old sheet music for the opposite sides. I used my sewing machine and sewed all the flaps, pockets and other scraps to the pages and the putting a page of the wallpaper and a page of scrap together with wrong sides together, I then sewed the 2 pages together. On the first book I accidentally sewed one page upside down so I scrapped it. When finished I had 10 pages. I folded each in half and then laid the cover on top of one and using a pen, I marked through the holes punched in the covers on one page and punched out the matching holes. I used this first page as a guide to punching out the rest. 

I used tip-ins or postcards, pictures on cardstock I had printed or just plain scrapbook cardstock for the tip-ins. I sewed these in on one side so they opened like book pages. It gave more space to add the stickers and other things I added later. 

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Later I will share some of the mistakes and some of the finished pages. If you are following along, and want to attempt doing one of these books here are some things you might need. 

I have an old version of Corel and can add lots of pictures to one jpg file so it made it less waste of paper. I also bought sticker paper on Amazon (cheapest place I found). Cardstock and any scrapbooking paper or just junk papers cut from magazines, sheet music and old books..just mainly junk paper. 

You will need scissors, embroidery thread or string and large eyed tapestry needles, ribbon, hole punch, glue, gel medium like Modge Podge, hot glue, scrapbooking 3-D things like tiny shaped brads, buttons and any thing small junk items you might want to use. I used old jewelry and beads as well. I also used bought tags and tags I cut out myself from cardstock. I have a sizzix so used it quite a bit. I also used craft paint on the covers along with glitter. I am one of those people who love glitter, and I have all kinds and colors. For these books I mainly used the rainbow looking glitters in larger size. It made the covers look more finished. 

It was a major mess around my house until I finished the original 14. After that, I only pulled out what I needed for the extra books so it wasn't quite as big a mess. 

Just don't stress over it but HAVE FUN!!!!