March Craft Month - day 31

And the last day is here. Hope you had a great month, and made a lot of crafts. I wanted to work on one of my many started projects and maybe even try out some new ideas. Every other day seemed a reasonable time schedule, but inspiration does not keep a schedule, not yet at least. And there are those days when life just gets in the way. Spring is here and there is much to do around the house and in the garden. I am taking photographs of anything with a bloom on it, and maybe one day I get them printed and glue them down in some garden album.
No project for today. Since I do not like posts without a picture here are some earrings inspired by the spring garden.

I won't stop working on my albums, and one day I know I will be up-to-date with all my projects. And who knows what other ideas I may act on. See you soon.

March Craft Month - day 27

I missed one day, again. But not all is lost. The first project I wanted to finish during this month is finally done. I found this video some time ago when I first started being interested in making my own albums. I got a 8in  by 10in Strathmore drawing pad, half of the 12x12 DCWV World Traveler paper pack, some Recollections cardstock and Distress Ink; not to mention all sorts of type of glue. And now is done. I did not aim for the exact replica of the album in the video. That would have been to ambitious and it would have never been ready or look as pretty.

A video would have been better, but I have not unlocked that level yet. Here are some photos of my two day's work; not to mention the other days from previous months.

 I wanted a simple cover, since I might take it with me when I travel. Maybe I will add a nice photo of us when all the pages are filled.

 The inside cover. When I started to realize there will be a shortage of paper I got creative. Left over paper from torn pages, stamps, ink and some washi tape and I call it done.

 I liked to make pockets and use the cutouts as tags, photo mats and booklets.

 Most layouts are basic like this one. Room for photo, some writing and cutouts from the collection,

 The paper had so many elements already printed, that all I had to figure out was how not to cover them up with photo mats.

 I glued two pages together to make a tag pocket and a little booklet. Perfect for all those pieces of paper that are too big for tags and to small to cover a whole page,

 Another pocket I made because I did not want to cover all those nice stamps. And for the photos, I made the mini album that goes in the pocket.

One of may favorite pages. I like the boat and the dark green color of the paper. I had just enough paper to make it a double spread. And for the second page I made a pocket and a booklet for photos and notes from the sea trip (when ever that will be :)) .

Half page easy to make. See that pretty cluster of gears and stamps? Already printed on the paper. All I had to add was the photo mats. And I glued the bottom one sideways. Can't wait to add the photos in to cover it up.

 I have nothing to say about this one, just that I like how it turned out.

Fold out page inspired by the YouTube video. 

Now all I need are some photos from my favorite place for a coup of coffee. 

Made out of the very last bits and pieces of paper.

March Craft Month - day 23

One thing that never crossed my mind when I started this craft marathon was the possibility of getting sick. Well, it happened. Day 21, when I was supposed to be finishing my Recollections paper album, I was busy fighting a cold virus. I recovered quite fast, but not fast enough for my ambitions. Since I did not have energy enough for making layouts, I worked on some small stuff.

My one and only set of stamps than I have not played with finally got a chance to sample my ink collection. Any suggestions of what can I make with all these bottles? 

Most of my energy was donated in the efforts of finishing May 2013 album before May 2014 will get here. As you can see from this page, a background paper and a photo was all I could think of, for this one at least.

Remember that odd journal spot? I did and had to do something about it. Not perfect but much better. Now if I can only start writing...

Just because I had some leftover soccer themed paper, and because I have several photos from my husband's games. 

I do not know who came with the idea of those perfect cards, with text and decorations on them, but all credit to them. This one from BoBunny's Serenade collection made my page come together so much faster. 

One thing I like to do is add some color from the photo somewhere in the layout. My friend's pink shirt was the winner in this case. 

Whenever I scrapbook school events, I like to use the school's colors. Navy and orange are nowhere else to be found in my album, but since this is a double spread a little diversion should be fine.







And that is all for today. There are only four more days of this race I made up for myself. Any projects finished? No. But I am further than I was when I started.

Happy craft month, everyone!

March Craft Month - day 19

Finally some progress. Thanks to the windy weather, PM showers and an overall overcast day. And nothing to watch on TV.

And the winning project is... The Recollections Every Day Moments album.

 Here it is, comfortably resting in its new covers. I made them out of one gift box I have been saving since Christmas. It closely resembles a cereal box. It worked well even if is not as strong as chipboard. And of course two mistakes I may want to remember. Some magnets are strong, but when I add papers on top and I expect them to hold thicker cardstock together they may not be my best option. And no. two, use a classic spine wrap, or glue the cover paper a little bit away for the hinge.

And now some pages I started to decorate and are ready for photos:

 Ink drops are not my specialty. They were meant to be gray and almost invisible.

 Love the pinwheel idea, unfortunately that was the only idea I had. It feel like the page needs some other element of design to give it that nice finished look.

Do not know what to do with all those bits and pieces of paper? Make flags, glue them on a page, wait for some other bright idea to finish the design. Or don't wait, go on Pintrest, Youtube what ever place may feed your inspiration and find something that works.

March Craft Month - day 17

I cannot believe I am still doing this March Craft Madness. There are a few more days left out of this month so I should not be bringing out my certificate of achievement just yet. Before I get to run a victory lap, a little presentation on today's craft projects.
I picked up where I left on Saturday and came up with a journal and a six page, accordion binding album.

First the album. Nice pocket pages, plenty of space for flowers, and pop dots embellishments, buttons and other nicknacks that will end up in this album. Covers still needed.

And the notebook. One side has pages made out of the paper left from the paper collection. The other side and the hinge is made out of white cardstock.

For this first white page I used my Martha Steward border punch. I also glue it on three sides to have a pocket for tags, just in case I will have any paper left buy the time the album is all decorated.

Some improvisations were necessary. The above is quite successful. The bottom left corner was added to cover up a gap. I like the stripes combination so much that I may use it even when I do not need to fix anything.

The third and last part should be coming up next. Can't wait for the the finish products and hopefully no more scraps. At least not from this paper pack.

March Craft Month - day 15

This is one of those days when life interferes with my favorite activity. Before leaving off to this short journey, I had time to prep for a mini album or two. I had this Recollections 'Every day moments' paper stack, that I used for two mini albums and still had a lot of paper left.
So after sorting, trimming and matching colors and patterns I came up with three piles.
The pages and tags:

The cut outs:

And the rest to be used for covers, pockets and borders.

Can't wait to be back to put it all together. Have a nice weekend everyone!

March Craft Month - day 13

Since today is the 13th, I was inspired to pick up and do some work on a 2013 project. 13, 2013 I guess I am trying too hard to match everything. Anyway. A little intro about this project. I got curious about the Project Life and Sn@p products. The albums, the page protectors, all the nicely coordinated collections and goodies; scrapbook paradise. So I picked up a Sn@p album, a few page protectors and decided to scrap an entire month. It so happened to be May, 2013.

I chose the one with the green spine. Green in not my first choice in scrapbook projects, but I had recently acquired the DCWV Lemon Flower paper stack so I felt a little adventurous. I thought it would be easy, and the pages will come together in a few minutes. I had photos printed, paper cut to size for all page protector styles. What I did not have was experience.

My first page for the first day of the month. It took forever because of the many decisions I had to take and was not prepared for. Here are some of them.

• Cropping the photos. Do I cut from the left, right, from both sides, how much, will the photo still look good after?
• Adding text on top of the photos. How much, where, on what color paper, will it distract or add to the photo, will it cover to much, should I add more embellishments around it or not?
• The non-photo pocket. What if the paper collection does not look well with the photo in the adjacent pocket, how many layers, how much text?

And that is only the short list of questions that a beginner scrapbook maker had to find great answers for. What keeps me going through this intense Q and A process is the fact that after a while this process of making layouts and other paper crafts will become automatic. Effortless. Then hopefully my projects will be finally complete in less than a year.

That is about it for today about May 2013. It is still a work in progress and there is much to talk about it. And now some samples of my somewhat finished project. Some ready, others with problem areas that need some help, and others that are right at the start. No worries. Keep scraping...

 

 

March Craft Month - day 11

I know I skipped day 9. But it was not in vain, because while I was busy with other non craft activities I came up with the coolest idea I had in a while. I call it the greeting card album. And I know there are several tutorials out there for making albums using greeting cards, but this one is quite special.
A while back, I went searching for ideas of what to do with all the cards I was getting. I found a lot of projects, but none of them was what I wanted. I wanted to keep them all, the way I got them, so I can read the messages people wrote. All I found on the web were recycling type projects: paint over the writing, cut that image out and such like that.
I needed a different kind of project. One of a kind cards albums. For this first one, I used the cards I received at my farewell parties before I left US.

 I used the cards, some envelopes and I also made some extra pages out of cardstock for extra photos. I stored the horizontal oriented cards in the envelopes.








Because I had cards in several shapes and sizes, I decided to align them at the center.

This will be the first page. The white cardstock is part of the binding system.

I used the back of a cute envelope to make a pocket to store the card that was inside. I tried matching the card's sender with their photo.

 

I also tried some color coordination. Yellows with yellows, pink with pink, not much of a process, but it keeps the album looking neat.




                    

Two examples of family and friends photos glued down across the page from the message they so nicely worded and signed.

Horizontal group photos got a nice mat and a place in one of the envelopes.

And that is it. It takes less to make it than to talk about it. Now all it needs is a pretty cover. Hope that will take even less time to make and no time to write about.

Happy scrapping everyone!