latest creation

India was invited to a birthday party for a boy. What to make him came up in conversation. I wasn’t quite sure, but I thought a terrarium might work. Just so long as we didn’t mention putting an animal inside this tank, for the parents’ sake.
I must say this gift was the largest and heaviest at the party. Have you ever given the largest present. It is sort of a strange feeling. Almost like we were trumping the grandparents… which I hope we didn’t. I think their gifts came on his actual birthday.
Once he pulled off the wrapping all the kids crowded around it. They ooooo-d and ahhhh-d (i’m making up how that is spelled. It’s allowed, I read it in a bookmaking book… for kids. hmmmm) for quite awhile.
Then India dropped the bomb. She let him know that he could put a fish in there. I had to remind her that we weren’t going to bring up that idea.
Whenever we give a homemade gift I always wonder if it is played with. I wonder if he will dig through this dirt like he does in his backyard. Maybe in the winter months. Who knows.

India’s filling it up with little dinosaurs and we hung a fly, butterfly and dragonfly from the ceiling of the tank. Yes, that is a real tree… hopefully it lives long enough. We also put in a little Hot Wheels car. If only to give him an idea of what to do with this mammoth of a gift.

I felt like this gift needed to come with instructions. I hope it is faring well and that it will have a long a prosperous life.

So India and I saw the cutest headbands in J.Crew.  Of course they were $15 and I couldn’t see spending that much on a headband.  Go figure.  I figured Indi and I could make them ourselves.  So we did… I did.  We took the flowers apart together but I had to sew the flowers to the band.

Luckily I can still bind without it. But my gosh! I think I just had the thing a few weeks ago… or was that in Baltimore? Too many moves. No more!

I love this little box. It can be anything! This time ’round we made it into an art box. So much fun. I hope she likes it.

I typed instructions for some of the items in the box. The little black books that needs to be colored with light crayons, the dolls who need to be dressed, and the stack of papers to dress them with. There is also a pad of paper to make small masterpieces with.

This house we painted and varnished. It looked great. The dolls we lots of fun too. The parents are little spoons while the kids are the tiny clothes pins.

I think there are a few boy parties coming up. What should we make for them?? We’ll see.

I have slowly been incorporating my love for bookbinding into my packaging. Here is an example of how wallets, 4×6, and 8×10 inch prints are packaged. The wallets are in the little green envelope. I’ve been slowly making the change to this type of packaging. There may be some variations, but this is the basic idea. It feels good to have my work represent me, even through the mail.