Handbound Love

I love journals especially ones that use traditional stitching like these lovelies that I have acquired over the last couple of years. No they're not all mine *grin*. The center one is my special treasure and the other two were gifts for my parents :)

I want to share with you an amazing seller on Etsy that was super sweet, accommodating of my requests, and is Canadian! Oh how I love to find Canadian sellers :)

I have been secretly drooling over La Paperie's beautiful journals for a little over a year now. I could never quite decide on which one I wanted as I really wanted them all *grin*.

My mother had recently mentioned that she wanted a journal for putting pictures of her flowers in and a place to jot down garden notes so that she could look back each season to see what she had done the previous years. I just knew she had to pick one from Beverly so I had her come over to choose the one that she liked.

She picked the above cherry red sketchbook with a lovely little silver button and the package arrived yesterday. It was wrapped in tissue, tied with a simple jute bow and it was so much fun to watch my mom open it up, feel the paper and breathe in that wonderful smell of real leather.

I hadn't yet told her that it was going to be a special gift from me to her :)

Of course since I was getting one for mom I just had to get one for myself and finally make a decision as to which one I was going to pick *grin*.

I love to browse through the past sales in all of my favorite Etsy shops to see what sort of items had previously been available in their shops. Don't be to shy to ask a seller if they could make one of their sold items as they are almost always able to recreate one that is similar if not the same!

As I looked I found this beautiful little mahogany journal with it's feminine ribbon tie and pretty little flower button... I just knew that it was to be mine :)

One of the special little touches that Beverly has available is the option to customize the front page of your journal with a personal message of your own or one of the well know quotes of the past. I chose to go with a favorite of mine by Helen Keller

"The most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart."

I can't wait to put pen to paper and fill it with my thoughts.

~ Rosina

Recycled Leather Cell Phone Case

My mom has to be one of the few people that don't actually own a cell phone :) I must say at times I envy that she doesn't have one as I personally don't like mine and conveniently leave it in the trunk of my car *grin*. Shhh, don't tell my hubby! LOL. He uses his for work on the tugs so chats on it constantly but mine is pretty much for emergencies only and I avoid it like the plague!

Mom has been hinting that she wanted one and when we switched our cell phone plan a couple of years ago we got new phones and my old one has been kicking around in the junk drawer ever since. So as a special surprise I've had it activated for her on one of those pay as you go plans :) There is no cell service where we live so it only works when we head into the city but it comes in super handy when trying to meet up with my sister or if someone needs something brought home. So the pay as you go will be much cheaper than having a plan as I'm sure the $10 card will be more than enough for a month.

I found some really great red leather scraps at an upholstery shop and a leather skirt at the salvation army that were perfect to upcycle into a snazzy cell phone case. Most purses are like giant manholes and just swallow up things as they go in... well at least mom's and mine are so I thought I would make a case for her phone to go in so that it might be easier to locate it when it rings :)

I wanted to give it a two tone look and started by sketching out circles on paper to figure out my design before chopping into the leather. Who knew circles could be so hard! It took me a bit to work out the spaces in between each one where I had my little peek a boo triangles as it looked totally different with the pen drawings than it did when you flipped it over and looked at it like it was the leather.

Next was putting all of the pieces together which was quite fun. I love figuring out all of the dimensions. It's like a puzzle :) In the past I have given my mom my phone to hang onto when I haven't had a purse and when it has rung she has gone into a bit of a frenzy scrambling to get to it before it stops ringing so I thought having a ribbon inside that popped the phone out of the case easily would be fantastic! I stitched a button hole shape into the backside of the case, clipped it open and slid some nice wide grosgrain ribbon through it and looped it inside the case.

It works fabulously! You pull the ribbon, it shoots out the phone and when you push the phone back in the case it slides the ribbon back down with it and you don't have to try and feed the ribbon back in at all. It does it all by itself! Love it!

I can't wait to surprise her with it tomorrow for Mother's Day :)

~ Rosina