Mini Scrapbook:  Loving Life

This book has to be one of my most favorite books
that I designed for Susan Moore at EMI Scrapbook
Store.  I happen to love GLITZ paper, but when
I first saw this paper with all that purple and yellow
together, my first thought was what will we do with
that?  It made me think of this teacher I had in college
that wore only purple and/or yellow.  She even had a
purple car. I also happen to love a lot of color, and the rain
.....but I had just never really worked with all those vivid
colors in a paper line.   So I just decided to embrace it.  If you
 ever watch some of those decorating shows where they don't
 have enough money to do a total remodel...they give advice to
embrace the worst part and work with it instead of against it.  So I
started thinking about this paper....I wanted it to be a happy
book...like the title of the line "Dancing in Sunshine,
 ...not a book about the rain, which is what some of the paper
pattern and stamps were about.  And that is how I came up
with "Loving Life!"  I began to think about what I loved about
life, like dancing in the rain...listening to the rain...seeing a
rainbow after the rain...feeling the sun on my face...Just being
HAPPY from simple pleasures in life! I went through all my
stamps about being "HAPPY" and even went on line searching
for happy quotes.  This is what I do when I start prepping for a
new mini book.  I hunt and gather info and products so I will
have everything that I might need at hand so when I begin, it
will all be in reach.  Here are the pictures to "LOVING LIFE:"

 

 

 

I think this book has so many details.  I used stamps, hand made flowers,

marker detailing, inking, punches, distressing, eyelets, and hand cut

designs.  When I go through this book, I see so much that interests me. 

I have a lot of "favorites" in this book.

First favorite is the hand-made scrabble letters on the cover.  I ran

across a blog by Lisa - What a Beautiful Mess - one day when I was

searching how to make scrabble letters.

I knew I didn't want to use the real scrabble letters because I felt they

would be too bulky and heavy for my cover.  I love learning anything

 new when it comes to scrapbooking.

It keeps my interest level high, and I feel as if I have

accomplished something else along the way.   So when I ran

across this scrabble letter tutorial, I was hooked. I couldn't wait to begin.

You can check out the tutorial here...so easy...

http://what-a-beautiful-mess.blogspot.com/2011/01/faux-scrabble-letters-tutorial.html
 

 Second favorite is the dolly on the cover.  I had just purchased this die

by Sizzix and was really itching to use it.  (Oh and the flourish floral with

 leaves that I layered the flowers on top of the flower to give it more

 dimension.) This dolly on the cover turned out sooo cute.

All I did was layer it with chipboard, cut larger flowers out of phone

 book paper, and use a crochet flower with a brad in the middle. 

I think it turned out just right. 

 

Here are the DIES I used by Sizzix:

 Dolly - # 657357

Flourish - # 656520

Vintage Lace Die by Tim Holtz - #657481

 

I also like the little fold out bird page with the lace tacked on the end.

I love birds and the lace gives it such a feminine/romantic look. 

 This turned out sweet.  All I did was cut the paper into a 4" x 12" strip

and score it at the folds. I hot glued the lace to the end along with the

ribbon and an antique button.  To get the lace bird look, I hand cut

the bird out with my Cutter Bee Blade  and glued the lace under to
 cover the opening...and put Kraft cardstock on the back to cover
 and added a quote.  I just tacked the ribbon under before gluing.

 

Another favorite is all the hearts in the book. I am a heart lover. 

I absolutely "LOVE" scrapbooking and want to share it with everyone. 

 So my heart is in everything I do.

 

 I guess you can tell from how I'm going on and on that I came to

absolutely love this paper line. If I had more of this paper, I would

love to create something else. 

 

I hope you have enjoyed checking out this mini book...If you have any questions or

comments, send me an email.

And don't forget to scrap! 



Vacation Mini Book
Road Trip

Last Summer my husband and I met up with some
 friends in Chattanooga and made our way up to
Nashville by driving through some back roads.
We went antiquing, sight seeing, visited an old train
museum, ate lots of good food, went through
Lynchburg, sat at Tootsies and drank beer all
day long listening to music and walked along
the streets of Nashville.
All this in a week end.  What fun we had. 
So when the Christmas holidays started sneaking
around the corner, I really wanted to make this
mini book to give to our good friends for Christmas. 
Of course I had to make us one too! 
There were lots of good travel lines
out last year...Teresa Collins, Kaiser Kraft, and Bo
Bunny were my favorites.  I was really having
difficulty making up my mind which line to use.
One day while in Archiver's, I saw Detour, Bo
Bunny's travel line.  Right there on the shelf were
two chipboard mini books with the papers to Detour
already glued on...I immediately thought ...one step
saved, and I knew my decision was made for me.  And
did I tell you that there were two????  One for me and
one for our friends...Lucky, lucky!!!!
So now for the pictures of the Road Trip Mini Book:

The mini book that I posted is the one I made for our friends.  They are
the stars in this book..by this I mean that I used mainly pictures of them.
But.. I didn't do any journaling for them.
This project came together very quickly and by adding the office envelopes,
I was able to have pockets with very little work.  The office envelopes had
a lot of room and I had the outside to use as extra pages. 
For my embellishments, I used the 12x12 chipboard sheet that came with
the line, some travel stamps, and then I printed off a few quotes and a map
of Tennessee. When I need a detail element for a Layout or mini book, I
always check to see if my computer can help me out. 
You know how busy the holidays are.  So using a book with the base pages
 already glued save me lots of time, plus the book was a ring binder...
adding extra pages was easy,
I just had to punch holes. 
I hope you enjoyed viewing this simple mini travel book.
Yes...life is better with friends. 
PS:  I am sorry some of the pictures did not turn out very well.