Mini Card Album

What do you do with all those cards that people send you on random holidays? Do you keep them? Do you throw them away? If you do trash them, don't you sometimes feel guilty about it? I have to admit, until I started making cards myself, I really didn't see any reason to hang on to them.

That being said, I do like to keep the ones I get from my husband. You know, the ones telling me how special I am, how he couldn't live without me, he's so lucky to have me... okay okay you get the idea :) I also keep the special ones from Kalyn. (The boys aren't old enough for doing stuff like that yet.) She is always taking the time to make other people little gifts and I think it's so sweet. Just last month, when my computer crashed and I was panicking about losing ALL of my 2008 photos and videos, she made me a card and filled up a votive candle holder with hershey kisses. She told me, "I wanted to make you something special since I could tell how stressed out you are, Mommy." How precious is that! And what good mom could throw that away, right?

Wow! I got really off track. All that is so not what my post was going to be about, but I guess it laid ground work for what I am trying to show you! Wouldn't it be great if all the cards that you received were ones that were that special and something that you liked so much you wanted to leave it up all year? Well that's what a mini card album is! When I first got into altering items, mini card albums were one of the first projects that I tried to master. It's a pretty simple idea really. I made the one in the photos today for a client. This particular one is 6x6, and opens like a regular card. There is a sentiment on the front, and the inside has a pocket to hold a gift certificate. Once the gift certificate has been removed, they can just add photos right over the top of the sentiment and on the mattes inside and on the back. It's made out of several layers of patterned paper and cardstock and is sturdy enough to stand up on its own so that both sides can be viewed. I thought it would be great to display on a shelf, the mantle, the corner of your desk, etc. By simply changing out the colors and embellishments, this can be custom designed for anyone!

As I was making it, I was thinking to myself I should go ahead and make 2 of them so I don't regret it afterwards! And while I was waiting for my client to pick it up, I was thinking it needed an envelope. Yeah, well, that didn't turn out quite like I had hoped :( I stink at making envelopes!!! So I made a bag instead! I love making bags to match my stuff! I HAVE to have everything coordinating or it makes me crazy! Anyway, hope you like everything! Sorry I was so long winded today :) Post your questions in the comment section and I will get back with you!

Mimi Word Book

I made this mini "MIMI" word book for my MIL for Christmas this past year. Having the cricut Expression machine allows me to customize every detail and color of each project that I make. If you have any questions about how I did this one, leave me a comment and I will be happy to explain! Remember you can double click on the images if you want to view them larger and in more detail.

Teeball Layout - Scrapinistas Sketch Challenge

I did this layout for my friend Lindelon's sketch challenge last week. You can see her blog here. Hope you like it! I used Love Elsie Sports stamps, the cricut, and papers from DCWV. If you have any questions, leave me a comment.

Scrapbooking on Canvas

I have always wanted to try to do a scrapbook page on canvas so that I could mount it on the wall in a frame or shadow box. I have also been trying to move of out my 8 1/2 x 11 scrapbook page size for my personal albums. I have helped several friends with their 12x12 layouts, but have been hesitant to do my own. I am trying to change that though! I have already completed 6 (almost 8) layouts in the 12x12 size. Stay tuned for a link to my friend Lindelon's blog and a challenge that I did based on one of her sketches.

Sorry for the rabbit trail...back to the subject at hand: canvases.

I shared in my last post that I had been super busy and emotionally drained from a funeral last week. My cousin Rusty, at the age of 23, was tragically murdered. It was the most heart wrenching thing I think I have ever experienced through the eyes of someone else (my Aunt Rita), if that makes sense. I am the only one in the family who does anything with pictures, so naturally I volunteered to help in the way that I knew I could - by making the photo displays at the funeral. Even though my Aunt Rita is not a scrapbooker, she has boxes upon boxes of photos. You'd never know she wasn't a diehard scrapbooker after seeing all of those pictures!

I picked up some photos, scanned and cropped each one with my PSP software, loaded them onto a flash drive and went to Target's Kodak Machine for instant prints. As I was organizing all of the pictures, I immediatley had a vision about what I wanted to do with them. I had too many to make a scrapbook, or even create 12x12 layouts so I decided to try my canvas idea out. I used several sizes, ranging from 11x14 to 16x20. I painted the entire canvas with acrylic paint and then went to work designing the layouts mainly with my cricut. I used my stash of embellishments and paper to coordinate everything. I used Rusty's favorite color, yellow as the main color and accented with blues, browns and greens.

I picked up photos on Sunday at around noon and had to have them completely finished by 4:00 on Monday afternoom! Talk about pressure! How do you chronicle a person's entire life in roughly 29 hours and still manage to sleep, feed and care for three small kids and your husband? My husband was the first to step up to the plate and take care of the kids all day Sunday, and help me paint all of the canvases until 2:00 in the morning! Monday morning, the best sister in the whole wide world - Brandy - came to my rescue when she picked up my kids og and kept them until my husband got off work. Finally you have my dear friend, Lindelon, who should win an award for just being my friend and listening to me ramble on and on about anything and everything everyday. I knew I could not complete such a task in my own strength, and if it weren't for God's divine intervention and the help of his willing people, I might not have ever been able to finish this! Lindelon spent the entire day on Monday helping me add embellishments, mat all the photos and arrange them onto the canvases so beautifully.

There are so many photos and techniques that I used that it would be very difficult to explain here. If you have any specific questions, leave a comment and I will answer you as soon as I can.

Update & Birthday Centerpiece

Hopefully I can get back to my regular blogging schedule and life will settle down to as close to normal as I know it very soon. We had a tragic death in my family this past weekend with the funeral on Tuesday. I haven't been able to recover from all of the emotional stress, and I'm also playing catch up on laundry and housecleaning. My daughter turned 7 years old today, and we had a party for just family at my house last night. Her best friend and two cousins had a sleepover here after the party. Anyway, I just wanted to share a simple project that Kalyn and I made together for her party. She is a very complicated little girl but likes things very simple when it comes to scrapbooking. She picked out 4 solid colors of cardstock and I got the cricut chirping out some birthday cuts. We used Doodlecharms for the cupcake, birthday present, ice cream cone, and party hats. We used Alphalicious to cut out the balloons and Happy Birthday Kalyn. She wanted to help me make the entire thing, and being she's ten times the perfectionist I ever thought of being, I knew I needed to keep it simple. We embellished some of the cuts with puffy glitter from Crayola and used ATG tape to each peice to the bamboo skewers. I poked them into a small glass container full of gum balls.

The pictures aren't great, but you get the idea. She was really proud of herself for making them from start to finish. Everyone at the party loved the gumballs too! Hope you like it! I will share more soon so keep checking back!

Grocery List/Coupon Organizer

I made this grocery list/coupon organizer for my MIL as another part of her Christmas present. I think it turned out really cute! Again I sit, wishing I would have made one for myself. Originally, it was a 6x9 Steno Spiral Bound Notebook which I altered and completely embellished to match all of her other Christmas projects. If you have any questions about how I made it, feel free to leave me a comment!

Have a great day!

Amber

2 New Posts!

My computer got sick on Friday night :( I was not able to check email or update anything until today. I got everything taken care of, suprisingly enough without having to spend an arm and a leg. PTL! Anyways, I had started a couple of entries prior to all of that and just saved them as a draft. I am not sure why they are still under that date because they were not actually published until today. So if you want to see the Card Set and the other cupid valentine card that I made be sure to scroll down. There are a couple of posts between this one and the new ones! I hope all that makes sense :P I am still trying to learn all of this so bear with me!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Amber

See previous post for information on the slideshow :)

Information on the Slide Show in the Above Post :)

Seriously - is it just me or is Photobucket not user friendly? Arghh! Anyway - Happy (late) Friday night to everyone in Blogland! I just wanted to share this word book that I made for my sister for Christmas. (between you and me - I am not sure how many more times I could try to upload this slide show before I was going to throw the computer out of the window - oh well! I think I am done with the rant now!)

I really enjoyed making this for her and her son. Her family loves the beach and everything about it, right down to the sticky, salty sand! They also have an in ground pool. During the summer, they are in the water so much you'd think they were fish :) Anyways - this album is perfect for diplaying some of her most treasured photos of her little cutie and their family time.

Hope you like it! Let me know what you think! If you have any questions you can leave them in the comment section and I will get back to you. Thanks for looking!
Amber

Card Set

I made my MIL a big package of things for Christmas this year. I am planning to share them all on here over the next couple of days. First off, I made this card set. I thought they would be nice to give to the ladies at her church or just someone special :)

On the "For You", I used my oval nestabilties and added a couple of extra layers with my Creative Memories oval cutters. I stamped the butterfly image and cut it out. I used glitter glue around the edges and bent it up a little so that it would pop off the card. I colored the flower and leaves separately on the flower image so that I could stamp it all at the same time.

The "Celebrate" card is pretty basic, made with patterned paper, coordinating ribbon, stamps and of course, my favorites - embossed primas :)

For the"Believe" card, I used a brad and the SU word window punch for the sentiment. The rectangle nestabilties die was used for the stamped image. I added some pretty ivory ribbon to finish it off.

Finally, the "flower" card. It's pretty straightforward :) Stamped the same flower three times and mounted each on two pieces of coordinating paper. I used my 1 1/2 inch scallop punch, 1 1/4 inch circle punch, and my creative memories square punch (not sure of the exact measurements, but I think it was 1 1/4 and 1 1/2 also).

Generally speaking - I inked the edges on everything and stamped a coordinating flower on all of the envelopes. I love stamping envelopes to match :) It just adds so much extra to a handmade card!

Another Cupid Valentine Card

I love the cupids in this new font! I don't know what you call this kind of fold for a card, but basically you lift up the heart and the bottom comes down. I forgot to take a pic of the inside. I decorated the corners with some stamps and left the rest blank.

The sentiment on the card says "always love you". I thought it went perfect since Cupid is looking down. It's like you can hear what he's thinking :) Blah, blah, blah. Who cares what he's thinking when he's holding a box of chocolates, right? At least that's what I think he's thinking :) I hope you enjoy it! Leave me a comment if you have any more questions about how I made this or to tell me what you think :) Have a great day!

Amber

Cupid Valentines Card

I made this card today after I finished my owl card. (previous post) Sorry the photo is kind of dark. I am too lazy to fix it right now :) I spent a very long time searching for dingbat fonts with cupid on them. I couldn't find any stamps locally that I was really into. I found this free font on fontspace (I think) and it's called KR Cupids. I printed it out and colored it all in. I used purple glitter (now that I know how to use it, you should be expecting to see lots more) on the wings and the flowy thing. What's that called anyway? Nevermind. I used the Fiskars Heart Border Punch along the bottom. I embossed hearts on each side of cupid and used some of the stamps from the dollar section at Michaels and Joanns. Let me know what you think or if you have any questions by leaving me a comment. Thanks!

Amber

Owl Always Love You Card

I am so excited about this card! It's fairly simple I know, but what's so cool about it is that I cut it on my cricut expression using SCAL. I have tried and tried to cut things with SCAL and it never quite works for me, so usually I give up, and open Design Studio and use what I already have :( Well, I just recently joined a yahoo group for SCAL Users. It's awesome!!! People on the group are so generous! They have shared some really cool SVG's and have some really easy to understand tips and tutorials. Thanks, guys!

Anyway, here is how I did my card:

I used a branch with a bird from the Wild Card cartridge for the owl to sit on. (I just cut off the bird.) I embossed the bottom border with a new cuttlebug border strip that I just got last night and then colored the stems brown with a marker. I bought the Doodlebug glitter like a whole year ago and never used it because I wasn't really sure how I wanted to do it yet. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it! I used my Zig glue pen and dotted where the flowers where supposed to be and then I sprinkled the glitter all over the place. The word "OWL" was cut with my cuttlekids alphabet dies and then I glittered it the same way. I stamped the "always love you" underneath. Now for the showstopper -- the cute owl! (Thanks again for sharing the SVG file, April.) Thanks to the tutorials I have been reading about resizing things in Inkscape and setting the same size in SCAL before importing, I was able to cut him out and make a shadow background. I also punched out little hearts and glittered them for her sparkly eyes. I added two little hot pink rhinestones in the corner and called it done.

I would love to hear your comments! I hope you like it!

Amber

2009 Calendar Project

I made several of these calendars for my husband's Nanny this past year for Christmas. They are so cute that I wish I had made an extra one for myself :) Just in case you are wondering, I got the original idea from SCS. Of course, I had to change it up a bit to make it more me-like!

New Blog!

Thanks for being the first visitors to my new blog! I changed over from Typepad to Blogger since it's free and I can get really cute layouts without having to be a genius with the computer :) Please bookmark this link or even better, sign up to be a follower.

Amber