Archive Discovered!

Ok, well its not like I unearthed a valuable stone or anything, but these pages are plenty valuable to me.  Of course they are in my scrapbooks, but a long time ago I used to belong to a kit of the month club called ScrapGoods.  They have been out of business for a few years, but I really feel that my participation with them stretched my creativity and exposed me to techniques I never would have even KNOWN to try : )  Below are pictures I found on a CD tonight while looking for something.

ABC Quilt making with my mom at a volunteer event at work.

I think the technique this month was using paint and chipboard.  I like how the rik-rak looked like water to me.

 Ahh... My little princess and her first dance recital.  So fun!

This was my first hand made book.  Fabric covered chipboard with post binding.

I was BIG into these long hidden tags... I had a template for them and used them all of the time for pages I sold on Ebay.  Hmmm...  might be time for a comeback.  LOL



 Pre School grad!

My BBF's : )  There is a tag under the picture with journaling.

  Another Dance Recital page...  I loved how the pictures turned out all vintage-y looking.

 

My first use of a metal embelishment and more painted chipboard.

A page made for a friend.

Well if you've made it this far... GOD BLESS YOU!  Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep : )  Have a good night!

Vintage Inspired Album

Hi everyone : )  I was very excited to log in and see that I now have THREE followers!  Wooohoo!  LOL, simple pleasures right?  It's been a crazy month with a lot of projects in the works, one will be posted here today and I'll share the others shortly. 

My beautiful mother in law celebrated her 75th birthday this past May.  I wanted to commemorate her and her party with this album.  I used Classic K Designer Paper "Bailey"  from K and Company.  I loved the vintage and feminine look to the papers and how well all of the patterns coordinated with each other.  All Die Cuts came from the Celebrations cartridge.

As with any large album project, I began by taking post-it notes and sketching out 20 pages.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE using The CK Sketch Books by Becky Higgins and I keep a "list" of my favorites posted on my wall for quick reference.

Here are some pictures of the completed project.  For the complete project click on this link.  This was my first project using flag banners and stitching!  Wooo!  I really like how they turned out.   Thank you for your comments and for any feedback you have! 

Front Page

 I used lace from her wedding dress for the border and flower.

Yardsaling!!!

Hmm... Is that a word?  Well, it needs to be today : )  On Saturday I got up at a terribly early time in the morning to go treking along house to house to see if someone else's trash could become my treasure.  I went out armed with $40 in cash (that I had NO intentions of spending) and my best girl-friend of 20+   years.  I actually hoped to find a binding machine, but no such luck : )

I SCORED BIG!!!  I spent less than $20 and came home with a brand name shirt for my daugher, a sun dress for me, a chair, a potty seat (brand new), and a bag of brand new swim diapers (which AREN'T CHEAP!) for my son, two new lamps for my basement, a bag, a timer (which I was looking for), and THIS lovely find : ) 

I spent $0.33 on it.  It was a dusty old oak stained spice rack.  Repainted and re-purposed it has found new life in my craft room!  It's perfect for holding my growing collection of glitter glues and alcohol inks.  I like that it puts them right in front of me so that I remember what I have and to use them : )  I love the effects of both.

I spent most of last week making a complete album which I will be posting soon.  I would blow up your server with all of the pictures I took of it, he he he.  So proud of it though - can't wait to share it with you : )  I have several more projects in the works that will be posted here as they are completed.  I'm on the clock for both of them, so wish me luck!  Have a great night!

Teen Memo Board

Eesh. I wanted to get into my craft room in the worst way today. I was on a roll the other day and completed almost 8 pages in about 2.5 hours!!! I wanted to get back to that project - which is a special one I am making to record the events from my mother in law's 75th birthday party : ) I'll post the pictures as soon as the book is completed. Alas, I have ZERO energy today. In the mean time, I wanted to continue to share the projects I have already completed.


Today's project is a Teen Memo Board. Of course, it doesn't HAVE to be for a teen. You can make one in any color scheme and it would work great in a kitchen or home office as well!

Supplies used:
Clock parts
a variety of coordinating paper
2 foam core boards
ribbons
fishing line
glue gun


First, decide how big you want your project to be. I intended for mine to be a little abstract to go with my daughter's teal and zebra decor. Cut your foam core board to accommodate the block sizes you want to have using a pencil, a ruler, and an exacto knife. It's important to make sure your cuts are straight. While ugly edges can be covered with ribbon if you choose, an angled cut will show in the finished product. Arrange your papers loosely before gluing them down/cutting them out. Decide which pieces you want to have overlap, etc. The large center can be covered with elastic string or ribbons to hold pictures, but plain is fine too, and it will accommodate push pins. Once you have cut your paper to match the foam core board, begin piecing it together.


I added a few extra "flares" for fun. First, we bought a clock piece (found at any craft store) and attached it to a circular piece of the decorated foam core board. The foam made it easy for us to push painted toothpicks with clock numbers attached (cut on the Cricut).

To the right we made the taller piece a pocket. To outline the edge, I used a piece of team fiber.


At the bottom, she decided to put her initial on it and we covered it in teal glitter. So fun!


Once completed, I hot glued fishing line to the back to hang the whole thing on the wall. She loves it and is always adding new things to it all of the time : )


Thanks for looking!

A few cards... and a family update

Wow.  To say its been a rough week would be an understatement.  Last week my daughter started to complain of a pain in her stomach and generally not feeling well.  It got to the point where she asked if I would take her to Patient First or something...  No.  What are they going to do for a stomach ache really?  Let's try some ibuprophen and see if you feel any better.  Not at all.  In fact it got worse, so bad that we wound up taking her to the ER where we found out that she would need to have an emergency appendectomy.  None of us slept for almost two days.  My poor angel missed out on some really fun end of the year activities at school, and even though this is the last week of school, she is likely to miss more ; (  She's really bummed out about it.  She's recovering well from the laproscopic procedure and is healing pretty fast.  She's still in a decent amount of pain though.  My poor baby : (

I've had a lot of projects happening at the same time as well.  In the last few days, I've wrapped up a vinyl project (turned out so cute!!), a canvas project, and my first banner.  Pictures of all of that coming soon, but since I don't have them on hand yet, I thought I'd share some cards I have worked on.  As always, thanks for looking!

Made with Opposites Attract and Mother's Day Bouquet
                                     

Made using Stretch Your Imagination

 Made using Home Decor.  Total Scraplift : )  I wish I could give credit to the original artist!

Made using Alphalicious and Mother's Day Bouquet

 No Cricut use...  just basic circles and a circle punch ; )

Mom Mom's Brag Book

I made this album as a gift for my mom for Mother's Day.  She now has three grandchildren so I thought she'd find this useful : )  Similar to Ashley's Album, I wanted to try to hand make as many of the embellishments as possible.  In the process of this I "discovered" Walnut Ink and alcohol ink.  Oh. My. Gosh.  What rock have I been hiding under?  I've known about it forever, but I've never beden interested in trying it.  Now that I have I'm totally hooked!    I hope you have all had a great day today - thanks for reading and letting me know what you think!

Scrappy Girl

My favorite thing to do is create scrapbooks.  I love to make complete, themed albums and I really feel honored when I am asked to make one for someone else, or when someone I love is really touched by a personalized gift.  This album was made for my neice Ashley, who was just born on April 4 and it was my first attempt at using my Your Story binding machine, which I got for a SONG at http://www.cricutmachine.com/ .  I LOVE that place for their awesome prices on cartridges and supplies.  ***Ahem....  hear that cricut machine?  lol***  The  front cover was decorated using a stencil and some pink chalk.  I took Ashlyn's Alphabet and used it to cut a cereal box (cheap chipboard!!!) and then out of paper.  Cereal boxes do not need a deep cut housing blade and cut very nicely if you use a slow speed and the highest pressure setting.  I decided to adhere yellow cardstock to the back of the front cover, so that a picture could be interted into the front (that's the black line you see when the book is opened.  I had two goals when creating this book: to make ALL of the embellishments (or as many as possible) on the Cricut and to use only supplies I had on hand.  NO new purchasing, lol.  I really need to clean my scraproom out!!!  As I built the book, I realized it was becoming quite thick!  So I attached ribbon inside of the covers to tie it all together.  My sister in law loved the book, and I'm looking forward to gifting more!  Thanks for looking!

Operation Write Home

I follow the My Cricut Craft Room blog amost daily : )  Well her FB posts anyway : )  Erica is awesome and the information she posts is both educational and inspirational!  Recently, she posted a call to action:  Participate in Operation Write Home.  Prior to reading about this, I had no idea about the service, which collects hand made cards and then ships them to soldiers who can then choose from the ones the like to write in and send home.  What a great idea!  And though Memorial Day is a day of rememberance and appreciation for those who have fought and died for our freedom (not active service members), I decided to participate in their honor.

I loved this last one, but I thing the pearl would make it too bulky to be able to withstand international mail.  I'm putting this one in my back pocket though.  I love making the 3-D flowers...I might have to do a tutorial on them at some point. 

Thanks for looking and have a great rest of your day!