Super duper easy peesy mini book

For the ditzy crafters and any-one else unsure about mini books here is the simplest way to make a fab mini book using only 1 sheet of 12x12 card giving you 8 6x6 pages.

Take your card and score a line halfway horizontally and draw a line halfway vertically;

Cut a line from the top of the card to the horizontal score line 2-3 mm each side of your vertically drawn line and then cut across the score line between the two cuts to remove a "notch";

Score the vertical line along the drawn line from the horizontal scoreline.

Fold the two top squares down along the horizontal scoreline to make a 12" wide 6" high rectangle and then fold the rectangle in half along the vertical scoreline to make your book.

That's it easy right?

The notch is needed so that the book still folds easily once embellished with papers and photos and you can not use anything too dimensional on the inner pages. If you glue a piece of ribbon along the back page before you stick the papers etc on then this can be used to tie your book closed.

For a finished example see here

First Hybrid page

I love Websters Pages you may have guessed that lol. Whilst browsing around their website the other day I discovered they had some free digi frames to match their new collections and so I downloaded a few. I used the frames with a photo and printed out the whole thing frame and photo on photo paper to use with the paper collection.

This is my first proper Hybrid (I have used digi stamps a couple of times) and shows me aged 2 with my new telephone toy;

I was on a little roll last night DH was out with work and I got this page done using the gorgeous Gottacraft Kit featuring Lily Bee Memorandum papers and stickers (I love this line). The page shows our eldest finally getting how to tie laces this summer. He has Aspergers and the dexterity required was something he really struggled with and it was such a small but important acheivement for him;

Finally I am trying to get some LO's done of our second son Dylan who has the least pages done about him so far :( This page shows the presents he got for his birthday this year first wrapped and then unwrapped and I am going to do another page with all the blurred photo's where he was ripping paper with gusto lol. I used MME Lime Twist FLy and Kite papers;

My Dolly (photo heavy)

Today I sat down and spent a couple of hours making my entry for the Scrapology November challenge F is for Fabric Flowers. The LO that inspired the challenge was by a very talented lady who is a facebook friend Hannah Young and this is the sketch from the LO;

I chose this photo from when I was just a 3 year old babe to scrap;

and this is the finished LO (layout);

But you say she said Photo heavy??!! Well I have gained some lovely new followers and one of them commented that she couldn't "do" scrapping. So I am going to go through my process in making this page to show Judie that it isn't as disimilar from making the beautiful cards she makes, and all you need to do is swap your stamped/decoupage/other image for a photo or two (or 3 or 4) and get a bit bigger.

I decided that I wanted to use white cardstock as the photo is fairly old and a little dark so I wanted to keep everything as light as possible to make it easier to see the photo but I inked the edge with pink ink to soften it a little. I went with the lovely aqua and pink tones of Glitz' Beautiful Dreamer line and then placed papers and photo together on the card to ensure they all match nicely;

I then went through my embellishments and picked through several that would go with the papers and could make the final LO depending on how they looked once the papers were cut to size;

As the challenge involved fabric flowers I made these three flowers to go on my layout;

I decided which papers I wanted to use and where and cut them to size. I then arranged them and the selected embellishments to fit the sketch until I had a LO I was happy with;

Finally I distressed, punched, and stuck down the papers. Added the journalling and photo and then adding the final embellishments and title;

Thanks for popping by as always I am so pleased when someone likes one of my projects enough to leave a comment and I hope this has encouraged my card-making followers to give scrapping a go.

Art journalling with inks

This morning hubby was out, 3 big kids were glued to Spongebob and little man and I had nothing to do. I have wanted to do some more for my Art Journal but can't get paints out when the little man is around unless everything in sight is covered with tableclothes/ newspaper/ something indestructible lol so I thought I would have a go at using my distress inks rather than paints.

This first one is about my love of "Art" and what makes an artist I used Wild Honey, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain and Black Soot to colour my chipboard. I then stamped the harlequins with Walnut stain and the saying with Black Soot. I also stamped the word Artist but as it didn't come out too well I highlighted it with white gel pen. I added a bit of doodling and then wrote my thoughts down. You may not be able to read it all in the photo but it is all perfectly legible irl.

The second one I used Peeled Paint, Broken China, and Wild Honey to colour the chipboard. This one was pure doodling and built around those questions I think to myself like Why are Polar Bears only found at the North Pole and Penguins only at the South Pole? I started by doodling the large question mark then just added my journalling around the page. I am sure most if not all of the questions can be answered by googling but I never quite get around to it!

Grow

The first sketch this month at Stuck Sketches was this one;

I started off with my page looking like the sketch but then it drifted off on a slight tangent as always. I used my CCW November kit featuring papers and embellishments from Fancy Pants' Summer's End line the only thing not from the kit was the title as the one in the kit was dark brown so I used these old alphabet stickers from American Crafts that I have had for years.

The pictures show my eldest Joel this year (green jumper) just as he started Secondary school and in 2006 (purple jumper) at the end of year 1. It amazes me that he has changed so much and yet in other ways he hasn't changed at all. Thanks for popping by again enjoy your weekend xxx

How you doing?

Anyone who is in the slightest bit familiar with the comedy series Friends will recognise the title of the post and LO as Joey's greeting to any attractive female that came his way (I can hear you doing it in the American/Italian accent you know lol). With this LO I followed the 15th Nov Stuck Sketches sketch here and followed the criteria for this weeks challenge on UKScrappers as well.

I again used my glue lids to stamp circles on my background as I love the way it looks and this time I used Worn Lipstick, Broken China and Black soot distress inks to do them in.

The entire LO was made from my Gottacraft kit (the twine was in a previous month's kit) apart from the chipboard arrow which was one of the earliest things I got and the camera which is another gorgeous Digi from SJ's Little Musings shop. I love the Lily Bee Memorandum papers and stickers and it is great to be able to make the letters go around the "bubbles" as they are small enough to make circular.

Thanks for popping by hope you are having a lovely Friday x

Think Negative!

That was the challenge this month at Sarah's Cards Ltd. This was left open to our own interpretation and the DT came up with some wonderful idea's and LO's to inspire us all. I have been trying recently to get some of my early years recorded and am compiling a "Book of Me" and had a set of photo's from a school trip to France in 1988 most of which were completely unusable.

This got me thinking these were the days when you actually had negatives with your photo's and as the photo's themselves were big blurry messes the negatives would not be needed for re-prints and so instead of ribbons I used the actual negatives (my kids find them hilarious they don't understand why we have them when your pics are on the computer!).

The trip wasn't a pleasant experience for me until we visited the Amphitheatre. Amongst those that went I was in a group of five pals but all the rooms slept 4 and the teachers decided to make it easier we would all work with the people we shared a room with. I was the one seperated out from our group of pals and put with 3 girls I didn't know too well and found while I didn't dislike them they were not like me and we had little in common. The Amphitheatre though was amazing I could feel the history and the photo's don't convey the size and height of it. I am so glad that some of those pics came out ok and the one of the Roman shield carving.

So this my Think Negative page the photo's that turned my trip from a negative experience to a positive one that awoke my passion with Architecture and History and I used the actual photo negatives to embellish it. Thanks for popping by x