An awesome annual event

the lovely Hannah working on her page

Last year Hannah, (now 13) the daughter of a good friend of mine, was quite sick and missed quite a bit of school.  It was pretty rough going there for a while.  I did a bit of what I like to think of as "art therapy" with Hannah and we did a bit of scrapbooking together.  Happily, Hannah is much better now and is doing awesomely well, it's just that our scrapbooking dates are more like an annual event instead of a fortnightly one.  Being school holidays, Hannah's mum Kathryn and sister Grace (11) joined in the fun, as of course did my Maddy (8 in 3 days).

Hannah;s lovely hand-drawn title

 Here are some of the details from Grace's page

Maddy was absolutely on fire, and did this page about herself and her "BFF" Hamish, as well as another page featuring her two best school friends.

Kathryn's funky 21st card for her niece

And finally, my own work.  I surprised myself and actually got a bit done.  I don't always when I have friends over for craft - it's so easy to just socialize.  I find that the best strategy though, is to have ready on hand is a few "kits" ready to choose from.  I know that I won't be able to journal when I am around other people, so I try to have it already to go, or else accept that I can finish it later.  For this page, "sew cute" I already knew exactly how I wanted it to look.  The circles and title were already cut, the focal photo mounted and the journalling drafted on a scrap of paper.  I just had to stick things down and sew on the buttons.  I even managed to copy down the journalling, as I didn't have to think about what I wanted to write.
To save your eyes, the journalling around the circles says
When I look at these photos of the boys in their matching tops that I made, I think to myself, "how on earth did I find the time to sew?"  And then I remember, that was before I took up scrapbooking!