First off, a little reminder – be sure to stop by the message board tomorrow night beginning at 5pm EST for all the reveal night fun! See all the January add-ons, check out the design team’s creations with the new kit and play along with us for chances to win January add-ons!
I hope you hall had a wonderful day! We really enjoyed our Christmas. We stayed put and it was just our little family this year. It made for a (slightly) more relaxing year. The kids loved their presents — Jack was all about legos and Alice decided a week before Christmas that she needed an American Girl doll (much too late to do anything about it) and thank goodness for Target knock-off dolls! Earlier in the year I had ordered the Target knock-off wardrobe for her. That and the doll which she is officially calling “amewican guwl doll” has kept her very entertained for the past several days. Santa also sent 4 Nerf pistols for us to have family battles. We had an excellent skirmish before bed last night!
If you are looking for a quick little mini album to catch some quick memories from the holidays, here is a little one I made using the December kit to document Christmas 2008.
My starting point for the album was the 7 Gypsies journaling cards, the maya road envelopes and the red coin envelope from the main kit. I first sewed an envelope to each of journaling pages. I had the envelopes overlap the middle of the journaling pages and sewed them down using my sewing machine. I placed each of the envelopes in a slightly different position to give some variety once the album was complete (and I forgot to take a pictuer while doing it!).
After I sewed down the envelopes, I then sewed all the pages together with my machine. All I did was sew one line of stitches down the very center of the album. However, I think what might work better, to give it a bit of a spine, would be to sew 2 lines of stitches about 1/4″ apart. After sewing the pages together, fold the pages in half and you now have the basis to your album.
For the cover, I sprayed some glitter mist and then stamped in the lower right and upper left corners of the album with versamark and then heat embossed with cream colored embossing powder. I then used one of the Webster Pages’ Fabric fancies from an add-on (I think if you could also use a punched paper and some text as well) and some of the flowers and a few pearls from my stash, to finish off the cover.
Page 1 I again used glitter mist, stamped an image of a Christmas tree using one of the Pink Paislee stamps (Rive Gauche add-on), covered it in stickles and then used ribbon, flowers and a Prima sequins to finish off the page.
Page 2 was half of our 2008 Christmas card. I stamped on the image with one of Ali Edwards’ stamps and heat embossed it.
Page 3 is just one of my favorite photos of Daisy as a puppy. I just rounded the corners on it.
Page 4 I used some of the adornit mini alphas to do a bit of journaling and then layered ribbon from the main kit with a Webster Pages’ flower and a Prima Flower.
Page 5 is a bit of journaling with a scrap of cardstock that I punched a decorative edge on. I then applied some pearls from my stash.
Page 6 is just the back of one of the Maya Road envelopes. I adhered a photo to it. I punched out a circle of patterned paper which I scrunched up to add texture and sprayed with glitter mist. I added a flower from the kit and a Making Memory metal flower.
Page 7, the other side of the envelope I just stamped with the Pink Paislee stamp set and heat embossed it. I ran bakery twine through a Jenni Bowlin chipboard button and adhered that to the envelope.
Page 8 is another simple page. I tore off part of a Tim Holtz ticket from the November kit, adhered it to the page and then put a photo over most of it, I added a rubon “J” wrote in the date, and I was done.
Page 9 is the other half of the ticket positioned under the photo with a Making Memory pearl flower above. I rounded the corners of the photo on this one. I tied a bit of ribbon through the chipboard button and put one of the Maya Road pearl topped pins through that.
Page 10 is another Maya Road envelope. I used a border stamp on it and then heat embossed it with brown embossing powder (if you haven’t yet tried out the “zing” embossing powder from American Crafts, you should — great stuff!). I removed the original string from the envelope and replaced it with bakery twine. I just tied it around the ”circle” on the envelope. I added a Pink Paislee glitter brad and adhered a Making Memories red metal flower to the top.
Page 11 is a section of the Hambly Vintage Lace overlay from Hambly adhered to the bottom of the envelope. I then wrapped some bakery twine around the envelope. I added half of one of the Tim Holtz tickets, cut out a couple of the hot air balloons from one of the Webster’s Pages papers from the main kit. I used pop dots to afix those to give them a bit of dimension. I added a pearl flower and a green pearl and the page was done.
Page 12 is some journaling with the Adornit mini alpha and a bit of the tinsel trim with a chipboard button with bakery twine through it.
Page 13 is the other half of our Christmas card from last year.
Page 14 is one of the Pink Paislee stamps from the Rive Gauche add-on (I LOVE this set of stamps!) and a decorative brad from that add-on as well.
Page 15 is some photos from a contact sheet, a few pearls over the club, heart, spade and diamond, a bit of ribbon with a Prima flower and a Making Memories pearl flower.
For the back cover, I adhered a section of the Hambly Vintage Lace overlay. I then cut out little flowers from the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses Doily and adhered those in a random pattern over the page. I then added some scattered pearls. For the “Merry Christmas” I used the October Afternoon rub-ons and the Basic Grey alphabet stickers (both from add-ons). I applied the rub-ons to the Sugar Daddy cardstock and then carefully cut out the rub-ons with just bit of the brown cardstock showing around the edge. When afixing them to the page, I slightly overlapped the so that they would fit. The random letters in blue actually have the red letter slightly askew behind them. I then traced just inside the edges of the blue alphas in black pen and afixed those to the page.
My last step to make the album was to wrap a bit of the gingham ribbon and bakery twine around the center of the book. I then tied a bit of the silver trim around those ribbons.
It only took a couple of hours to make the album. I think it would make a great little post-Christmas rememberance for grandparents, or yourself!
And be sure to stop by the message board tomorrow for all the reveal night fun! Check out the design team’s creations with the new kit and play along with us for some chance to win January add-ons!
