Media Folder Mini Album

Stacy came over last night and we made a couple of mini albums out of media folders. I learned how to make these last November when Paula came to visit. I made this one for my brother's new granddaughter. The cardstock and patterned paper is from PapertreyINK Guidelines Collection. I also found the flower there, it's from Maya Road and is almost translucent. I tried coloring it with my Palette ink pad but the ink never dried and just wiped off. I then tried my Copic marker, hmm... two coats made it look even better, cool!

It's good to have friends! I borrowed a Sizzix top note die from Susan and a Sizzix envelope die from Marilyn to complete the inside of the mini album. Lucky for me I already had the old Sizzix large tag die.

I made a matching card to go with my gift using Lizzie Anne Designs Petite Phrases and sketch challenge 218.

I hope you have a wonderful day. I need to get with it, I'm having friends over to stamp today!

Life is like a box of chocolates...

I was in WalMart the other day looking for Valentine candies to fill little jars and these boxes of chocolates caught my eye. They've been around forever but that day they looked different to me... I pictured them in my mind a little more like this!
A friend of mine called Monday and asked if I could make a mini album for her that she was going to give as a gift. She needs it this coming Sunday. I said sure, I can do that! I put her to work gathering pictures and I took off for Lake Havasu to go shopping, we were in need of a few things from WalMart.
Do you remember the movie Forrest Gump? I saw it with my Mom and Dad in Laughlin Nevada on their 50th wedding anniversary back in 1990something (1996). I kept thinking about what he said in the movie while I was making this - Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get...

That statemet just seemed kind of profound to me today, this is the anniversary of my Mom's death 8 years ago. I've had a good day working on this project and thinking about my Mom and enjoying the memories I have of her.

I was pregnant with my second child when she passed away so she never got to know my second and third child. I think working with baby pictures today made me think more about his statement about never really knowing where life is going to take us. On a happier note though, I do have faith in God to walk through all lifes twists and turns with me.

A little bit about my project now - I used 12 x 12 sheets of kraft cardstock for the accordian fold pages of the mini album. I cut them to fit the box and scored each fold and used double faced scotch tape to put them together.
I cropped the pictures so they would fit into the space I had, matted them and put them on the pages and decorated around them with rubber stamping, eyelets and a few tags I printed out on the computer with the little boys name and all his personal info.
I covered the outside of the candy box with some designer paper from my stash. It's made by Petals & Possibilities and called All Boy. I then used the brayer to color the chipboard monogram initials with Bayou Blue ink by Stampin' Up!, I stuck them to the box with glue dots and added dew drops to each letter and used a strip of Bayou Blue stitched ribbon to finish it off.

Maya Road Altered Dinner Break Tin

I haven't been totally goofing off today, I did work all morning on Christmas cards. But I've had this tin on my mind and was brought a bag of "vacation" goodies last week and just couldn't help myself! I think I would have been okay if I hadn't looked in the bag... This is a job I'm working on, a vacation in Spain scrapbook in a small container... or two... Two of the mini albums will fit in this tin and I have another tin the same size and type I received by mistake so who knows where this could go!
I used a bunch of the receipts, airline boarding passes, luggage claim stickers, money, etc. on this tin. I stuck everything on the way I thought I'd like it and modge podged over the top of it. I really like the way one of the boarding passes fit on the lid of this tin, I didn't have to make much of an adjustment in it's size at all. I was able to keep its integrity.

I think if (if? lol) I get to do this again I'll use the modge podge on the tin to glue the stuff down and then use it again on top of everything. I was kind of worried when the lighter weight papers started to wrinkle and bubble when I applied the modge podge, I don't think anyone I know will be returning to Spain soon so I could replace what I might have ruined. Then I had to remind myself... it's only paper!


When ever I make a scrapbook for someone and know I'll be doing it in advance I ask them to save me all the stuff that could be in their pockets at the end of the day. And to also pick up interesting stuff along the way that I might be able to use in their books. Kind of like a treasure hunt.
This tin and the chip board albums that fit inside came from the online store Frantic Stamper. She has a great selection of stuff and her shipping is quick!
I just posted this and thought of something else! dd2njoy, Diane left a comment the other day asking - Do you ever get days like you don't feel like stamping,especially after making the same card over 100 times??? The answer to the question is no, I can't seem to keep up with all the stuff that flows through my head and I want to get on paper so I just do the best I can. There are a few things in my life I feel I MUST do and this is one of them.

Have a great day!

My First At Home Class~

I wanted to show just one more altered file folder today. I had my first At Home Class today and this is what we got together to make. We had a great time and it all went very well.

There will be another class Tuesday, October 30th at 10:30 a.m., we'll be making 3 Autumn cards. They are posted on my blog here and here. The class fee is $10.00, you can e mail me for directions to the house and reserve your spot if you are interested and please bring your crop kit and adhesives and we'll have some fun! Supply List: Paper - by PSX, Real Red card stock, Accessories - Ribbon, file folder, Prong fasteners.

I found the tutorial for this on Splitcoaststampers a few weeks ago and have had a lot of fun with them.

Wendy at Life In The Button Factory linked her blog to mine showing her cool altered file folder today. She e mailed to tell me she'd found my gallery at Splitcoaststampers and my altered file folders inspired her to make one too. I think that's pretty cool, thanks Wendy!

Oh No!! I Can't Stop...

Have you ever made a project and had so much fun with it you had to make another one? And another one, and another one? I think it's happening to me... Good thing I'm in recovery!
I worked at Scrapbooker's Corner today and on my way I stopped by my bosses office to show her what I'd done with her file folders and punch I "borrowed" Saturday. She thought they were cool and suggested I add ribbon to the prong fasteners. Ohhhhhhh, what a great idea! And I was off ~
So, oh boy!! Look what I made at work today! hehehe (insert silly grin)

Halloween will be fun this year knowing I have a cute album to fill with pictures of the kids.

There's a reduced table at the store and I was straightening it this morning and noticed this paper and thought, how cute is that! One of my girl friends came in to ask me if I'd gotten her e mail about a get well card she needs and saw this and wants two of them for her grandkids Halloween pictures too. What could be better, another "job" in the works.

Supply List: Paper - American Traditional Designs Spooky Town Brights, Bazzill cardstock, Stamps - Hero Arts Happy Halloween, Ink - Noir Black, Accessories - Prima flowers, Brads, foam tape, Stampin' Up! Slit Punch, Grossgrain and Organdy Ribbons, Prong fasteners.

Altered File Folders

Hey these are fun! Quick to put together too! The most time consuming part for me was adding the pictures.
SCS has a tutorial for Altered file folders this week so I had to check it out and make some. This is my first one and I'll post the other one tomorrow. My second one doesn't have pictures in it yet, it's a Thanksgiving theme and I though I'd wait and fill it after this Thanksgiving.

There wasn't much stamping going on in this project and that can be a challenge for me too.

Supply List: Bazzill cardstocks, Patterned paper by Scrapease, Ink - Night of Navy, Stamps - Memories by Just For Fun, Christmas by SU Season of Joy and a date stamp from the office supply, Accessories - Prong fasteners, glue dots, brads, Su Photo Corners Punch.

I have file drawers in my "stamp room" that hold my paper and stamps and other stuff, these will go in there nicely too!

Melissa's Wedding Album

Today is my oldest son's 18th birhtday, seems hard to believe that much time has passed! Happy Birthday Daryl!!

I've worked at the Scrapbooker's Corner for a few hours the last couple of days and totally enjoyed myself. I've been learning how to use their Cricket machine, playing with Alcohol Inks (not very successfully!) and made up a couple of cards to use for classes I get to teach.

I'm looking forward to staying home Thursday and working right here on scrapbook projects.

I have two layouts from Melissa's Wedding album for you today. I've used my Fancy Pants Pollen Dust clear stamp set to make the paper for the pages. All of them are the same and it gets to me at times.

I thought since this is a wedding album it needs to be elegant so the pages should be tone on tone. Which is really White card stock and Sahara Sand ink. I received my Spellbinders Nestabilities preorder from PAPERTREYink. the other day and I must say, they rock! All I'd been doing with this album was making paper, printing and matting pictures and sticking them down. Now that I have those new dies I've really started adding some detail to the pages.


Another great thing about those dies is they go through my Zip' E Mate (whew!), I thought they would but had never tried that brand before. I used my Lizzie Anne Designs Gettin' Hitched stamp set and the Copic Spica glitter pens for the Groom's toast on the first layout.
While I was out today I saw the Pastor of Grace Assembly Of God church here in town and he wants to see me about making Christmas cards for his church again this year. I've made all their Birthday, Anniversary, Get Well, Sympathy, and Pastor's note cards this year. It's truly a blessing to have that job and I'm excited to see what I can come up with for Christmas for them this year.

Melissa's Wedding Album

I'm working on Melissa's Wedding Album today and just finished this layout and wanted to share it with you. The pictures were taken New Year's Eve 2006, this is her future husband Shelvy proposing to her. I love the smile on his face that was captured by the photographer, what a sweet moment.

I used the Doodle This stamp set for this layout, I like the flourishes and this was a casual affair they were at. I have an EK Success mini flower punch and thought it would be perfect to cover the flowers in this stamp and give the layout some depth. Melissa's birth stone is the Pearl and I just happen to have some "Pearls" with adhesive backs for the flower centers. I'm not all that crazy about my own handwriting but I did my best with that part.

There's That Vintage Look Again

This is a project for my friend Shirley that's been waiting for me to get inspired and finish it. I got the pictures cropped and mounted and stalled, what next?

I discovered a lady that makes the most awesome scrapbook pages I've ever seen last week and was inspired by her to finish this. Her blog is called Scrapperlicious, if you want to see an artist - check her out!

Now I'm not sure I like the vellum paper on it anymore. I suppose it would be easy enough to remove, after all it's only paper. That's what I kept thinking as I was working on this today. It's only paper, it's only paper, it's only paper.

I had fun putting the details in this. Shirley likes butterflies so I added some. I was thinking about how quickly our children grow up and added a clock, I had fun paper piercing on some of the flourishes, I hid some words in the flourishes, I even added some rhinestones to the flowers. It was fun, but will she like it?

It has a black frame that it goes in and needs to be matted before it's really finished.

I just discovered if you click on the picture a new window opens and you can see all the detail, how cool! Oh, the little things in a girls' life ~

2007 Myanmar Mission Trip Scrapbook Pages

Last Saturday I started posting scrapbook pages I've made of a Mission Trip my friend took back in March of this year and then I got sidetracked. So I thought today I'd put up a few more.

The top picture is the opening page of the scrapbook. I love using background stamps to create my paper. I have a hard time using designer papers and matching them to my card stock so I like to make my own.

Supply List: Stamps - Stampin' Up! Old World Map, Lexicon Of Love, Paper - Thepapermill.com Blue Deep, Sky Blue Light, Ink - Brilliant Blue, Accessories - Organdy ribbon, Chipboard M.

These next 2 layouts are the same, I just wanted to show how I did the journaling. This is an 8 X 8 book and there isn't a lot of extra room for journaling on the pages.
I stamped the images from World Tour on the card stock and then stamped over them with the French Script background.
Supply List: Stamps - World Tour, French Script, Alphabet Fun Upper and Lowercase. Paper - Balsa, Nut Brown. Ink - Creamy Carmel, Basic Brown. Accessories - Tea died gingham ribbon (JKM), Round tab punch SU.

Myanmar Mission Trip 2007 Scrapbook Pages

I thought it would be fun this coming week to show some scrapbook pages I've been working on.

This project is a mission trip scrapbook I'm making for a friend of mine.

I'll talk about how I made the pages and I asked him to tell about his trip.

My guest blogger is Louie Marsh from the The Marshian Chronicles who is also the Pastor of our church, Christ's Church on the River here in Parker.

Louie ~
The collage above is a combination of two pictures I took at the Shew Dagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar (most still call it, Rangoon, Burma). I was there on my 4th short term mission trip in February/March of 2007.
The Shew Dagon is the largest and richest Pagoda in Myanmar, a land that is literally dotted with Pagodas. The grounds are huge, and contain many different buildings, altars, etc.
The pictures above show some ancient Buddhist inscriptions and their translation into English that are found there. You can also see the main building, covered in layers of gold, and easily worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
When viewed from a historical or cultural perspecitve all this is very interesting. And that's usually the perspective most Westerners view it from. All the effort and skill that went into the construction of these buildings are impressive indeed.
But as a Christian Pastor I had another point of view - and that one spiritual. To watch very poor people sacrifice time, money and goods to worship statues and stones was very sad. I've been in Myanmar enough to know how desperately poor all but the ruling class is. To watch them pray to dead stones was a moving experience, one that motivated me and those with me to pray even harder for the people of Myanmar.
Jan~
This is another 8 x 8 scrapbook. I like this size because I can run my card stock through my computer printer. The background for this layout is 2 pictures Louie took that I printed as full sheets and cut them to the 8 x 8 size thus making my own scrapbook paper. I then used 2 additonal photos and matted them and attached them to the page on the right.
Supply List: Paper - Royal Fiber Balsa, Basic Black. Computer printer and pictures.

CD Mailer Mini Album

It's been a much smoother day today!

The kids and I went to church this morning and I sat in the audience, which I haven't done in quite awhile.

I'm usually back in the sound booth, I get to run the sound system for our worship team on Sunday mornings and our band on Friday nights and also run the Power Point for the projector screen. There's one other guy that helps out and I have to remember not to be a hog and let him have a chance too.

I've been doing some stamping today but what I have to share with you in pictures isn't what I've been working on today.

I was looking through my pictures and noticed this mini album I made several months ago for a friend of mine.

I was going to give a class using a Stampin' Up! Simply Scrappin' kit and discovered that I didn't have any old black and white pictures so I used his.

The kit I used is called Out & About, the paper I used in it is Not Quite Navy, Sage Shadow, Really Rust and the designer paper that comes with the kit. I used the stickers that come with the kit for embellishments. The monogram on the front of the mini album is made with Sizzix Fun Serif alphabet die cuts.

I bought the CD mailers from U Line, they hold 1 CD. I used 12 x 12 paper and cut it into
5 1/2" lengths and taped them together, then measured the inside width of the mailer and used my ScorIt to score every 4 3/4" so I could accordian fold the paper and fit it into the mailer. Then came the fun part, decorating and adding the pictures. After that part was done I used my double sided tape and taped it into the CD mailer, I also put a piece of the Not Quite Navy card stock on the inside of the front cover for a more finished look.

I used some of the designer paper that came in the kit to cover the outside of the CD mailer and a couple of the stickers to go with the monogram and it was done. It took me an afternoon to design that fun little project for us to do and I've made several since then.

I love "containers", boxes, tins, jars, etc. My friends have started to bring me odd stuff because they know I like to make other things out of them. I just like to make things!

Finished Projects

I just finished a really neat job, I'm 40 something and I went to the Prom! One of my friends daughters was going to Prom and she asked me to hem her dress. As with me, one thing led to another and I was also taking pictures and making a Prom Scrapbook before I was all done!
I thought I'd share a few layouts from the scrapbook with you. Her dress was pink so I used Pretty in Pink and White for her book. You'll see blank tags and lines, she's going to do her own journaling in her handwriting.
I love making my own paper using background stamps and Stampin' Around wheels. I have pretty designer paper but forget to use it because I get busy making my own! Everything matches perfectly this way too. You might notice on this layout above that I used some of the netting I cut off her dress on the pages.
We decided on an 8 x 8 format for this scrapbook. I really like the size, it fits real well with rubber stamping and incorperating those background stamps I love.