Now that I'm home and only working part-time with no school in the way, I've decided that I have plenty of time to make things; particularly gifts. My goal this year is to make every gift for Christmas and birthday, in the hopes of a) saving money, b) expressing creativity and c) occupying my time with something other than Solitaire. This idea came mostly from reading Heather Bailey's blog and several others. About two months ago my sister, Emily, had a baby, and so I set to work making her gift. I decided to make a photo album (this was before discovering the baby booties). I'll be honest, I think this will be the last time I make a photo album and make any book with a padded front. I decided to donate my old suede leather jacket to the cause, because it would just add something that new fabric wouldn't have, plus I was also interested in finding out how thin the leather from my jacket was and how it would be to work with in bookbinding. I left the original stitching on the jacket which really added to the visual interest in the front, and I decided not to worry about the darkened spots from wear and tear. I really like what happened. The bind was a little more difficult so it took me a lot longer to complete than I had anticipated. It also didn't help that I kept procrastinating the project to the last minute. I finally finished the book the morning Ayden was blessed, a few hours before I ended up giving it to her. Anyway, here are the pics...