Mini Albums, Part Two

On my last post I shared the first two mini albums I made recently.  Today I'd like to share the final two albums that I created using the beautiful and ornate Twiddleybitz chipboard album base.

For my third mini album I chose the My Minds Eye - The Sweetest Thing - Bluebell range.  This range lent itself to a city chic styled theme for the little window setting on the front page, and the album theme in general.

You might notice that I cut away the vines and some of the window structure from the window overlay, to keep a clean and simple look.  I then backed the window firstly with cardstock and then layered in some doilies as lace curtains.

You might just be able to notice the gorgeous Maya Road vintage trinkets on the very left spine of the album.

For each quote included in this album, on the opposite page I would feature a prominent word from the quote.  After some layering, I used my Cricut to die cut the appropriate word from vellum, creating a gentle, pretty effect.

I think I managed to include at least one doily on every page of this album!

The quote to match the 'beautiful' page is from Mother Teresa 'Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.'

I really enjoyed making this album, and the clean lines and simple structure are almost the polar opposite to the styling for the last album in the series, my "Abandoned Beach Shack" album.

I wanted to make my little beach shack pretty, rustic, wispy, flowery and shimmery.  I wanted it to feel like somewhere a mermaid would call home.  

There is no patterned paper used in this album at all.  The background is built up from layers of cardstock, flowers, gesso, ink, stitching, stamping, glimmer mist and glimmer glaze.

A tiny vial filled with sand and a pretty shell hang from the top binding ring, along with another Maya Road vintage trinket, and satin seam binding.

The shabby front window was altered by dampening the chipboard and distressing with a blade.  I was fairly heavy handed with the gesso, and added some Kindyglitz in the final layer for some sparkle.

Don't be afraid to cut down your chipboard pieces to use in smaller quantities.  I have used one large chipboard flourish and cut it into pieces so that I can use some on each page.

You can see the beautiful sheen left by the glimmer mist on this page.

Again, as in the previous album, I have pulled a single word from each quote to use as a feature.

There are so many shells glued into this album.  I needed to go back to the beach a few times to collect more!

This is probably my favourite album of the series.  I would have loved to keep it, but it was promised to a new owner.  I'll just have to make another like it for me!   

Thanks so much for sharing my mini album series with me!

Mini Albums, Part One

So I have to admit, I'm not normally an 'off the page' kind of girl.  I like to have everything in its place.  To be able to file my layouts away in an album, in my bookcase.

But last year I saw this chipboard mini album made by Twiddleybitz and couldn't resist it.  Really, how cute are those shaped pages and ornate details!

Being my first off the page project, I was a little nervous about where to start.  I grabbed a 6 x 6" paper pad from the beautiful My Minds Eye - Follow Your Heart - Be Happy collection, some pretty lace and some Prima flowers and set to work.

You will often hear card makers mention how great 6 x 6" pads are for card making due to the smaller print on the patterned papers.  I think this is also true for mini albums, because you're working with a smaller workspace than the usual 12 x 12" layout.

Having said that though, I found some of the larger pages in the album were slightly wider than 6 inches.  Luckily the My Minds Eye paper pads have two pages of each design, so I simply used both pages of the one patterned paper, being careful to align the pattern on each edge.  If you look closely on my front page above, you will see the join above the banner.

Chipboard gives you so many options in terms of altering.  While the patterned paper covers most of the album pages, the edges of each chipboard page and the ornate details are begging to be altered.  On this album I used an off-white acrylic paint for most of those pieces, but a dark brown for the very front 'window', which I then distressed by sanding away some of the brown paint once dry, to give a shabby effect.

I inked and stitched around the edges of each page, and in some places you will see some additional stamping.

I made this album of my niece and nephew "Mud Puddle Jumping", in some puddles left by the previous night's rain.  You can't beat the joy kids get from simple pleasures huh?

You can see the beautiful detail in one of the ornate edges here.

The hexagon patterned paper was a little too bright for this page, so I simply gave it a light whitewash effect with some of my acrylic paint.  I used this same technique for the front page, over the music note paper.

The olive greens and sky blues in this collection are perfect for a boy page.

And there you have it, my first off the page project finished.  It wasn't so daunting after all!

Shortly after I finished this project, I was asked if I would make a series of three mini albums, to be given as gifts of appreciation to members of this wonderful organisation that provides much needed assistance to individuals and families across the Sunshine Coast, and other communities around Australia.

As these projects were gifts of appreciation to people I didn't know, it was impossible to include photographs in them.  In place of photos, I was provided with one inspirational poem to use, and then scoured Pinterest and the internet for other inspirational quotes.  Pinterest is an amazing source of information.  I have pinned so many wonderful quotes here, and it's great to have them on hand - you never know when you'll need a great quote!

Naturally because I loved working with this Twiddleybitz album so much the first time, I was excited to be given three more of these gorgeous albums to play with.

For this album, I had a French garden in mind.  I pulled papers from Kaisercraft's Lake House collection, which has a lot of floral elements to it, and really does have an air of a grand country garden.

Lots of opportunities for fussy cutting those gorgeous blooms.

This collection included a 3 x 4 journalling paper which provided a lovely quote for the album.

On some of the pages I printed the quotes on my printer directly onto cardstock, and then added them to a tag,  which could then be pulled out of a little hand made envelope.  

A close up of one of the envelopes.

So that's two slightly differing styles of decorating the same chipboard mini album.  I can't wait to show you the final two styles I came up with!

Hello and Welcome!

Hi there and welcome!  I am so excited to be finally launching my blog, and being able to share some of my work with you all.

Firstly let me introduce myself.  I'm a 30 something year old girl (I can say that for another year at least!), who lives in Queensland, Australia, on the beautiful Sunshine Coast.  I am wife to my hubby of 19 years, and Mum to two gorgeous teens (yes I'm biased), Kayci who is almost 18, and Brent, 16.  Our family is completed with two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Rosie and Daisy.

My papercraft hobby started way back in 2003 when my Mum introduced me to what was then her hobby - card making and stamping.  I dabbled in that off and on, and it was five years later that I designed my first scrapbook layout.  It was only last year that I started spending more time paper crafting, entering some online challenges, and with the generosity of the lovely and always supportive Barbi Shipton and the girls at Daisy Chain Scrapbooks, having my layouts displayed in store.  I have since been fortunate enough to be published in Scrapbooking Memories magazine, and now can't imagine a day without spending some time at my craft table playing with patterned paper and pretty things.

I have spent some time designing my own blog (yes that is an ongoing massive learning curve for me!).  I'll probably still tweak a little here and a little there as I learn more about the blogging world, so please give me a shout out if something looks wildly out of place!

So thanks for joining me here on the start of this new journey for me.  For my first few posts I would love to share some of my favourite layouts and projects from the last twelve months.  Today I have a few layouts to share.

My Daily Eight Kilometres

Yes I walk eight kilometres a day, well, weekdays that is.  I started this ritual at the start of 2011 to help lose weight.  Lose it I did - 20kg worth - and I wanted to record this change in my lifestyle on a layout.  I have used mostly Basic Grey's PB&J Collection here, with a little pulled from the Picadilly and Hello Luscious lines as well.

I have tucked some hidden journalling in behind my title on a little pull tab.

Berry Delicious

This is such a simple but fun layout.  We visited my sister in WA in 2010, and at a local berry farm she decided she really wanted to show us how many raspberries she could fit in her mouth at once. Answer?  Quite a few apparently!  Again these are Basic Grey papers, and I have used a couple of Kaisercraft Wood Flourish flowers, and a Kaisercraft rub on.

Flutter By

I had this paper in my stash for years before I used it, I'm not even sure now which manufacturer it came from.  I pulled it out of my stash one day when I was looking to scrap this cute photo of my daughter which was taken as her face painted butterfly was about to be washed off.  I love this layout because it was my first play at using white space in such a bold way.

I was really happy with the effect of leaving so much white space, and also that the layout used only two pieces of patterned paper and two pieces of cardstock.  All of the flowers were paper punched and put together by hand.

Lots of fussy cut butterflies, a bit of bling and some tulle to soften here and there.

Angele

One of the main reasons we scrapbook is to record memories right?  I am very blessed to have a bunch of photographs of my family, some going back to the late 1800s and very early 1900s, and I am also very blessed to have older family members around me that can pass on the stories behind those photos.

This layout records some memories about my Grandma's Grandma, Angele.  Most of her story is recorded in the journalling on the layout, but some memories about Angele are more private, so I have enclosed a separate journalling card for these which is housed in the little envelope on the right hand side.

sometimes it's all about the story.

Kaisercraft's Le Chateau Collection was very fitting for this layout about my French Mauritian Great Great Grandmother.  One of the layers includes a printed acetate sheet overlay.  Kaisercraft's wooden lamp post suits the photo perfectly, and of course this particular layout wouldn't be finished without some pearls.

The Dress

Again, this is another photo that I consider myself very lucky to know the story behind.  My Grandma is now 83, and it's so cute to know that at 16 when she was sewing this dress, all she wanted to do was take the treadle sewing machine outside and throw it in the water!

I tried to really bring the vintage factor to this layout, using small cut pieces of lace, satin seam binding, and even a crocheted doily.  You might notice a dress form in the larger embellishment cluster too.

A close up of some of the vintage goodness.  An ornate frame stamped using Stazon ink onto calico that I had tea dyed and frayed.  I then layered on a butterfly stamped using Stazon ink onto acetate and then cut out, followed by the Our Family tag.  You can see in the background I have run my sewing machine (without any thread) around each of the patchwork squares.

and finally,

Forever

That's me with my sweet hubby.  This layout I created for the 2012 Brisbane Scrapbook Expo challenge, Black & White plus One.  It made the top 20 and was on display at the expo.

The black flourishes were originally a piece of Kaisercraft printed acetate which I took to with a blade, cutting away all but the flourish.  And yes with the bling.  I do have a soft spot for bling aha!

I hope you've made it to the end of this lengthy first post, and that you've enjoyed seeing some of my favourite layouts from the last year.

If you are interested in keeping up to date with my latest creations I would love for you to come back and visit me here.  You can also follow my blog on Bloglovin (button on the sidebar).  If you prefer, you can even enter your email address in the right sidebar where it says "follow by email".  Every time I have something new to share, my full post will come direct to your inbox, easy peasy huh?

Oh, and of course up there on the sidebar are links to my Social Media.  I'm on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.  Come say hi!

Hope to see you again soon.