Making memories

Something in January’s issue of Mollie Makes caught my eye…

 

I loved this idea: it’s so simple, but has a lot of charm about it.  So I had a think and then decided to make my own today.  I hunted out an old biscuit tin, and then cut index cards and other card to fit.

For the dividers I used bits of old postcards and notecards I’ve received from people in the past.  Prior to this they’d been tacked onto a wall in my studio, but this seemed like a better use for them.

I also added little ribbon bits to help make it easier to flick from section to section.

I haven’t stamped dates onto any of the cards yet, but I’ve got a brand new SMASH stamp (from Craft Obsessions) which will do the job perfectly.

I’ve been a bit rubbish at keeping a diary as an adult – there always seems to be so much space to fill, and inevitably you miss days, or make a right mess of a page and want to rip it out.  This seems a good alternative because individual cards can be replaced, or added, and because it’s almost a perpetual diary I’ll be trying to keep things short and sweet to save on room.  I’m looking forward to 1st January so I can start using it!

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A gardening yearbook

My attack on the stash of calendars in my studio continued today, and the follow up to Dali was Alan Titchmarsh’s 2004 calendar:

I decided to make another portfolio with this, but using my preferred coptic binding instead of the accordion binding I used last time.  All twelve of the calendar pages were used to make envelopes/pockets, and then bound in chronological order so that this portfolio is the perfect place to store notes, plant tags or small packets of seeds throughout the entire gardening year.

A close up of one of the pockets:

The front cover of the calendar was used to create the covers for this portfolio.

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Salvaging Dali…

Regular readers will know that I rarely throw anything away.  I haven’t had a wall calendar for a number of years, but I still have quite a few from the past lurking around…

Yup, that is a calender from the year 2000.  I wasn’t joking about not throwing things away.

What did I finally decide to make with this calendar?  I’m still resolutely not making books, so this isn’t really a book, it’s more of a portfolio.  Possibly a book full of pockets.  Can you tell I’m clueless as to what to call it?

I made envelopes out of the beautiful calendar pages (I’ve always had a thing for Dali), and then made a cover using another of the pages.  There are eight envelopes/pockets in this portfolio, and they are bound into the cover using an accordion style binding.

This was a bit of an experiment for me, and although it took ages to make I’m really pleased with the result.  I plan to make more of these in future (yes, I have more calendars stashed away…) and hopefully the future ones will be quicker to make now that I’ve figured out the method!

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