Surfish Mini-book

I honestly didn't think that this girly mini-album could justify a knarly surfing mini-book title.  It's a little too feminine and a little short on real surfing pictures.  Nonetheless, it is a mini-book that I *finally* put together for my lovely Girl Scout surfer.   The font is old, old, old from my Sizzix Tag-a-long and is called Sunset.

Katie was lucky enough to join her Girl Scout troop on sponsored trip to Camp Surf a couple of years back.  You heard correctly- these pictures are two years old...  and I had to leave older pictures on the table to scrap these.  This kind of dedicated-to-the-bigger-project-of-an-album crafting time is not consistently available.  Still, I have pre-made mini-books that are beggin' to be used (and thus make their way out of my Scrapbox).

So, I got busy putting this one together.  I won't bore you with too much detail here.  The mini-album was pre-made years ago when I worked at a LSS.  The kit came in from a vendor and I taught the class.  It was a simple, follow-the-instructions class, but fun to do with a group of women. 

A good bit of the embellishments came from the historical stash- trying to use that stuff up.  I've little recollection as to the sources except to say they include some Making Memories rub-ons (how do those things still work after a decade?), Quick Quotes emphemora, etc. 

I ended up adding pages to the book by covering 6 x 6 pieces of cardstock with printed paper that seemed to match the feel of the original mini-book pages. 

Most of the pictures are very close or in their original 4 x 6 printed form.  This is largely because there are so many group shots and I needed the surface area to make things work.  This is also the reason that the pages are so very simple.  Formula:  Matted picture + very small embellishments + patterned paper = DONE.

I've a few more pages to show you.  The trick is getting them all photographed, uploaded and posting to the blog.  I have set a goal for myself to squeeze this in over the next week.  This will *I warn you* result in picture heavy posts with little discussion.  Still, these simple layouts are an inspiration to my crafting and I'll hope they are to yours as well.

A Very Happy Birthday

I needed a very special birthday card for my close friend Keri.  You've seen some pictures of her kid birthday parties where she occasionally has asked for a little crafty help and in turn I've been able to post her crafty ideas here on the blog.  Needless to say, this crafty one and I celebrate our friendship each month with a night out and I just new I wanted to do something special for her birthday.

I went shopping in the stash for something on the red side.  Keri just seems red to me.  Even though she's totally remade her entire house this past year with a decidedly deep mustard yellow, modern turn.  Still, once a color has been assigned, the great and wonderful introvert is unlikely to change, so Keri still seems red to me.  I found this piece of rusty pink that seemed a little more girlish and went to town.  The front face of the card is simply a Vintage Photo Distress Ink edged piece of patterned paper.  The paper created the look on the front of the card almost by itself.  I had some glassine paper flowers on hand and layered two inside a circle cut from a piece of coordinating patterned paper.  The sentiment was printed to a scrap of tan-creamish linen textured cardstock and trimmed to look a little like ribbon.  A few small pearls, covered with Scattered Straw Distress Ink to change their color, were placed to balance the card design.  Don't know if that worked, but I like it.

The inside was where I needed a trick.  Keri recently picked up a Silhouette.  She's been borrowing cuts off and on for a couple of years and I think she finally decided this was a tool for all seasons.  Since she has a little 3 year old, her kid crafting days are not over.  I just couldn't resist a little birthday celebration and purchased a gift certificate for the Silhouette store.  I made this handy layered sentiment inside complete with a pocket and the gift pull out.




The Gift Card from Silhouette is purchasable online.  I snagged a screen image of the card and adjusted the color to match my scheme in Word.  Its a real simple way to jazz up something as hum-drum as a gift card (not my favorite gift, but in this case it works wonderfully).

Happy Birthday, Keri!  This is well deserved and I know will be put to good use.

I've linked this card up to the Inspiration Journal's  July Monthly Challenge:  Happy Birthday America & Other Birthday Celebrating.  Come join the fun!

A Very Special Birthday Gift

My co-worker's request for help in celebrating a milestone birthday was extended.  She worked with Tarzana Joe to create a poem especially for the occasion.   It's a really neat result of a heartfelt and touching poem that captures the essence of their friendship and camaraderie as they have worked together toward building a business.  Check him out as he has a really interesting story.

Needless to say, how to present said poem as a gift?  It is, after all, just words on a page unless you spruce it up.  So, I set about the sprucing.  I wanted the gift to match the coloring and style of the card I'd created.  This is the final result.

The flowers were created using vellum and Shaded Lilac Distress Ink along with my Heartfelt Creations Vintage Floret stamps and dies.  I decided against applying the Glimmer Glam.  There are a couple of reasons- first is that the glam is liquid and the stamped flower detail was somewhat lost in the final result.  This is good sometimes, but in this situation I had shiny glass overlaying the image.  So, second reason, I thought that a crisper image was good given the framed result, size and overall feel.  Some flowers were finished in the Heartfelt Creations' fashion with a little tiny bud in the center and others were finished with some pearls.  The green flourish were cut from cardstock using my Spellbinders Floral Flourishes die set.  The bling comes from a set so old I've lost the packaging and I ended up adding a couple of pearl hat pins to draw the eye.  The poem was printed out onto linen textured cardstock and I really liked the final look of the product.  I edged the cardstock with some Vintage Photo ink to create a little interest. The background paper is a sheet of Basic Grey that was found in the stash. 


I couldn't leave it alone at that.  In the end, the card I'd previously made was used to wish a happy birthday from all of us at the office.  This gift begged a small gift card for the giver to write a small sentiment.  I pieced together this 3 x 3 card using the leftovers from the frame set that I'd made.  The frame is from Cricut's Straight from the Nest card (birdcge2) where I cut out the bird and the bottom half of the cut.  The frame is finished using the Rusted Enamel technique and Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  There's real texture to that frame, but the photo doesn't do it justice.





I just couldn't resist a couple of pearl hat pins here as well.  This close up really shows the beauty of the Vintage Floret stamp.  I must use this more in the future.  It's easy to forget about your better stuff sometimes...










 
I ended up making the envelope from scratch using my Envelope Punch Board.  This little tool makes envelop making a breeze and I whipped up this puppy in a matter of minutes.  I stamped a small floret in the front face using my Shaded Lilac and glued a small flower on the back with a glue dot to hold the envelope shut (this was hand delivered, no seal needed).  It also makes it easy to place a liner on the inside.  The entire thing was a big hit.  That's reward enough.

I've linked this card up to the Inspiration Journal's  July Monthly Challenge:  Happy Birthday America & Other Birthday Celebrating.  Come join the fun!

Age is a work of art- Birthday Card Art

Ladies, Brandy has been at it again. She whipped up this stunning beauty a couple weeks back and it has taken me this long to not to forget to upload the photo and get it posted.

Brandy used her Heartfelt Creations Sun Kissed Fleur collection to make this beauty.  The base cardstock card was inked using a couple different blue Distress Inks.  The layered printed papers were distressed on their edges and inked as well.  Brandy stamped the sentiment on the paper and placed it to be enhanced with the curled edges of the top layer of patterned paper.  Ultimately, the color combo came from that top layer of paper, but she so distressed and Glimmer Glammed the top, it is now hard to see the colors.  Each flower was stamped in Versamark ink and embossed with white embossing powder.  After cutting out each flower, the backside of the flowers was colored with some craft markers she had on hand (not her Copic markers).  The flowers were layered and glued together with green glitter in their centers.  The leaf flourish comes with the Sun Kissed Fleur gift box set.

What do you think?  She's done it again, hasn't she?  Now you know who the true genius in this group is.  This doesn't bother me in the least, because she's my bestie and I adore her creations.  I'm hoping she'll keep this creative streak up.  Go, Brandy, go.

Joining up at Bloglovin'

Google Reader is almost dead.  I'm one of the least technical people you hardly know.  I tricked myself into thinking that maybe I didn't need to do anything about the loss of my Google Reader because I don't actually use it anyway (I've never opened a "Google Reader").  However, I'm pretty sure now that I've been using the thing for a very long time.

I'm also terrified of losing my connections to the very few blogs that I follow regularly.  These are some of the sweetest ladies I've every watched online.  So I've joined up at Bloglovin in large part because two of the blogs I follow did the same.  In small part, when I checked out the Bloglovin site I really liked the posts on their front page.  Probably the same deceptively enjoyable posts every time... I'm easily moved and tricked.

You can join me in following your blogs over at Bloglovin or you can now follow me on Bloglovin.  I'm not going to tell you that I had to remove the "correct punctuation" from their name in the four locations I referenced them because the absence of the "g" bothers me.



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