Friday---Hooray!!! Made it to the end of another week. Hopefully your weekend will include some time to craft. Perhaps you can join this week's
Paper Cutz challenge for
a card, layout or project using three patterend papers. This challenge gave me a chance to highlight my mini album I made for pictures of my 9th grandchild due in May. I'm always making things for someone else and rarely do anything for myself. I made this album for myself as a little brag book. It's just as exciting to have the ninth grandchild as it was the first. We will travel from Michigan to Virginia to see this baby, so a lot of family members here in Michigan won't have the opportunity to see the baby personally. I will be taking lots of pictures to bring home to share and I wanted something cute to put them in. I absolutely fell in love with this line of double-sided papers from Best Creation, Inc. called Safari Boy. I love the colors, texture, shiny glitter highlights, patterns and adorable little animals. I purchased only four sheets to mix and match into a 6 x 6 album. The first picture is of the front cover after binding it with my Bind It All. Sorry for the glare on the photo, I put an acrylic sheet on top to protect the front and back covers. I took pictures of the inside pages before binding so I could lay them flat. Below are page two and three of the album and I used three of the patterned papers together on page two...a check, a diamond and the lion heads that I fussy cut for the edge. The third page uses a polka dot for the banner. I cut the banner from Cricut's Birthday Bash cartridge and the letters for the banner from Plantin' Schoolbook. I added buttons to the corners of the journaling square and a little fussy cut lion above the banner.
For pages four and five of the album I used the checked background with the diamond border. I cut two scalloped squares from the Storybook cartridge and trimmed them with a little rick rack. The joy circle is cut from Lacy Labels and I added a journaling block in the other corner.
The striped edge I used on pages six and seven is a scrap from my bin that I thought coordinated well enough. I added a jounaling box and a sentiment then a couple more of the fussy cut lion heads. It doesn't show up in the photo but the word cuddly is glittered and there is glitter on the lions heads.
I punched a border for pages eight and nine with a Fiskars punch and added another journaling block and the adorable elephant with glitter.
For pages ten and eleven below, I used the other half of the scallop shaped paper piece that I used on the front and back covers then added the little alligator in one corner and a journaling block in the other and added a couple buttons to each.
The last two pages, thirteen and fourteen, have scalloped cirlces that I cut from Cricut's Easter 2010 cartridge and added sentiments and bows on each circle.
The last photo is the back cover. I was able to put this album together in about four hours using all the pre-made elements. I almost forgot to tell you that I used chipboard for the album pages to make it sturdy. I hope you enjoyed looking at my album. I sure enjoyed making something for myself and can't wait until I am able to see that baby and take the pictures to add to the album.
I needed a project to take me into a creative zone and Project Tuesday's Mini Album was just the thing. While most of the world was preparing for and celebrating the holidays I was in a construction zone. Oh, how I long to be back into a routine. My house has been torn up for over a month now. How dumb to start a project with the holidays coming, but alas, that is what we did. Our entire second floor is getting painted and new carpeting (five bedrooms, hallway and stairs). This had to be done in two installations because where in the world could we put five bedrooms worth of furniture and 36 years of accumulation. All the carpet is installed and two rooms are painted, three bedrooms, the hallway and stairs still need paint. Of course, the first room my husband chose to paint was my studio. The room I have been using for about 13 years is no longer my studio. It has become the guest room and I've been relegated to a smaller room and I hate it. I had a large room on the south side of the house painted a nice cheery yellow. Now I'm in a beige cave. I'm going to have to find some way to make this room brighter and cheerier or I'm going to go crazy (or should I say crazier). All of this in preparation for trying to sell the house this spring. We are empty nesters and do not need a five bedroom house anymore. I hope some nice large family will come along and want it. What a disaster, trying to get all my stuff in a smaller room. I'm still trying to unpack and put stuff in it's new location. I got enough unpacked to get this project put together.
I used a Cosmo Cricket Gal Friday paper pack for this project. They are double-sided papers making it easy to coordinate multiple pages and it came with a page of journaling tags and assorted images. Now, I know the front of the album says My Best Friend, at the moment that happens to be my three year old granddaughter. We had a big discussion on her last sleepover about best friends and she told me I was her best friend. I know that will change in a few years, but I'm happy to be loved and so important in her life right now. We have such a good time together.
I will be adding pictures of the two of us in various assorted activities. I just haven't had time to get them printed up yet.
This was really a fun little album to put together and I enjoyed making it knowing that it was for Payton. The online directions from Project Tuesday were easy to understand and follow. It really only took me about an hour to put it together. Now I guess I have to go back to the drudgery of organizing. On the bright side, I've managed to find some supplies that I have forgotten and I'm looking forward to using some of them. 