My husband and I recently celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary! When I started thinking about what I would like to give to him as an anniversary gift I looked up the "traditional" anniversary gifts for 10 years. Apparently the first decade of marriage merits a gift of tin or aluminium. In my search I read "new" spins on traditional gifts, with suggestions like "utensils for the barbecue." Don't get me wrong, he might have liked barbecue utensils, they make great gifts, but I feel like the marking of the first decade deserves something more heart felt. So I looked around me for inspiration...and there in the east wing of my studio...better known as the coffee table in the living room....were the embossed aluminium little birds I'd been working on. That sparked an idea....
I decided to make a little book with photos of pivotal moments from the last 10 years and set them to a "Love Story"/ "Fairy Tale"/slightly silly narrative. The cover of the book is decorated with an aluminium embossed heart...I was excited to work in a bit of tradition in to the gift. The book itself is made from pieces of scrap-booking paper I cut in half and sewed down the middle to bind together. I made two page spreads starting with the day we were married and one for each of the following years. I manipulated the photos to give them a bit of a worn in feel, using some of the fun effects available in Photoscape. Then, I added the text in Photoshop.
It was great fun going back and looking at the last 10 years in pictures. We have done so much together and our bond continues to grow stronger! It was fun to look back and remember and to share stories with our children. I loved making the book and, as it turns out, he loved it too.
It was so hard to narrow my picture selection down! I took a few that I couldn't quite squeeze in the book and put them on the back cover.
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