Make books, not war

I love glue. I love bookbinding glue. I love playing with it and getting it all over my fingers and rubbing the excess glue off. I love making things that require glue.

No, I don't sniff the glue. Although -- sometimes I can see why glue-sniffing appeals to some people. Personally, I would rather smell nice, fresh paper. But that's me. To each his own.

Anyway, over the last four days, I've made three post-bound albums. Yes, post-bound albums. Like, if you went to a craft store and said, "I want to buy a post-bound scrapbook album," the clerk would direct you to the scrapbooks that cost a fortune and you would say, "Ah ha! So that's what Bay made three of in one week? Ooooooooooo.... now I'm impressed."

I already posted a good picture of the 12x12 album earlier this week. It's too dark to take pictures of the two 8x8" albums I made today and yesterday, so I just crammed 'em in the scanner for the picture that you see in this post. The top one is made from last summer's Retro kit -- yummy lavender and green! -- and the bottom one is a special edition Crackle album available through Food For Craft. (The Crackle album is made with papers from English Garden and Extra! Extra!, both kits from 2004 which I absolutely adored and never would have thought to put the papers together -- aren't they scrumptious?)

And the weird thing is, these things are so perfect, I swear they don't look handmade! It's almost a let-down. What if I make one, give it away, and then they think I bought it instead of making it? Sheesh! That would be terrible!

(If you'd like to make a post-bound album of your own, Club Scrap sells a number of kits that are super-easy to make. And Tricia Morris taught the album-making kit on an episode of CraftTVWeekly. It's a 10-minute video and worth every second! As are all of Tricia's classes on that website!)

Now, after all this lovely crafting, I had to reward myself, so tonight I saw a movie -- "Hot Fuzz." This film is from the same guys who brought us "Shaun of the Dead," one of my all-time favorite fun movies. I'm not sure if "Hot Fuzz" would crack the Top 5 Fun Movies on my list, but it's darned funny and I enjoyed the evening immensely.

And more importantly, I found Tim Tams at World Market. They're marketed under the name Arnott's Original in the US, but I have been assured that they are, in fact, Australia's best-selling cookie, otherwise known as Tim Tams. Tomorrow, Amy and I will attempt the famous Tim Tam Slam on opposite ends of the continent.