Toilet Paper Roll Mini

Well, I think it is high time I made a book about myself. I have huge books for both children and a lot of stuff about my huisband, but I really didn't have anything just about myself until now. I got the inspiration to do a toilet paper roll album from the Bad Girls Kits message board. I saw one my friend Danielle made and I knew I had to try it! Some of my journaling prompts and ideas came from the Crazy about Mini Albums blog. Thanks for the inspiration, ladies! My favorite part about the cover is the cameo, which came from my local junk shop. All of the papers are K&Co's Blue Awning collection. The Pink flowers are Primas and the others are all Bazzil. I wish I could tell you where the gems in the center are from, but I lost that package long ago. I love the key and the lock. They are made by EK Success. The stickers are K&Co, mostly Brenda Walton's designs. The corner here is from the junk shop as well. I suppose it came off a photo frame or something. Noticed how I used the bitty fragment of the Heidi Swapp chipboard clock (leftover from another project) here. Amazing how such a tiny scrap can speak huge volumes. Oh, and I love the dticker with the dog and the feather duster. You can't really see it in the photo, but the sticker says "Housework Stinks, Saving for a Maid" That is a true dream of mine. I hate cleaning! I used the insides of the toilet paper rolls to hold my embellished journalling tags. They are a little too private to share here though. Thanks for reading!

Basic Grey Gate Fold Mini Album

I found a fantastic deal on this Basic Grey Sublime collection mini gate fold album. This project came together pretty fast and easy. I used paper from the Aged and Confused Sublime collection, another sheet of BG and some paper that I have no idea where on earth it came from. A lot of the techniques that I experimented with are from the blog Scrapperlicious. I used Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and Fired Brick. A huge challenge for me in making this album was that I couldn't use any dimensional embellishments. I love dimension on my pages and but I didn't have a lot of leeway for closing this one, so to give it a feel of depth without the bulk I used a lot of inking and distressing. I used die cut circles to mask off the paper while I inked around it. I did that with both Vintage Photo and Fired Brick. The flourish stamps I used are from Autumn Leaves. The chipboard clock is Heidi Swapp. I did a bunch of doodling on some of the pages. I used a fine tipped pen to do some faux stitching and to write little messages to my husband. I used only 4 12x12 papers in this album. I used EVERY last scrap of the Basic Grey. Although this collection is not one of my all time favorites, I just love how the using everything from the same collection makes everything just come together so easily. I made this book in just under 4 hours (that is a record for me, I'm super slow). I used some rub ons from Kaisercraft on these pages. So, there it is. I'll be sending it out soon. The last mini I made for him never made it, so I hope he gets this one. Thank you so much for reading.

Crackle Medium Tutorial

I wanted to make a tutorial on using crackle medium for my buddy, Julie and I thought I would share it with you as well. Crackle medium is my latest paper crush. I've used it before on wood projects and when I saw Tim Holtz's blog using it this month the wheels began turning! I have a hard time finding the latest and greatest products around here, so I'm improvising. The Tim Holtz crackle is colored and the stuff I am using is clear. This is the (almost) finished product. I have to add some stitching and final touches, but the crackling is done anyway. I just am in love with the texture you can get with this. Here is what I used: First I added the die cut to the cream colored tag. I will use the green shadow of the tag later. Then I used the crackle medium. I just painted it all over the surface. You need to use a thick coat. If you do it too thin it will not crackle. You can see that it is pretty thick and not that even. That is ok. This is the scary part. Your paper will shrivel up as it dries. It will look like a mess and you will be afraid you ruined it. It's gonna be ok though. Just chill. Don't mess with your paper while it is drying. Don't look and see if it is crackled. Just leave it alone! Hands off! When it is really, really , REALLY dry you can smooth it out. and glue it to the backing paper. In this case, I used the shadow feature on the Doodlecharms cartridge as a backing. I like to use a glue stick for this, because that ensures that you get glue everywhere. A little of the crackling may crack off as you do this step, but it's ok. After it is glued on tight I like to DAB some ink on it. I did this with Distress Ink (vintage photo). I dabbed the ink onto a makeup sponge and onto my project. This enhances the crackle design and make your project look aged. Your project may need a little flattening. If it does you can put your dictionary on it and leave it for a few hours. I hope this tutorial has helped you out and if you have any questions you can feel free to ask!

Extreme Bird Makeover

This is my little birdy friend. She is kinda sad. You see, all of her children have left the nest and she is stuck wearing these bright pink feathers. She is so ugly that nobody would buy her and they stuck her in the clearance bin at Walmart. That is where we come in. She needed more than help. She needed an Extreme Makeover: Bird Edition. So, here is the house I made for her. It was from Dollar Tree. I got the inspiration from Heather's blog. I used K&Co's Blue Awning line. After I cut the pieces out I used my sewing machine to do the holes for my stitching. I wanted a thicker thread than my sewing machine could handle, so I used embroidery floss. This adds texture and interest along the bottom. I cut some die cuts from my cricut's Home Accent Essentials cartridge and I used the scallop cut from Plaitin Schoolbook to make the shingles on the roof. To finish the front of the house I used wood stain gel (JoSonja) for the fence. Paint would have also worked. As for the bird herself, I covered her with patterned paper that I had textured and inked the edges. I added a wing, which is grungeboard, and used crackle medium over her. It is quite a tranformation from wild nineteen eighty-something pink to shabby chic, but it works for me. She just loves her new home :) Thanks for reading.

A New Tin (Do they have rehab for this stuff?)

This project was inspired by a snippet of lace I acquired at my favorite junk shop. I saw it and it really screamed out 'Moulin Rouge' to me. So I began this tin with the intention of it being a sort of Moulin Rouge theme. The funny thing is the lace that inspired the whole project is not even on it. I may add it later. I wanted it to say 'beauty', but all I had was 'wonder. In short, this project did not go as planned, but I must say that I am really in love with the result. The first layer of paper is Kaisercraft. I inked it with 'Vintage Photo" distress ink and also black ink. I added the die cut paper from a Making Memories' Notewothy Notebook. I also stamped a flourish with a glue pad and added glitter. I brushed some of it away, because I was going for a more subtle effect. The words (don't they look like a transparancy?) are actually a sticker (from Sandylion I think). I had to trim and move it around to cover everything I wanted to cover. The wings are Grungeboard, which I covered in an old magazine and inked with VP and B ink. I trimmed the Heidi Swapp chipboard clock to fit the corner. I pained the rest of the tin with acrylic gouache and sealed the whole thing with Mod Podge. Although it turned out nothing like I intended, I am really pleased with the end result.

Halloween Mini Album

Well, here I go again. I don't celebrate Halloween myself. I just never have, even as a child. But I made this album for a swap in the group I am the owner of on Cafemom.I apologize for the picture quality. It is a paper bag album, my first, and I did it a little unconventionally. This is mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. I sandwiched the bag between two sheets of patterned paper and sewed around them. Then I sewed down the middle for the spine. I like the texture the stitching adds, but I think I am going to do a paper bag album the 'right' way to see if I just really made it hard on myself (I have a suspicious feeling that I did)

I used the Paper Doll Dress Up cartrige to do most of the die cuts. The woman I made this for is having her daughters dress up as a bee and batgirl this year. The swirl stamps are from Autumn Leaves.

I inked all around the pages and photo mats with Distress Ink in 'Vintage Photo" Also, I marked what size the photo mats were for. This will save her a lot of guesswork when she goes to put her pictures in.

I used my Making Memories 'Noteworthy Notebook' and some Primas on this page. I also added som pop dots behind the girl and her cape. Since it was all black I wanted to give some definition. I also used a wee bit of white ink for more definition and some black stickles.

I love how the bee costume turned out. The actual costume has a tutu, so I added the tutu from the ballerina die cut to the bee. She is also stickled.

The candy and candy bags are cut from 'Doodlecharms'. I used some stickers on the treat bags.

The words are Studio 112 rub ons. Aren't the little bats cute? The skull is Grungeboard. I thought the page needed a little more texture, so that is what I added.

I love putting googly eyes on die cuts. It really adds such a cute touch. The bat is from PDDU.

A Tutorial for Altered Tins

You start out with a tin. Small tins work great, but so do larger tins, lunch boxes or altoid tins. (If you ever see this kind of chocolate you should definitely buy it because the chocolate is so amazing with wine and the tin is fun to alter. Total win win. I bought 3...)

You start by tracing an approximate shape onto your patterned paper. This works best with lighter weight paper. You can use cardstock weight pp, but it is much easier with the lighter paper. I would like to point out that this tin has a curve to the lid. If you are using an altoids tin or something similar it will not have this slope and will be much easier to alter. You would just be able to cut for the lid and then put ribbon or a strip of paper (or even paint) on the side edge. Notice how imperfect my line is. You DON'T have to be exact, by any means.

Cut out your paper and coat your tin with Mod Podge. Just a note about Mod Podge: It is a sealer/adhesive and comes in different finishes. I usually use a matte finish, but they also make glossy and glitter finishes as well. It is available at JoAnns, Michaels, WalMart...

You want to put the paper on the tin and cut slits aroung the corners.

The slits allow you to fold around the slope. Again, if you are doing a tin without a sloping lid you could skip to the next step.

Tuck your ends in all the way around.

Trim as closely as possible with your scissors. Don't stress about being exact. You don't need to be.

Use a nail file to trim your excess paper.

Coat your project with Mod Podge and add your embellishments (I used die cuts here).

That is all there is to it, folks!

Altered Lunch Box

I made this altered lunch box for a challenge on the [some] assembly required blog. I saw the ones their design team had done and I just got really inspired. I've been doing a lot of tin-altering lately I guess. I had this great paper from BasicGrey's Baby Girl collection. I love it that I used it to alter and it isn't locked away out of sight in my scrapbook. I wanted a lot of texture and depth on this project and I did that by distressing and layering. I love the addition of the vintage inspired lace and the antique button. It gives it such a shabby chic quality that I love. I used glittered chipboard and 'Vintage Photo' distress ink. The flowers are from Prima and I used Autumn Leaves stamps to make the swirls. I mixed the color of acrylic gouache to match the paper exactly. A huge shout out to my Mom for teaching me that useful skill. I used Mod Podge as an adhesive and to seal the paint and paper. I also used Mod Podge to accent my clothes, hair and sewing machine. Do not try that at home. That stuff never comes out once it dries! Suprisingly enough I didn' make an album to go inside this one. I plan on using it to store my cards until it is time to use them. I plan on blogging a lot more frequently, so be sure to stop back in soon.

Mini Christmas Album