Monday, August 24, 2009

Mini Album

I got a bee in my bonnett on Sunday evening and started on a Mini Album. I've been wanting to do one for so long, but have never had the confidence in my abilities to actually put one together. But i'm delighted with the result.

I used absolute basics:

- White Bazzil for the album pages, Anna Griffin Patterned and Plain Blue Paper, and then an unknown green/yellow spotted one
- MM Animal Crackers Epoxy Shapes & Sentiment Photo Tags
- AC White Glittered Thickers (my fav)
- Fab Scraps Checked & Dotted Fabric Circle Brads
- Creative Memories Corner Rounder, Fiskars Threading Water Punch

I simply repeated the same formula for each page, but changed the position of the patterned & plain papers on the reverse pages. How darling is this snail patterned paper?

The page size is 8x6 which worked well as I was able to use 6x4 photo's and still have sufficient space for two strips of paper on either side.

I cut, cornered and scalloped all the papers before hand and simply pasted 2 papers, 1 embellishment and photo per page.

Super Simple.

I now want to add this Ali Edwards photo overlay as a journaling block on the inside of the cover to document the date and location of each pic.
I shall then add some ribbons to the rings holding it together and there we have 1 x Christmas present for my mum.

My Way

On Saturday I had a little of a 'me' day. DH took the littlest into town with him to run some errands (buy chocolate, hire DVD, buy bounce-back) and this guranteed me with at least 1 1/2 on my own.

So i did this:

Papers: Bazzil, Webster & 7 Gypsies; Lettering: Ali Edwards
Remember Wordart; Flower: Petaloo; Creative Memories Corner
Rounder & Circle Punch; Fiskars Threading Water Punch

I have done a great deal of thinking this past week and decided that i wanted to document this photo for my eldest, as it is one of her favourites. Now it just needs to go into a frame and then be put above her desk in her newly sorted study room.

I also found this website, which i fell intantly in love with Karenika. Wow, what an incredibly talented photographer/life-journaler she is. PLUS she has free digi giveways weekly. What's more to like? Do go and pay her a visit.

Whilst reading through her archives, I found a post where she quotes Rebecca Cooper from write.click.scrapbook (also a magnificient site):

Embrace who you are as a scrapbooker.... where your strengths lie, what you do best, and don't be afraid to just stick with it! Let go of some of that pressure to create this way or that and I guarentee you'll LOVE the results!

And it resonated so with me. It's so true. My best pages are the ones where i've done what i wanted. Stuck to clean, simple lines. The odd embellishment here and there. Not the ones that i've had to follow 'a recipe' in order to submit for a guest DT or other challenges. I'm the one who i'm scrapping for. Not for anyone else. These are my memories and my pages. And I'm doing it to make ME happy.

So, no longer shall I be doing pages full of a million bits & pieces, different papers and a whack of pics. I'll stick to what feels right in my heart and go with that. And if it means that i don't make a DT or guest DT appearances, then so be it.

My pages will tell my stories in the way i want to.

As i did here (my submission for JJ #63):

Papers: Bazzil, Webster, MME & 7 Gypsies; Lettering: American Crafts;
Brad & Felt Flower: MM; Creative Memories Corner Rounder & Circle Punch;
Fiskars Threading Water Punch

I did this page on Friday, the same day I blogged about my bad week. The topic for this Challenge was 'Document how you are feeling right now', so I thought my post would be a pretty good subject. It's not often that we get the 'bad' memories down on paper, we so often focus only on the good and happy times. This page will allow me and my eldest to travel back in time and for her to understand what I was going through. The photo i used was taken whilst in CT in July - and i thought quite apt. I copied and pasted my blog post as the journaling and added a title.

Simple and I LOVE it!

Thanks for looking xx

Two more

This is all that I want to do at the moment - i find every excuse not to do what else needs to be done so that I can hide out in my sunroom and scrap away to my heart's content!

Two more of my recent LO's:

This one is just for ME. I so seldom scrap myself - and when I saw this photo that my sister had taken whilst we were at the Butterfly Farm I just knew I had to do a LO. I found the 'sketch' on one of Ali's Tuesday Tutorials and loved the simplicity of it. The title is also Ali's - i purchased it some time ago from Designer Digitals.


The second is my latest submission for Journaling Junkie. Their Challenge # 62 - focussing on one or all 5 of the senses. I used Creative Scrapper Sketch # 61 and the photo's were taken a couple of weeks ago at Kei Mouth. What i love about this LO is that Olly Polly is not even looking at the camera, yet you can just see how much delight she takes in playing in the sand. I focussed on 'touch' and my journaling reads as follows:

'You love to touch the sand and build sandcastles, the feel of it on your fingers & toes doesn't bother you at all - until it's time to go and then hands and feet must be washed clean.'