I can barely believe it, but I made it. Yesterday was Manfredi’s birthday and I managed to have the booklet (and the card, and the cake) done in time. OK, so I got it all finished at 8pm, thus delaying our supper, but it was still before he got down to opening the presents.

Even better, he really liked the booklet, almost as much as he liked his other present, the Wii (because some people age without ever growing up). Or at least he lied very convincingly about liking it.

Two of my favourite pages from the booklet

So now I can lie down and sleep for the entire weekend. Or, more likely, lie down for five minutes and make armour and feed children for the entire weekend.

Time for stealth. Nicco and I have embarked on a secret project. Manfredi’s birthday is coming up in a month and we are making a little memory booklet for him.

We began it yesterday. I cut the base pages, folded them and glued them into a booklet, while Nicco made a wax crayon and a pencil drawing. The idea now is to paint each base page, then add the collages, photographs, drawings, perhaps even poetry. Whatever takes our fancy, really.

The biggest challenge for me is to keep it suitably masculine in both imagery and colours. I realised just how much I use pretty ‘girly’ flowers and butterflies when I worked on a patterned paper for the book today and found myself somewhat short of collage elements.

The first steps of the booklet: Nicco’s drawing and mypatterned paper

I ended up using mostly old letters, stamps and newspaper cuttings, and I am not sure I like the end result. Still, it is a beginning, and I have a full month ahead of me to perfect it. This is going to be both stretching and fun. Let’s just hope Manfredi likes it!