It's love!

I mentioned my recent trip to the store, I have a pile of lovely papers, a cool new album and sadly no time to compile them all together. It will happen though, I've got sketches and a whole theme album all dreamed up in my head. In the mean time though, I thought I'd share my current love...


These little cuties are new to me and new stock at Judy's. The are Making Memories, flocked 6x9 chipboard albums. My heart jumps with joy just looking at them. Normal retail is $9.99 but Judy has a bunch and is selling them for $5.99 - that is a steal.


The albums have a flocked fabric on the binding. She has this turquoise color and a fuschia. It looks red but it isn't, it's more pink. Because the majority of the cover is chipboard there are so many possibilities that you could do with these.

Here are the papers I picked out for my first album. My theme and subject matter is a surprise but wouldn't these make a fun mother's day project, friends album, life's best book, etc... again, so many possibilities.

And, do me a favor, if you pop in to get your own album, tell Judy you saw it on the blog.
Smiles,
Amy

P.S. Lisa has a new class - see the side bar for details!

Card and Envelope Album - Work It Wednesday

So, yesterday I mentioned how I like to use cards and card packs in my crafting. There really are lots of things you can do with those packs besides just use them for cards. Here's an example and step-by-step instructions on how to make a mini-album from a card pack. The album is made from both the envelopes and the cards. (Some of you made these with me at our last crop but it's always good to have a reminder. Enjoy!)

1- Find a card pack you love. Judy's has a bunch of different options. (The set I used will be available on Friday but in limited quantities) See HERE for a past post on other card packs we carry!

2 & 3 - Set aside the cards for now and choose a number of envelopes you'll use to make your album. I used 4 for my samples but you could use as many as you'd like. You will make a chain, so to speak, of envelopes by gluing the flap of one envelope onto the front of another. Be sure to line them up well with one another as this will help it align better once it's folded into an album.

4 - To make your album covers, place a piece of chipboard inside the first and last envelopes. This will help make your album a little stiffer which helps protect your pages from getting bent when viewed.

5 - Fold flap over on the first envelope to hide the chipboard that is inside. For the back envelope, cover with paper or card of your choice. Then carefully fold up your album accordion style.

6 - Insert a card, and center, in each fold of your album.

7 - Once you have them centered, punch to small holes through both the card and envelope. (holes should line up on the crease of the folds in both the cards and hooked together envelopes - see completed album photo if clarification is needed)

8 - Thread ribbon or string through holes and tie in place. Knot or bow can either go inside the card or on the outside of the envelope.

9 - When ribbon is attached you should have something that looks like this and is ready to decorate. Notice you can add a card to the crease on the back as well.

Below are some photos of the completed album we made at the crop. We used a card set from Kaiser and these sets come in tons of different colors and styles. Stop in and check them out!


I've got another fun project to show you on Friday. See you then!
Amy

just a sampling...

I was looking over some of my past creations and I found that I tend to use a lot of blank cards in my designs. Tomorrow I'll be sharing a whole mini album made from a card pack but today I thought I'd just show a quick use for a blank card.


Cards come in all sizes. I like to use them to make additional pages in my mini-albums. For this page I actually cut the card in half and glued the back side to the album page. Now I have more room for journaling or photos. Plus, I like the little added surprise it gives of knowing there is an interactive element to the page.

Tune in tomorrow for a Work It Wednesday post.

Quick pick of the day...

Here are some fun new stickers we just got in. I have to admit, I'm not much of sticker fan. However, I can come up with a bunch of uses for these. Even if they are just on cards, these stickers could come in handy.

Easter

My girls want a bunny. Do you think this one will work? It's awfully cute, low maintenance, and probably smells much better than a real one. If you are like me, and you've waited until the day before Easter to fill up your baskets, than remember that Judy's has all kinds of goodies.

In fact, she's even got a basket all ready to go:

The basket with the duck has all kinds of unique goodies in it.

And, if you are looking for a bunny but the purse won't do, check out all of these little cuties in the basket above. Lots of different styles and sizes to choose from.

If you are just looking for some small gifts to fill a basket, Judy keeps several fun things on hand. Stop in and check out what she has in the store.

And, Happy Easter.
Amy

Work It Wednesday - Waterfall Books

Believe it or not, it is still Wednesday. Here are the step-by-step instructions for the waterfall albums I made last week. Plus, you can also see the original books I made a few years ago that inspired last Friday's post, you'll probably recognize them from being in the store.

Let's begin with the binding:

1) Cut a 12x12 paper in half so it measures 6x12.
2) Turn paper over and using a ruler and pen, mark at every inch all the way down the paper. (you'll have 11 marks)

3) Score and then carefully fold on the pen marks you made.
4) Accordion fold your paper so it looks like photo shown above when done.

5) Starting at the back of your book, place a 6x12 piece of paper on the end of the accordion folded paper.
6) Continue adding additional pages as shown. NOTE: Be sure to only add adhesive as shown above in photo. If you add adhesive to both sides (peaks) of the accordion paper, your book will not open! Also, if you are wanting your pages to waterfall (see next photo below) you will want to cut them one inch shorter than the last. So, you started with a 6x12 as your back page, your next page will be 6x11, then 6x10, and so forth. (you can make these any lengths you want. For monogram books like the Girl and Lucky book at the bottom of this post I adjusted my page length to fit the word I was spelling.)

7) After all your pages are added you will have something that looks like photo shown above. Just as a tip, when adding your pages, make sure they line up on the top and bottom with the pages below them.
8) Add adhesive inside each fold on the back side of your binding. This will close it up and allow it to lay flat and open like a book.

9) Cut a piece of vellum and adhere to remaining front flap.
10) Using a scrap of paper cover the edge of your binding to complete your book.
11) Next you decorate, add photos, journaling, and embellishments as you wish.

Here are the books that inspired my creation from last week:

For the Lucky book I used a plain vellum folded in half and using a spray adhesive I added flowers between the folds. I did this on the book from last week too. Instead of flowers though, I did circles to make polka-dots.

The Girl book was done very much the same only I bought patterned vellum from Judy. She has a great selection of pattern vellums, here's just a few in case you want to make a book of your own.


If you stop in to pick some up, tell her you saw it on the blog!
Enjoy!
Amy

Sale items

I totally forgot to post the sale item for the month. For the month of April all glasses and mugs will be 50% off.


Look for these items in our gift shop part of the store. Just think, Mother's day and Father's day are coming up. Wouldn't mom love the tall mugs that have hearts on them?! And dad would love a nice tall glass for his beverage of choice. Stock up now while you can take advantage of the savings.

Amy
P.S. - A couple of you have emailed and asked for directions on how I made my waterfall book. I'll feature the step-by-step directions for Work It Wednesday tomorrow (I haven't done a Work It Wednesday for forever - it will be good to get back into the routine.)

Look what I did... updated

Edited, as promised, with photos at the end of this post


For information purposes you should know this is, umm maybe 'was' is a better term, my kitchen table. In fact after I pulled an all-nighter last night (went to bed at 5am and back up at 6:30am) this was the conversation I had with my husband as he was looking for a place to sit to eat his breakfast. All you kitchen table scrappers just might relate.

Me: "Sorry for the big mess in the kitchen."

Hubby: "I hadn't noticed."

Me: "You didn't notice the mess?!!!"

Hubby: "No! I hadn't notice that we had a kitchen!"

Despite the mess, and I'm only showing you about a 1/4 of it, the creative process was wonderful. I didn't not re-create the scrapbooking wheel, in fact, I borrowed from past ideas. But I love what I did, and now have two new mini-albums to share with you. BUT... you'll have to wait because I'm late for work!

Do you think I should tell my boss that I got 1.5 hours of sleep - nah! He doesn't need to know.
Have a good day!
Amy

p.s. check back this afternoon, that's when I'll show my creations.

Edited:
Both of these albums I made based off of past projects. I tweaked them so they are different but the ideas came from things I've already made. If you'd like to see the original projects I can post those on another day.

First up: Waterfall album - this was originally a class called "lucky Me" at the shop. We used monogram letters. Ring any bells?
Second: I had some left over Daisy D's paper from our last crop and made a little board book. These board books are fabulous for quick projects. I've talked about them before on the blog but that really are worth repeating. (Go buy one!!!)

So there they are. I had fun and it was so worth the mess!