Recipe Mini Album

Hey everyone! I finally finished my first mini album. I ended up making it into a recipe book to store some of the recipes that I adore. A lot of the recipes are ones my mom has made through out the years that I pretty much grew up eating. There are a few other recipes in there that are hers that I've yet to try and there are some recipes that still need to be added. Over all though I am REALLY happy with how this recipe book came out. Not to mention I had a complete blast decorating it. I did not enjoy constructing the book itself, but....if I wanna decorate mini's I've first gotta put them together hahaha.



For the cover I used cardboard from an old box. Each individual page has a cardstock base that I distressed the edges of a bit and inked up. I used a few stickers from Making Memories, some Prima flowers, DCWV papers and a few other random things. A lot of the stuff is explained in the video above. Enjoy guys!

Beautiful Memories

FINALLY got some pictures developed. Took me long enough, but at least my photos are somewhat organized on my hard drive. Just need to back them up on a CD. I think I'll do that today at some point. Organization is such a job! HAHAHA Now I understand how there's a professionals out there specialized in organization.

So, with pics developed I did get a layout completed. This one is called 'Beautiful Memories' and it's going to be the first page in the scrapbook for my dog, Kosmo. I am usually not one to scrap pictures in black and white but I had the concept of doing a pale layout so I figured scrapping his puppy pics in B+W would probably be the best.

The paper is called 'Clean Linen'. It doesn't show up in the picture very well but it is embossed and has a nice glitter sheen to it. The ribbon/lace was something I had bought YEARS ago for costume but never utilized it. So I was happy to finally find a use for it. The title was cut out via my friend cricut cartridge (again, I don't know which one it was). The flower in the top corner is hand made and I just added some silver glitter to it to accent it. The buttons I got at Michaels and the little pearls are from A.C. Moore.

Overall, I think the layout has a sophisticated look but with a bit of a child-like feel with those star buttons scattered on it. I highly enjoyed making it though it took for FOREVER since I had nothing to go off of except a sketch from Let's Scrap and the color scheme. Otherwise, I didn't know what exactly I was going to do with it.

Photos

I've been busy working on a Recipe mini. It's no where near done. Still constructing the pages. After that I'll need to gather all the recipes that my mother has that I love to eat. It'll be nice to have all of my favorites in one single recipe book. I did debate on making a seperate book for desserts but yea. Having them all in one place is probably better off for me in the long run. hehe

I am also super busy editing photos that I want to scrap. Well, editing them and sifting through the mass amount of them that I have. This in itself is a job all of its own! I didn't realize just how many pictures I had. Oh! I was wondering, do a lot of you ladies (And gents) print out your own pics or do you get them printed at a store? If so, what store? OR do you use an online service that prints and ships?I am trying to find some place that will print out some nice quality pictures.

Clean Layout

Well hello everyone! I had gone shopping this weekend and picked up a lot of stuff from JoAnn's, Michaels, and AC Moore so I was all excited to try the stuff out. I do have to say I need to eventually get my hands on a Cricut machine. My friend has one and I played with it this past weekend. OMG, they are awesome machines and rather addicting. I made several die cuts for myself, once I got the hang of the machine. Unfortunately it won't take me long to use the cuts I made and I only get to see my friend every other week or so. Ah well, I'll have to come up with inventive ideas to do without the cuts once I run out. Another depressing thing is that the nearest crafting store, that sell anything worth buying, is about a 45 minute drive to an hour away. So when I go shopping, I stock up! Haha

Anyway, I did manage to get the bare bones of my crafting area all set up. I moved myself in and managed to work on a layout today. It's part of a new project, a 12x12 book of my sheltie, Kosmo. I need to get some more pics developed but I worked with what I had today. Thankfully there were two decent pics of him floating in my photo box.

In this LO, that I got from PageMaps.com, I used die cuts from a Cricut cartridge. Sorry, but I am not sure which cartridge it is since I don't own it. The background paper is from a cardstock pack from Wal-Mart. The whimsical blue background is a single piece of pattern paper from JoAnn (I think). The background for the Just Smile and the flower closer to the bottom are made of two pattern papers from My Minds Eye which I stamped. The note card, stamped with Adorable You and a pale copper flower (which doesn't show up well on this pic) is just plain cream cardstock. The orange sparkle cardstock is, I believe, from JoAnns as well and was a single sheet buy.

 I did add some paint splatter near the top left and bottom right corners in cream and purple. The Just Smile accent is also raised up to add a bit more dimension to the page. This was a pretty clean layout for me. I usually go for a more grungy or aged look but I really like the way it came out.

OH! Also, I need to come up with a way to take better pictures of my LO's. If anyone has any hints/tips PLEASE let me know.