Celebrating 50 years

There are not many couples who can claim the title of being married for 50 years.  However, my in-laws are now official members of that 'club'!  We helped them celebrate this momentous occasion back in September 2011 by gathering close family and friends for dinner, reminiscing and celebrating.  The beautiful florals and patterns in the My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline 'Fiddlesticks' collection, were the perfect compliment to photos from the day.

Supplies used: Paper: My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline 'Fiddlesticks' collection: "Lucky" Tapestry (1), "Story" Plaid (1), "Home" Dotted (1), "Love" Journal (1); Cardstock: Bazzill; Embellishments: My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline 'Fiddlesticks' collection: "Lucky" twine, and "Love" pins and buttons, Hero Arts earth mixed pearls and gem; Other: computer font, machine stitching, embroidery floss, ribbon, scallop border punch, chipboard letters (title), vellum, photo corners 

I really loved all of the miscellaneous buttons and stick pins that came with this collection and used nearly all of them up to decorate these pages.  It seems I am rediscovering vellum again, in my scrapbooking, and used it to cut pretty butterflies for both pages.

Here's a closer look at the page title.  I used American Crafts raw chipboard letters to spell out the word celebrate and embossed them with gold embossing powder to compliment the theme of the page.  I love the vintage feel it gives to the letters.

The close up of this page, shows the AMAZING cake that my friend Beth made for the occasion.  Doesn't she do wonderful work?  If you are local and need a cake, you should definitely check out her facebook page - Busy B's cakery.  

Do you spy another vellum butterfly here?  I told you I'm hooked on vellum again!  I topped off this butterfly with a cute button, twine and another of the darling stick pins, from this collection.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!  I'll be back soon with more to share.

Mother's Day mini and some fun news

Now that the holiday is officially past and gifts have been given, I wanted to share the cute little mini books I put together for both my mom and mother in law for mother's day this year.  The album measures a little more than 4" x 4", so it's the perfect size for these Grandma's to pop in their purses and always have on hand, to share photos of their darling grandchildren!  For the contents of the album I selected some favorite photos of my kiddos and paired it with text, that answers a couple of 'interview' questions that I asked them about their Grandma and Nana.  Here's the look at the cover:




And a side view of the album, shows how it is kept closed with a length of twill tape.  I love from this view, how you can see all of the bits and pieces of each page peeking out - and hint at what's to come inside!

As you will see, I laid out the album to include a picture of each child on the left page, and their response on the right.  In the middle of each page, I sewed a small envelope into the book binding, which when opened, reveals a sweet little drawing from them.  I started the book with a picture of my oldest.

Here is a look at the page once the pocket page is turned.

Again the next set of pages is set up with the same 'formula' - picture, pocket, then text.

A close up reveals how the envelope opens, and shows a peek at the paper, containing Justin's sweet little artwork, inside.

The backside of the envelope and his response to my questions are shown here.  I love the he said he loves his Nana because, "she teaches me tricks." Ha, ha - funny boy!

Next, is baby girl's page.  Obviously, she is not quite at the age to create artwork yet so, I chose to use a decorative envelope here.  I punched some 'confetti' from paper scraps (as is all the rage in scrapbooking right now!), tucked it inside a vellum envelope and sewed it shut.  I think it adds a fun little decorative element!

I gave baby girl a little help with her 'interview', as well! (wink!)

For the final pages, I mixed up the 'formula' a little bit.  I include some decorative elements on the left, sewed a vellum envelope into the binding and finished it off with a group photo of all three kids.

This picture reveals the contents of the vellum envelope -- sweet little mini instax photos of each child!  Love this!  I was thrilled when I figured out that the envelope was the perfect size to contain these!

Here's a look at the final page:

To finish off the back side of the album I stamped a sweet little phrase, from an older Hero Arts Stamp set and added a remaining sticker.  

As you can imagine, these little albums were quite a hit with the Grandma's! My only regret is not making a copy to tote along in my own purse!

Oh, and before I sign off -- just wanted to share my fun news.  I found out yesterday that a recent page, shown in this post, won the latest sketch challenge over at the Jillibean Soup blog.  Yay, me!  If that wasn't enough -- my prize was to select $50 worth of items of my own choosing from the online Jillibean store.  How fun is that????  I had so much fun shopping with my Jillibean dollars.  Maybe when I get my package in the mail, I'll snap a pic and share my goodies!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

National Scrapbook Day

Happy (one day belated) National Scrapbook Day to all of my crafty friends out there!  And for all those friends and family who read my blog - what do you mean, you didn't know that this was an actual holiday?  Mark it on your calendars for next year  -- I'll expect a phone call! ;)

Not that I needed another excuse to find some time to scrapbook, but having a holiday centered around my favorite hobby, certainly gave me one yesterday.  I was lucky to steal away a couple of hours in my crafting space to participate in a few of the challenges and festivities that many companies had posted online.  (Big thanks to my hubby for corralling the kiddos during that time!  Thanks, babe - smooches!).  Echo Park hosted a number of challenges on their blog throughout the day and I was excited to play along with a couple of them.  The first was to put together a card, using any of their products, in under two hours. I already had some of their 'Note to Self' line out on my desk and typically can crank out a card in under 30 minutes, so participation in this challenge was a no brainer.  Here's the results, featuring one of my favorite quote stickers from this collection:




Supplies used: Kraft cardstock, Echo Park's Note to Self Collection papers: Arrows and Red Dots, and Elements Stickers.  Other: ribbon and Jillibean woodgrain epoxy button.



It's a bit hard to see in the photograph, but I added glittered stickles to the top edge of the word 'icing' to mimic the dripping of actual icing.

Another of Echo Park's challenges required that you 'scraplift' one of the design team members projects posted on the blog.  I drew inspiration from a page by design team member, Leslie Ashe.  She titled her page 'Happy Days' which was also the name of the Echo Park paper collection that she used for the layout.  I was inspired to do the same, only using the aforementioned 'Note to Self' collection.




Supplies used:  Echo Park's Note to Self collection Alpha Stickers, Elements Stickers and papers: Red Dots, Quotes, Arrows, Inventory, Stripes.  Other: Jillibean baker's twine, jute, foam adhesive, date stamp, machine stitching, computer font and 'clock' brad from Echo Park's This and That Charming decorative brad pack.


A closer look at the title and journaling, and that cute little hand sticker.  As you can see, I added a baker's twine bow to the pointed finger to denote the idea 'reminding myself'.  When you read the journaling, you will see why the office/business feel of this line, worked so well with my goofy pictures. :)

There was a whole sheet of paper in this collection that featured these fun inventory tags.  I loved the idea of cutting out some of the individual tags to act as embellishments.

That's it for tonight, friends.  I've got lots more to share, so come back and visit me soon!