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Today is my Dad’s birthday! I’m not sure I’ve posted photos from when I was a little girl, but today is probably the best day to do this because my Dad’s moustache was hilarious and there’s no better day to make fun of your father than his birthday!

The day I was born. Look at that mo!

Dawwww. And taken with a proper Polaroid camera, none of this Poladroid business!

A photo from more recent years to show his fashion sense (and facial hair) situation has improved! That’s my Mum behind him, I guess I get a lot of my ~~unique~~ personality from them.

Happy birthday Boonge!

Today is my husband’s 30th birthday – he storms into his third decade on earth with panache!

My sister celebrated her birthday on November 3, or Melbourne Cup day. She was rather sozzled

I have discovered that a big part of what I do involves buttloads of time and love. People must think I’m crazy for spending hours drawing tiny lines or baking things from scratch, but it’s one of the only ways my primitive consciousness knows how to properly convey love and affection. A small part of me frets that people don’t value what I do – I worry that people throw away the things I make for them as if they were Hallmark products, but in the end I have no control over that. The only thing I really have control over is my love, and even if they did throw away my gifts I’d still spend time making them.

I have been incredibly busy lately, which is awesome, but I fell behind in making cards for Mother’s Day. So yesterday was spent drawing furiously… and making cupcakes. I finished icing the cupcakes and gluing the cards about half an hour before we left to have lunch at my sister’s place today… I was frazzled and half resentful because I feared how my gifts would be received. I needn’t have worried – my family always appreciate what I do, and I am so grateful for that because otherwise I’d be one bitter headcase

Thanks to the women in my life, including most of all – my Mum and Nana. You are brilliant, and my very limited vocabulary can not express how much I am indebted to you for helping me become who I am.

If you want to show someone you really think they are tops but you can’t express it in words, print off this recipe and make them some amazing cupcakes. They’ll get it

Tonight I’m giving the gifts we bought in Melbourne to my family, as well as Mum’s birthday present because she was born on this fabulous day. I am pretty sure none of them will check my blog today, so I’m going to post photos!

I didn’t do quite so much elaborate drawing on these because my pens are running out of ink. The materials are pretty simple: brown paper, duct tape (best ever!), string, brown card, round corner stamp, scallop scissors and pens and markers. I used an awl to punch the holes too.

The lacing is my favourite part. I think I might incorporate this on future things.

This is Mum’s birthday present – a hand bound book for her to write her creative ideas in. It lays flat too, I can’t stand notebooks that don’t lay flat!

This is the best part of making little books. I just love sewing the signatures together! I’m still perfecting my binding technique, but if you want to try to make books you should check out Dave’s book tutorial. It’s incredibly helpful!

I don’t have any of the proper book binding materials – I used things I had lying around to substitute

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Cox & Cox have some really cute and innovative ideas for wedding favours. They’re also favours you can put together yourself, without being out of pocket thanks to the horrendous exchange rate!

1. Wedding Matches – You can print on some nice card stock and create a box for these matches (I’ve seen matches with pink tips too!) using fusible web or roll-on adhesive strips.

2. Name Place Vases & Hand-Made Cards – Wholesale flower markets usually have a really wide variety of vases for centrepieces and even smaller. These tiny vases shouldn’t set you back much, and if you’re buying in bulk you should get a discount. The hand made cards are so quaint and adorable! You can recycle paper you have on hand at home and create your own hand made paper by following a simple paper making tutorial. Grab a calligraphy pen or even a quill and pen the names yourself!

3. Sweet Talking Chocolates – You can buy bonbonniere chocolates and sweets in bulk from speciality wedding supply stores for a considerable discount. Print your own slogans and sayings using a laser printer or Gocco set and wrap them around the sweets, securing with fusible web or adhesive strips.

4. Love Origami – This is my favourite! Remember making these little origami style fortune tellers in primary school? I do! You can buy some really nice card stock from an art supply store or make your own paper, write or print your design, sayings and fortunes and follow these instructions to fold up your own love origami!