artsy craftsy goodness

as promised, some of the creative stuff i've been working on lately:

first up, some birthday cards for the october babies in my life.

















next, those coffee sleeve notebooks i was talking about...









aren't they cute? and...EASY! wouldn't that christmas-y one make an adorable little place to keep all of those holiday shopping lists this coming winter? tutorial on how to make these on the way, so stay tuned!

lastly, i mentioned in a previous post that i signed up to take a class taught by Liz Kartchner, called "mysteries of me." this weekend the first two lessons were posted on the class site, and i got started this afternoon. we are making little mini-books that will be kept in re-purposed vintage books. pretty sweet idea, huh?

so far, we've gutted the book and made it into a little box, decorated the front cover, and started to prepare some of the other items to begin the mini-album soon. i found a really neat old book of poetry by robert frost amongst some old books...the cover is super-distressed and a beautiful teal color.

while i hated taking a knife to a book of such classic proportions, the pages were in pretty bad shape and falling out of the binding, so...i chose to look at it as restorative surgery and re-cycling instead of torturing classic literature. :)

here's my progress so far:

i had to put some new paper on the inside cover as an end-paper as the original was tearing from the cover. i also added some gaffer tape to help strengthen the binding since it was tearing away from the pages.

i left some of the pages in the bottom, and cut using an exacto knife about 1 inch deep to make the "pocket" where the mini-album will fit.

used rub-ons, stamping, and some other goodies on the front cover.

i love it so far!

p.s. my sunday dreams noted below came true except i traded coffee for iced tea because for some reason southern california has decided to send autumn away for awhile longer and invited summer temps to come back...much to my dismay, i am so over this hot weather!

hope you all had a great weekend, too, and are gearing up for a productive and happy week.