We Love Weekend Road Trips ~ a Mini-book

I'm excited to have a little scrapbooking project to share with you today!

♥

I love having a collection of photos from a special occasion or a little road trip to put together in a mini scrapbook! I haven't made a mini-book since last summer and I'd been itching to play with paper - just needed a good set of photos to fill one up. For this one, I used the photos I took recently when Doug and I went camping.

I kept my embellishments simple and one-dimensional, and I was tempted to add some journaling and doodling along the way but in the end decided that I was happy with it just the way it was. I'll show you photos of my pages and then at the end of this post, for those of you who are interested, I'll provide some detail on how I made my book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

And now, the details:

 

♥ My pages are 4" x 6" - I cut Kraft cardstock to 8" x 6", scored down the center and folded to create a double-page layout.

♥ Book pages are glued back-to-back - I used a tape runner. I published a tutorial a while back that shows how to construct a book like this, and you can see that here.
♥ Before adding photos and/or embellishments, I stamped the background with a few random stamps I have. Nothing fancy, just random...
♥ I used punches for my shapes, cardstock and scraps from an old dictionary I have.
♥ I inked the edges of my punched shapes, as well as the edges of all of the pages. Inking the edges of punched shapes gives them added dimension.
♥ My title strips were printed using a Word document. I inserted a table and filled the background with brown, then made my font white. Printed, then cut the strips.

 You can see other mini-books I've made by clicking here.  :o)
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My Blog Friend Mini-book

Oh how I love a mini-book!

They're such a fun little way to hold a collection

of photos and document a fun event.

♥

I knew while Carrie and I were in England that I wanted to make a mini-book when we got home. And I knew that I wanted it to hold photos of all the blog friends we'd met while we were there. I loved working on this book and recalling the sweet memories of being with these lovely ladies (and one small gentleman).

Gosh, it was so awesome to have the opportunity to meet so many blog friends in person while we were in England earlier this year. I loved having the chance to go back through our photos and relive our time together. As I worked on this book, I thought of each friend as I worked on her (his) page. And even though the process of making this book was a bit drawn out, I loved every minute of it!

Here's a look at all the pages, with names and links of each friend under their photos. :o)

Alison and Deb

Karen and Denise

 Helena and Jacky

 Becky and Mel

 Rhona, and her daughters and grand-daughters. So sweet!

My friend, The Boy Child, and his mum, Ruth.

 

Sweet memories of time spent with lovely friends.

It just doesn't get much better than that.

♥

 

Thanks again to Lisa-Jane for the cute Union Jack paper she sent me as part of Sian's Great Big Swap of Very Small Things.

A Little Something for my Mom

I spent last weekend working on the most fun project for my mom!

♥

I picked up these strawberry shaped coasters at Target a couple of months ago - got 'em

out of the dollar bin knowing that I'd be turning them into something for my mom.

She likes strawberry stuff. :o)

I loved working on this project for so many reasons! I loved the bright happy colors, the sentiments that came to me for journaling, the collection of photos I used, and knowing that I was creating something that my mom would enjoy looking at many times over.

The back side of the strawberry coasters were plain, so I backed them with cardstock and/or patterned paper. Strips of journaling were printed from a Word document then cut, glued, and traced around with a black marker. Looking at these photos, I'm really glad I took the time for some basic doodling, as I think it makes the embellishments pop.

Here's a look at all the pages laid out ~ 

And for those of you that are interested, here's a look at all the tools I used to create this mini-book ~

What a fun way to spend last weekend, making something for my sweet mom!

:o) ♥

{Linking to Skip to My Lou ~ Made by You Monday's}
{Linking to I Should Be Mopping the Floor - Mop it Up Monday's}

What to do with scraps...

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I put this little book together using left over scraps from the mini-book I made for my sister's birthday - punched and bound with a Bind-it-All. And the little bag is a collection of punched shapes that didn't make it into my project. It's a little something for the daughter of a work friend of mine. {Hi Jade!}

When I was eight I would have been totally ga-ga over a prize like this!

{Hm...still true at 51...}

What do you do with pretty scraps?

♥

My Sister's Book ~ The Tutorial {kind of}

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Thanks so much for your sweet comments on yesterday's post about my sister's book.

I figured a few of you might want to know some construction details, but I also know there are some of you whose eyes are already glazing over, thinking, "Ugh. Crafting."

I love how life isn't perfect like that.

:o}

Cheri asked about the size of the pages - they are 3"x3". I made them that size only because I really wanted to use that chipboard "V" square I've had forever, so 3x3 it was.

I gathered up 50 photos of my sis {thanks to Carrie for scanning a bunch of them for me} and I cut 50 pieces of white cardstock and 50 pieces of patterned paper. Oh, and a bunch of wax paper squares too.

Favorite paste ever for making mini-books? YES! It's awesome. I put it on with the end of a credit card and then use the credit card like a squeegee to remove all but just a thin film of paste. Slap your pieces together and roll with a brayer {ok, so you don't have to use a brayer, but if you do invest in one of these tools you'll love how pressed your pages will look as a result}. I stack all my pages with wax paper in between and put a heavy book on top of the stack. Then the hard part? Walk away for a day or two. The longer you leave them pressed under the book the better because the paper kind of shrinks with the glue and can sometimes curl on you. But I love YES! paste because when it's dry the pages are really stiff, and I find that the edges stay bound much better than a glue stick would.

For this book I glued the photo to a piece of white cardstock, then I glued a piece of patterned paper to the back of that. So, each page was 3 layers thick, and I must that they were nice sturdy pages. I rounded three corners, punched a hole in the fourth, and used some black ink on some of the edges to blend that center core piece. Then I started embellishing with punched shapes and a few flowers {most fun part}.

Yeah, so, about that 3-layer sturdy page I'm so proud of... Turns out that makes for a hefty stack of photos! I had in my mind from the beginning that I wanted to bind it with a wire spine but it ended up being too thick for that - plan B was to put it on a ring instead.

In the end I was actually really happy with the look.

I think it made it a bit more girlie. ♥

This was a fun and fairly simple project, and I can see that it would be fun to do these photo books for other milestone birthdays as well - 21 photos, 30...

Rinda wanted to know if my sister cried when she saw it.

:o) Yes she did. In a good way, you know?

♥

My Sister's Birthday Book

A book for my sister's 50th birthday.

♥

I wanted to make something special for my sister, Valerie, to commemorate her 50th birthday, so I came up with a plan to make a mini-book with 50 photos of her.

For the record, 50 is a whole lot of photos! The book wasn't so "mini" by the time I was done, so I also covered a box to store the bulky little book in.

I kept the black/white/hot pink theme consistent throughout, and I absolutely LOVED working on this project!

Many times while I was working on this, I found myself thinking,

"My gosh, I love this woman. I'm so glad she is my sister!"

The construction of this book took longer than I'd anticipated, and Valerie's gift ended up being a couple of weeks late {sorry, V} but I hope she felt it was worth the wait.

Yay! I made something.

You like?

:o)
♥

{For details about how I made this book, click here for a little tutorial.}
and...
{I'm linking to Skip to My Lou ~ Made by You Monday}

Colorful Faces I Love ~ Mini-book

My blog friend, Mel had the best idea for an art exchange last October. She stamped an image of a woman's face and sent out sets to each participant to color/embellish/make our own. When the face images were completed, we sent them back to Mel, she divided them up, and sent one of each back to all of us.

It was so much fun to open the envelope from Mel and have all these face images fall out! What a beautiful array of artwork, many from women around the world who have become close friends of mine.

I decided to put them into a little accordion mini-book so that the whole thing could be opened to view all the images at the same time. I think that allows one to fully appreciate the difference and beauty of each little piece of art.

On the back I attached a little bio connected with each of the artists - told where they are from, the name of their blogs, and a little bit about the ones I have come to call my friend.

What a lovely little keepsake to remind me of

the endless stream of inspiration and friendship

this little blog has brought into my life.

I love it.

The book,
the blog,

and my life.

♥

PS: A great big thanks to Mel for organizing this fun project! If you were one of the participants, I'd love to see how you preserved your little pieces of artwork. I know Cheri has done hers...any one else care to share?