Father's Day Gift

A Walk Down Memory Lane carries these mini library drawers that are made by 7 Gypsies. Since I first saw them, there's been a little voice in the back of my mind saying, "There's got to be a cool way to use that as a mini album." Well full inspiration finally hit, and while it's not exactly a mini album, I've decided to use it to hold a whole series of mini albums.

This will be a Father's Day gift for my dad. Almost every time we go visit my parents (who live about 7 1/2 hrs away) my boys ask to go to my dad's work. You see, Papa Bruce's work has lots of cool bucket trucks, diggers, and work trucks. They put on their safety glasses and pretend to be drivers. I cut a stencil from vinyl, and added the words "Papa's Work" to the drawer with a bit of paint. Then I set about creating mini tag albums to house in the library drawer. I have 4 albums that will be given with the drawer for Father's Day. As part of the gift, I will continue to make mini tag albums from pictures from future visits to add to the drawer.

This album, of their most recent visit, was made from Bo Bunny's On The Go collection. For a little extra fun I asked my boys what Papa Bruce does at work, and then added their answers to the mini album.

This album was created from My Mind's Eye's Miss Caroline. This was the very first visit to Papa's work. My boys were so little (translation: sort attention spans) that I only have 2 pictures from this visit to Papa's work, but the beauty of these small tag albums is that 2 pictures are enough to make a meaningful album.

This album was created from Echo Park's This & That Charming. Another bonus to these tag albums is that you can make them from leftover scraps from other projects. I created a few layouts from my This & That collection pack and then created this album.

I'd also mention that tag albums are a great way to start if you want to try your hand at a mini album, but feel a little overwhelmed by the idea. You can buy a package of pre-made tags and then add as many tags as you need to have the right number of pages.

Thanks for stopping by today!

New Bike

A few weeks ago my youngest got his first "big boy" bike. This is also his first bike that isn't a hand me down from big brother. I took him to the store to shop, and he knew exactly which bike he wanted.

I used Pink Paislee Prairie Hill paper and stickers for this layout. I really like the colors and patterns in this line, but the theme is a geared a bit towards sunny days and flying kites. It was neither all that sunny nor were we flying kites that day, so I chose just a few of the stickers from the line. I used a Maya Road journaling tag to tell the story of the bike. 

I layered some stickers and buttons down in this corner. the peach colored sticker is actually applied on top of an orange button to give it a little extra dimension.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Stamp School April Release

It's time again for Stamp School to release 2 new stamp sets and new paper, felt, and ink colors. Up first I have 3 cards made from this month's release:

 The watercolor effect of this card was achieved using Faber Castell Gelatos instead of ink. Gelatos are a sort of paint/crayon hybrid, and show up beautifully on dark cardstock...but I like to try all sorts of things out, and as you can see they work pretty well on light card stock too!

This card uses Flowers for Mom and my recent favorite color combo. I added a little bit of glitter (via Stickles) to the petals of the rose, just to give the flower some extra pop. The background was created using a new punch from Martha Stewart. It's a really easy way to create a stunning background.

Finally, this card is waaaaaaaaaaay out of my normal wheelhouse. It's a bit more feminine, and uses more pastels than I'm used to, but like I always say: it's good to step outside your comfort zone. The yellow (banana split) and pink (cotton candy) background was created directly on the card stock base. I used a reverse masking technique to create it. I'm planning on doing a video tutorial on it later this month for Stamp School.

Finally, here are the details of the release

The stamps:

Flowers For Mom and Women In My Life(the gray area on Flowers for Mom is the area where there is a void in the stamp, you use a separate, included stamp to fill in the gray area.):

 The papers , ink, and felt:

                                                                       Spearamint

Bubble Gum

Banana Split

Grapesicle

Remember you'll be able to buy all of the new releases April 1. You can get to the store by clicking here.  

Thanks for stopping by!

March Glue Dots

With Easter fast approching, it's time to do a few Easter projects for Glue Dots. Up first is a bag of magic jellybeans. Give a bag of these to your kiddos the day before Easter. Have them plant them outside in the dirt. The next morning before they get up, stick a really fun, over the top sucker in the dirt where the jellybeans were planted and watch how excited they are to find out what grew overnight!

Please note, this is not my original idea, however, I'm not sure who was the first person to come up with this awesome plan! You can find directions to make your own magic jellybean bag here in the Glue Dots® Project Gallery.

My second project is a SPRING banner. Easter always feels like the unofficial start of spring for us. You could really easily switch out "SPRING" for "EASTER" though, if you want something a little more geared towards Easter.

I don't have a fireplace (so, alas, no mantle to hang pretty banners from), but I do have these great wood shelves that my husband built for me, so I like to hang things from there.

Again, you can find step-by-step directions for this in the Glue Dots® project gallery. Let me tell you, the trick to making this banner quickly and easily is the new XXL Glue Dots®! Oh, and if you're loving that patterned paper, it's Echo Park's This & That Graceful.

I'll be back tomorrow with a sneak peak of Stamp School's April stamp release!

Awesome

 I have 2 more layouts today with Simple Stories Awesome line. It's perfect for boy stuff, but, as you'll see in my second layout, it works for other things too.

I figured, with the range of colors in this photo, that I'd have to convert it to black & white to scrap it, but what do you know? Awesome worked really well with the photo colors.

I added a little bit of zig-zag stitching and some layering of embellishments. The stickers are from the Amazing collection. The brown, round brad looking things are my new favorite embellishment. They're called Candi Dots and they're from a company called Craftworkcards. They have the look of brads, but are made from paper (or chipboard maybe?), and you don't have to deal with the metal legs like you do with brads. Candi Dots attach easily with foam adhesive. They come in a whole bunch of color and patterns too!

I used them on this second layout, too.

I haven't spent much time scrapping my pets, so I thought it would be fun to do a layout of our dog, Uther. The printed text was especially perfect for this layout.

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One of a Kind

I was really excited for Echo Park's This & That Charming line to come out. I'm always thrilled when a really great "boy" line comes out, and Echo Park has yet to disappoint me in that category.  I seem to always pick up the collection pack when it comes to Echo Park (even though you can buy the individual papers, too). So far I've been able to get one mini album and 2 layouts out of the collection pack (with leftovers). Here's one of my layouts.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that This & That not only has papers and stickers, but also matching brads and chipboard accents (that I just "had" to pick up, too). You know I love to mix and match patterned papers, and with This & That, I had no problem using many of them in one layout. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Genuine Mini Album

I wanted to share a mini album I created using Genuine from Authentique.

This is the outside of the album (yes, I do know sonowmobile is spelled with an “e”. At some point before I photographed it, the “e” fell off!). Closed, the album measures 4" x 6" with a 1/4" spine on each side. 

These are a few shots of the inside. This is basically an accordion style album that gets adhered inside a card stock cover.  I promise to do a video tutorial on how I put this together soon. Basic Grey has magnetic snaps which I used (cleverly hidden under stickers) to keep the album closed.  This album went together really quickly. I just pulled a few pieces of Genuine paper, and added accents with the Genuine sticker sheets. 

I hope you have a genuinely (pun totally intended) fun weekend!