Just B

LIFE - unscripted

2011-10-06T05:30:00.000-05:00

Okay peeps, I have another mini to share with you today. I did this one awhile ago for my youngest daughter, I didn't think it was fair that she still didn't have as many as my oldest, but honestly I don't know that she ever will. You know what they say is true, you're never quite as on top of things with your second as you are with your first.......in my case I don't think I was ever on top of anything, with either, and if I wasn't then...I sure as heck ain't now. = )
But anyways - here's another of her minis, hope you like!

So here you have it. I used a mini album idea that I had found on Lizzy's site (forgive me for not finding the actual link to the tutorial-I searched and couldn't find it) a long time ago and I have actually made this particular mini 3 times now. I will continue to try and find the direct link because this mini is so doable and I like doable, it makes it super simple.

So on the first page I have a photo that I sized to 2x2 and then added some stamped embellishments. My favorite though is the Tim Holtz film strip ribbon here, added in among all the photo phrases that I stamped in black archival ink and then cut out, just perfect.

Across from that I used my Sizzix square envelop die here to make a pocket so that I could add a little tiny journaling spot, then used my bracket punch to make the pull out handle for the spot. On it I stamped a sentiment about little girls and then added a cute little girly brad at the top of the pull to add 'bling'- that and I tend to like lots of stuff in my minis. On the front of the pocket I stamped the letters & the journal tag and cut them out and added them on also.

Here's a close up of the journaling spot with the bracket punched piece as the 'pull'

For the next pages I used several punches, couple of stamps that I stamped in black archival ink and then cut out, and used some ribbons & metal pieces to top it all off.

On this side I have the ticket punch that I staggered in a stair step pattern, then added a crochet lace and a stamped ticket image. The black ribbon tops off the lace and then in the back I added a butterfly stick pin that I added some seed beads too and the metal brad that sums it all up with one little 'powerful' word...love. I did alcohol ink the butterfly with copper here so that it would match my papers better, it's original red just didn't mesh very well.

On this side I have another 2x2 photo, a tag punch, a stamped image, a paper heart punch, and a metal keyhole with a metal key brad. As for the key brad I just cut off the little metal prongs on the back of it so that I could hang it as a charm from the keyhole. And the little pink paper heart, I pierced a single hole in it - then ran a piece of baker's twine through the hole - around the key - back through the hole - and then tied it in a knot in the front. I really like how it turned out.

For the next set of pages, I have much of the same: a 2x2 photo, stamped images, crochet lace, couple of punches, and a couple of metal pieces. Love, love, love metal with lace - not sure why - but I do.

Oh goodness - sorry about the lighting in this photo - not sure what happened here. But as for the page, I have a 2x2 photo of my baby, a stamped image that says so, an arrow punch pointing to her, a crochet lace along the side with a metal button brad to top it off. You might have noticed that all my photos have a mat, it's just a square punch that's a little bit bigger than the one I used to punch out the photos and then on the photos, I used a small hole punch to cut out the corners of my photos. I do this a lot so I guess I like how it makes them look.

Here is the opposite page, it has several stamped images that I cut out and distressed. Once I had them roughed up I inked the edges and them added them on; the 7 gypsies paper clip this is only there for decorating purposes - that & I love 7G. The crochet lace down the side topped with a punched arrow pointing you to the warning label was intentional.....love that!

Almost done, this is the second to the last set of pages

Love this picture of her little piggies - no doubt that'll be a favorite of mine for a very long time. Along with the picture I added a journal tag with another 7G's mini clip, a pair of metal feet I think from Making Memories years ago, a stamped image that I did twice & cut out along with another stamped image that I punched out with a circle punch then turned into a charm and hung from the previous stamped piece. I like it, a lot, wasn't sure how well a paper charm would hold up but so far so good - of course this mini is only 6 months old if that, so...........we'll see.

On this side I had to add the photos where she was grabbing her piggies, love it too. Then because she was using her hands I thought it would be appropriate to also add in the metal hands by Making Memories. The stamped sentiment over lapping the red ribbon & metal slide were just add ons to give the page some extra 'umph' - is that a word?

Okay last one... You'll see some familiar things once again. I think this is probably one of the few minis I've done that have kept a consistent theme throughout the whole of the book, and well.....I love it - might have to start doing this more often, it keeps a good flow.

Here you'll see that envelop pocket that I used earlier in the mini, along with another tiny journaling spot with the bracket punch dubbing as it's 'pull'. The difference on this one is that I used a metal filigree then added on the clear heart bead to make a hanging charm. Love it! I also for this page added a double layer of ribbon, one is the crochet lace under the pocket and then the other is the twill with the printed sentiment on top of the pocket....all in all very cool.

For the last page, I had to get some more of the film strip ribbon in and this is where I actually figured out that twisting it worked magic, so I then redid the first page to match. To keep the film in place was a bit more challenging which is where the tiny attacher this came in handy. To finish off the page I added a stamped image and the metal word, again another Making Memories piece from years ago.

Here's the close up to the journal spot on the opposite page, again another stamped image with a girl sentiment. Love the hanging charm even more every time I see it.

The back of the book and you'll see the gaffer's here tape along the spine, that's what ultimately holds the book together, love my 7 Gypsies stuff; then also one final punch that I used to sign my name on.

A bird's eye view

Here's what it looks like, not very big at all, in fact I think it's 4x4. On the cover I have lots & lots going on. For starters I have in the very, very back a Tim Holtz regal crest die this in pink, on top of it a added a white piece of fiber to soften it up, then on top of that I stamped the image 'LIFE' - cut it out - distressed it - inked it - and then popped it up on pop dots to give it some dimension and added it. Along the bottom I added another stamped image that I cut out, then used a couple of felt flower brads that I inked up to tone down so that they would match a whole lot better. The other pieces you see are a mini clip this from Stampin Up that my girlfriend was so kind to order for me a long time ago, followed by a Tim Holtz muse token this to sum it all up. The black crochet lace down the left side that you can hardly see was added more just to break up the transition there between the gaffer's tape the pattern paper.
Well that's it, hope you enjoyed checking out my latest post, feel free to leave me a comment any time and please drop in again soon. Have a great day!
just B...... unscripted

Birthday Blessings

2011-09-19T05:30:00.000-05:00

Is it the weekend over already? Oh my....well hopefully everyone had a ball. Today I want to share with everyone this little cutie that I made for a friend of mine. Her birthday was last month and I wanted to make something for her (I owed her that) but instead of making her just a simple birthday card, I decided to try out this idea that I've had for awhile, so this is the mini book I came up with. My inspiration came from Arlene over @ Butterfly Kisses from a mini here that she did. I thought @ the time that the mini was really a 'mini', turns out that hers is like 6x12 - where as mine here really is a mini, it's maybe 3x4.5 if that. So when I realized this and knew that there wasn't going to be much room for anything of their own, I decided it would make a great birthday mini.

All in all I think that this one is my new favorite: it is cute, it is teeny tiny, and it has lots & lots of character. Of course the paper collection I used has been a long time favorite (here), I've used this same collection for several projects. You can bet that when my friend told me what her favorite colors were, I got excited because I knew that this was going to be the perfect stack to use.

Here is a top view, as you can see it is thick and full, full, full

Here's a look at the opening page

So on the left side I put a little note to my friend for her special day and then added a couple of butterflies and a flourish with a little ivory rose.

On the right side I added a couple of ephemera pieces: ticket stubs, and some tissue tape, her age (but don't tell her that I told you) and then a little jab about getting older. (heehee)

Here's a look at the next page, love this - that when you open it up you see the whole butterfly!

So on the left side, I have a hidden pocket that I put behind the circle flourish and in it I added a couple of journaling tags: one says, "Happy Birthday", one says, "Make a Wish", then on the back of it, it says, "Wish Big".

On the right side here I have a stamped image where I wrote her name, then I also added a couple of ephemera pieces: one is a vintage label & then a couple of stamps. I also added her first name initial and a rose to top it off.

Here is one of the tags that is hiding in that pocket.

Here is the next page

So on the left side I kept it simple, I added her sign in a little word strip. Then I added in some roses, with a little pearl flourish & bling.

On the right side I used a journal spot and wrote in it some other famous Virgos, thought that would be interesting and fun.

Here is the next to the last page

On the left side I used a flourish frame and added on a calendar spinner, pointing it of course to her birthday month, then added a cute little punched out center to the spinner.

On the right side here I have a vintage label, an arrow pointing to the sign that says, "Happy Birthday"

The last page

On the left side here I added in some paper ephemera; there's another arrow pointing @ the ticket stub, then I also have a stamped image that I punched out, a couple more blank tickets, and then a butterfly with some pearl bling added to her for the body.

On the right side here, which also happens to be the last page, I used another large flourish, a butterfly with the pearl bling body, a couple of the roses, and then another journal spot that I signed like I do with all of the things I make.

The final outcome: One cute little teeny tiny mini that I absolutely adore and having two little girls, I might be making a few for around here in the next couple of years.

Well I hope all of you have enjoyed my crafty mini, I have lots more on the way to share with you so stop by again soon, and Thanks! Feel free as always to leave me a comment, I would appreciate your time, thoughts, and feed back.

just B.......free

Week in the Life

2011-09-15T16:15:00.000-05:00

Good Day Everyone

Hope everyone is having a good week. Here in the Midwest we are the enjoying the signs of Fall, and although Spring is my very favorite season, Fall is most certainly the runner up - love watching all the leaves change their color + the cooler weather is usually a very welcome relief. So for today I am going to share with you my Week in the Life project that Ali Edwards started many years ago here. It is going to sound really bad of me but I must admit this isn't one of my favorites, only because it takes a lot of time & effort, but the reason I do it anyways is because I believe that it is important to document our here & now (not only for my girl's sake but for future reference). So to spare all of you the very long & drawn out week that I documented the last week of July, I am just going to give you the overview.

This is my opening page, I have done most of my picture layouts in Photoshop Elements. I am by no means a digital scrapper but for this project along with the December Daily project just the sheer number of photos that I take and expect to use makes the hybrid pages so much easier (for the most part anyhow-unfortunately I am very slow when it comes to using PSE probably because I don't use it enough, I oughta practice a bit more then I could say that & it'd really be true, but you get the idea). Anyhow, on here I used a photo strip to get a few more pictures added to the overall project and then eventually I will use one of my slick writers to put journaling on the little recipe card (because I print @ home with the photos, I use photo paper - it's not a shiny paper but it still requires a special pen to write on which is what a slick writer is (here).

The way I set up my days goes as follows: the first page is two photos in opposite corners along with two pattern papers in the remaining opposite corners. There really is no reason for the pattern paper except to keep an overall continued theme within the book, in fact I use the same two patterns all the way throughout. Then the last element I gave to this page was the date circled, with the day of the week circling that. I liked this because it seems like I have a title page for the beginning of each day, which ultimately I needed because I have several pages per day and some days have more pages than others, so this is good. I apologize in advance for the 'bird' my wonderful husband gave me when I told him that I'd be doing this project & that it would require me taking lots & lots of photos of us - including him...... I guess he didn't like that idea very much but oh well. It's my hobby and I'll annoy him if I want to (heehee).

So here is what the second page looks like, I used the free PDF download that Ali had offered on her site for this project specifically and I'll tell it seemed to make all the difference this year. She actually offered two different types of charts: the first being an hour by hour list, so that you could fill in what you did that hour, on the hour or within that hour; the second was for specific things - i.e. observations, overheard, gratitude, favorite moment, as well as what you ate for all 3 meals. As you can see from this photo and the next page's photo, these were huge to me because what I did was print them all out (14 pages in all-both charts for all 7 days) put them in a 3-ring binder so that I was able to go to the same spot all week and know exactly where to write down all the happenings for each one of our days, for the entire week! That was huge in helping me to succeed with this project so "Thanks Ali".

So here is my third page using that second chart that Ali was so kind to release to the general public, and boy did I use it. I think I have every single spot filled in, in almost all of my chart pages, just because it was so easy to do this year with the help of these two simple little tools. I'll tell ya, just like a Chef will, the right tools makes all the difference......it's the same for crafting, or building, or scrapbooking.

So here is my fourth page and not everyday has this page, this is just something extra I threw in. For some reason I was in a mood to write, the week of this project and so if I found that I had something on my mind that went along with the whole idea of this book then I rewrote it on the right size of notebook paper and just added it in. Speaking of which, not sure if I mentioned that the binder I used this year is from Target, I picked it up almost a year ago and was waiting for just the right thing to add to it. I love it and thought that it'd make a great home for this project. Not only is it a 3-ring binder with page protectors available, it is also only 6x9 in size...roughly and it happens to have a cool black graphic pattern on the hard plastic covers that I actually like. I have since looked for more of this same binder @ my local Target stores but to no avail. Oh well all the more happy with my choice to use it for this project.

On this next page, what are we on... #5, I added lots of ephemera pieces. Anything & everything - just whatever I could get my hands on, if it even remotely helped me tell a broader story then in it went. These pieces here are actually the tags from a new suit that my husband finally got out of the bag. Also on here I added this library card with a quick recap of a conversation that my daughter & her friend had about my husband. Things like that, what other people say &/or do, especially coming from my own daughter(s), is just priceless and so worth documenting to me. I even thought about going through some of the ephemera and adding a bit more of the story that way - like why I chose the corn husk I put in, most people would just assume that we really like corn (which we do) but unless I add to that piece that my father-in-law grew it - you would never know it and that's a shame because that's a fairly significant piece of our story.

Alright so here we are on page six, and it's more ephemera; more tags from yet another suit, also a prescription label that was for my husband. Here also is another way I could go back in and tell an even more complete story...why did he need this prescription?, what had happened prior to getting this filled?, will there be more to the story afterwards?, these are all the questions I could go back in and ask myself if I wanted to tell a more fulfilling story. Another thought I just had is what if I created a separate layout for some of these extra stories, and just added them to our family yearly album, that'd be a great way to document the details without having all the extra work added to this already big project. I really like the second idea better, I'm always @ a struggle when it comes to doing just regular everyday layouts, I never know what to include, now I have a whole book of possibilities.

So here we are on the last page for Monday in my week in the life album, yep still Monday. This also happens to be something else I did for each day, a 5x7 photo. I did this on purpose, for one - I just really like the large photos mixed in with the smaller ones, and two - it acts like a closing page for that particular day, which as you probably can guess....... I like. Also, now that I'm seeing this again after having put this away for awhile, I really like being able to 'see' the subject. In this photo for example, I happened to get lucky enough to get this shot of my daughter with her laughing, an absolutely adorable laugh that we only see when the neighbor's dog comes over for a visit and starts kissing her like crazy. Because of this picture you're able to see a side of her that we rarely see and I love that. Don't get me wrong, she is always happy and laughs a lot, but usually the camera is nowhere in sight and we're the ones making her laugh and therefore too tied up in the moment to get a picture in.....so......yea!

Okay so here we are again with the two photos in opposite corners and then the two pattern papers in the remaining opposite corners, this is the start of the next day in my week in the life album. As the two circles in the middle of the page states, this is Tuesday the 26th. As I mentioned earlier I think, all of my days are set up the same, so Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - so on and so forth, are all going to look just like this except with different photos and the correct date & day. Then the follow page is going to be the first chart that goes by the hour, followed by the next page having the second chart that tracks meals and special moments, etc. - all ending with the 5x7 photo from that day.

However, as anything & everything, I do have some exceptions. Some days have extra journal entries because I felt the need to write. One of them happens to be about selling our previous home, which still effects us even today, the fact is well....we haven't sold it yet. This particular entry is about how we almost had it sold & then the guy backed out and now we're back to square one. Is it worth putting in here, maybe - maybe not, it isn't all that much fun to read because I'm a little pissy about the whole thing but then again, it is apart of our story and how we got to where we are today. The second journal entry is about my affection for Deadliest Catch which is a document series on Discovery Channel (here). In the last season Captain Phil Harris passed away, so this was the first season since the beginning of the series that he hasn't been apart of it and I admit I had a hard time watching it, even as much as I like it, it was hard. Seems crazy, but these guys are like family now after 5+ years on TV.

Here was another exception that I added to the very back of my album. It turns out that we had a birthday party to go to that Saturday so this was the little treat bag from that and inside of it I included some artwork from my oldest daughter, the fact that we also happen to like Tangled very much was just a fluke.... so in it went. As for the artwork I included, I think one of the pieces was a coloring page from the doctor's office that my 5 year old did.

Finally here is the last thing that I included in my book. This is the Archiver's journal (here), the front page of it is missing because that's the page with all the coupons on it, but the rest of it I just punched holes in and added it right into my binder.

Whew that was a lot of information.......but I think we finally got through it all. So what do you all think of my Week in the Life album? I'm happy with it, like I said earlier, there are lots of ways I could have made it even more in depth but being that this book is already a really big project, that just wasn't possible for me this time around. But the good news is that if I need some more layouts to do of our year this year what a great place for me to go to get those extra stories, because there's quite a few to choose from in there that I wish I had the time to document even now, but oh well maybe soon.

Thanks to all of you who came along for this journey, I hope that you enjoyed your time with me and maybe even been a little inspired to document your own stories. Stop by again, anytime!

just B.............

Life is Good

2011-09-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

IN OUR TIME OF REMEMBERANCE LET US ALSO REALIZE

My heart goes out to all those who on this day lost a loved one, my prayer is that within these last ten years your hearts have been mended and your wounds have become faded scars; but only scars that remind us of what truly is precious in our life and of the joy that those who've gone on before us would want us to bask in, take part in, and put our whole heart into.....for JOY is LIFE & Life is good!

The effects of 9/11 are very different depending on of course who you are but also where you lived @ the time. I am deeply aware of the fact that I can not even begin to imagine the devastation that occurred in New York ten years ago, and it disturbs me but because of that... I am also much more aware of what exactly it is that I hold dear. "These are the days to remember", (sang by Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs here) and for that very reason.... I scrapbook and I document, and I collect bits & pieces of our lives, because if I don't....who will? Is it important? Hell ya!...to some....to others not so much, but if I were to go today or tomorrow God forbid, at the very least there would be something of me for my girls to know or something left for them to pass on to their children, so that they too would know, and that is important. Family & Friends need to know that you love them....period.....that's all there is in the end. How you get about 'saying' it or in this case 'showing' it is completely up to you, just DO IT!!!

I thought that I'd share with you a mini book I did for our beloved 'mini nanny', Miss Colleen. I chose to dub her that because she did way more than 'babysitting'; she'd bust out the Dyson, or mop the kitchen, or throw in a load of wet clothes to dry....those kinds of things that don't take long by themselves but all together add up to whole lot and man I'll tell ya - now that I don't have those extra pair of hands, I feel it & realize just how much she even means to me in more ways than I could ever count. Unfortunately with our move earlier this year we had to let Miss Colleen go and so to 'show' her (because we do live in the 'Show Me' State) how much we love her and are going to miss her, I made her this little gem.

The book pages and pockets were all done with 7 Gypsies Lille collection and then all the extra stuff is random tidbits that I threw in. All in all it's a hodgepodge album to throw random memories in and it's freakin' cool, just like Miss Colleen! Even more so because now someday down the road, she'll have something from her young adult 'single' life, that she can share with her husband & kids - probably to prove she 'use to have a life' right?-but still....how cool is that? : )

As for the book... it is full of pockets that even have mini books in them. I think in all I made 3 minis to go in my mini and I'm not really sure how, why, or what possessed me to put that many in, but it worked. Now I will admit it is a FAT little mini..... but it all fit.......so what the hell....

In fact here is one of the mini books that I slid into one of pocket pages. This is made from Tim Holtz's mini baroque die here and then I just folded it in half and tied the 3 pages together to make 6 little mini pages.

This is a pocket page, the two little butterfly's that you see on the left hand side actually pull out a tag that is highly embellished,

and a little teeny tiny note to Miss Colleen is also hiding in there.

Had to add the red butterfly stick pin to the bottom of the page to help make it a pocket and to add just another piece, I like lots of 'things' on my mini books.

Here is another pull out tag page

And here's the tag

The other side of the same tag

Here is the 2nd mini book that I somehow fit in here

This is what the cover looks like

And here is what the inside looks like

This is the next page after that mini book

And yes this is another tag pocket page

Here's the tag front

and the tag back

This is just another tag pocket page

And then here is the 3rd and final mini book that I hid in here

and this is what this mini looks like

and the inside of the mini

another tag pocket page

what the...... here's another mini that I forgot about - holy smokes

I made this mini using Tim Holtz's mini cabinet die here and then I used my crop-a-dile here to attach the eyelet here in the center of the half circle to bind the mini, all 3 pages have photos mats and they just fan out

This tag is also hiding somewhere in the book, I just don't know where exactly but I do love all the pieces I was able to stick down in there. I think it really makes a book come alive when there are lots of things to make it interactive, I try to achieve this standard in all of my mini books, that's why they are so fun.

So anyways here you have it, my mini creation for our wonderful mini nanny, whom I I mean whom we no longer have (boo hoo) but hopefully now that she has seen this.... she knows that she is loved.

Thanks everyone for stoppin' in and takin' a peek, hope you like what you have seen today. Feel free as always to leave me a comment anytime, and until next time......thanks again

just B......joyous!!!

boo time

2011-09-08T09:40:00.002-05:00

It's getting around that time of year again when all I want to do is get outside and enjoy the cooler weather -it always seems like such a great idea to hit all the local festivals too, wish I had the time to do so.

But alas, I do not - so instead, I will waste some time with you by sharing a mini album, circa 2010.

I found the letter book last year in the dollar bin @ Target and thought that I could make it work and well the result is..... a darn cute mini Halloween 'BOO' book.

As for the book it's self, I didn't alter it too much on the fronts but the backs, well I went a little crazy there. I was being influenced greatly by Arlene here @ the time and she used a medium called Glass Bead Gel here (which is exactly what is sounds like) that looked totally cool so of course I had to try it. Admittedly I still need to play with it some more to really get comfortable with it but on the whole, that stuff really IS cool. It gives a ton of texture but dries clear and if I'm not mistaken you can mix color into it as well, like an acrylic paint and still get the texture just with color. I have yet to try that, like I mentioned I need to play around with it some more, but I bet that would be cool too.

As for the mini, it has a lot going on. I added lots of tags and embellishments, in fact the tag above is from a shirt that my daughter received, so on the back of it I added a little something and put it in the book too. Why not, it goes along with the over all look and it helps to tell a better story I think (i can go back & remember what size she was wearing then).

As for the front of the pages, that's where I added the embellishments. Most of them are fabric (the bats you see on the striped page, and the pom-poms-from a pair of Halloween socks) but there are also a couple of sticker labels that I picked up last year @ Michael's.

In this mini, hence the type (mini), I didn't have a whole lot of room to add the photos & the journaling so I came up with the idea of doing pocket pictures where I could hide the journaling and still have it all fit into the book. So above you can see the double sided photo pocket with the green tab on the top, this is what I did with all the photos.

Here in this photo you can see the journaling cards I made with a library card acrylic stamp, it makes a great place to do the journaling and that stamp is one that I use often just for that purpose

As I said I did this for all the photos, so that I would have a place to record some of the details that I don't want to forget. To turn my double sided photos into pockets, I added tissue tape around the outsides except for one side, I have to be a bit more careful when I'm pushing the journaling spot back in but for the most part this idea seems to have worked just fine.

So here is the back page, this is where I keep a majority of the photo pockets, I think there are 3 in here. The way that I stuffed them in was I used a felt spider web ribbon by Martha Stewart here that I adhered down very tight to the two sides and the bottom of the page, leaving the top edge free so that the web creates the pocket. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, having the photos on the back of the album, but the web actually protects them so that they don't get beat up as quick and I'm okay with it.

Well there's my BOO mini, hope you like it. And if you are ever inspired to do a project, do a mini - most companies now make enough product that you don't need all the fancy tools and gadgets, just get ya some glue and a mini book that you like and you're set: here would be a great place to start, I typed into google search Halloween mini kits and got a ton of sites to check out, so for those of you wanting a little something more maybe this is the way to go.

Thanks for stopping by today, hope you have a wonderful day! This Sunday on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 lets all take a moment of silence for our lost brothers & sisters and prayer that their families have healed and are happy & healthy.

Thanks again....

just B......

Learning to Love Layouts

2011-09-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

Good Day All!

Today, as promised, I am going to share with all of you some layouts I have done for the design team. I was asked by Carolyn to pick several papers that she had an excess of and to do 12 x 12 layouts; so I grabbed what caught my attention and went from there. Now as most of you know layouts are really not my thing, I don't do a lot of them and therefore I am not comfortable with them, but I tried and that's gotta be worth something. For starters, I had to get inspired and needed a jumping off point, so I turned to my trusted friend "Page Maps" here and found a layout in there that I thought would work well.

Turns out that that is all the help I needed, just a little something to get my motor running and here you have it, a completed 12 by 12 layout.

Along the bottom of the layout I finished off my title and hung it from the sheer ribbon, love things that hang off of something else, adds so much more depth and dimension.

Here is the next 12 by 12 layout I came up with and honestly I 'believe' I came up with this one on my own, but I won't swear to it....meaning I didn't use a sketch........can't find one in the book like this but that doesn't mean it isn't there. Either way though, I like this layered look. Would be a great layout for lots of birthday photos, do the best ones front and center, and make them pop off the page, that would be great.

Here are a couple of close ups: the first of the title, and the second of the flowers that I grouped together up in the right hand corner.

(**gentle reminder that I don't do layouts so anything that looks remotely professional-I am happy with) this is where I prove my influence - I have been inspired for a very long time by scrapbooker/memory keeper, Ali Edwards here, and this layout I think shouts her influence. The clean lines, the graphic look, the very simple embellishments or lack there of, and spots for some very large photos.

My favorite embellishment is the royal crest in the upper right hand corner, that is a Tim Holtz's die here. I absolutely love that man's creative genius! The flourish cut-outs that adorn the bottom left hand corner and the center label, along with the label are also by Tim. If I have a favorite brand in scrapbook products based on what I already own, I think hands down it would be Tim Holtz's products but a very close runner up would be 7 Gypsies here (they have awesome products as well).

The next layout I did also had more of a graphic look to it but this time I added a bit more 'stuff', in fact in this layout, the design of it is more meant to show case 'ephemera' rather than photos. Yes, by all means you could throw lots of pictures on here or you could put the photos in the middle and then add the receipt, and ticket stubs, and parking ticket, etc along the side lines. What a great way to include all those little things that you know you all are saving, especially when all those added together helps you tell a much brighter and fuller story, those little bits help the story to come alive and I totally love that.

Here is a closeup of what I did along the side lines, I used one of Tim Holtz's stamp sets and made the little advertisement labels to fill in the 'white space', but that could be easily replaced with whatever you have on hand.

I have to make a disclosure real quick, I did mention that I am a huge Tim Holtz fan correct?... so when I tell you that this next layout is totally a Tim product page, you won't sue me...right? : )

As you may have guessed, this page uses two of Tim's new stamp sets. I absolutely love this page: besides loving the stamps, I also love how I themed the whole page around the sewing stamp set, with the dress maker label, the thread & needle label, the dress form, the fabric swatches (made from the pattern paper which happen to be double sided), and then the trim options. I think I totally nailed the concept I was going after and for that I am so proud of this one.

Another reason that I have used a lot of Tim Holtz products within my design work is because I know that is something the store always carries and if they don't have it, they will order it. For those of you who don't know, when you are doing design work the idea is to help people understand 'how' to use a certain product and that in turn will help 'sell' product and thus keep the scrapbook industry alive. The draw back is that most store owners don't keep older products unless it's a staple within scrapbooking - like..... silver brads or a square punch, those things are used all the time by lots of people so it makes sense to have them; but for someone like me who has 15+ years in this hobby and has a ton of product (lots of new but also lots of old) it was hard to keep up with all the new and they weren't so easy to 'give' just anything to me to use (usually only paper, ribbon, chipboard cut-outs and the essentials) so it definitely made it a challenge.

so there you have it.... the reason for my obsession with Tim. : )

A good example for the explanation above: here in the layout above, Carolyn had a lot of this pattern paper that wasn't selling (probably several months old now), so she wanted her DT (design team) to make something with it that would inspire others to buy it and therefore getting it off the shelf so that they could put out something new that was selling. Not many people want to scrap a layout with paper that is more than a couple years old, a lot like myself who still has pattern paper from when I first started into this hobby, which in this industry is ancient, and probably why it's still stacked in my cropper hopper. Yikes!!!

Okay so now that I've fallen into a rabbit hole with all the DT explanations, I will try to find my way back. Here is the last layout I did for the design team, the only single page layout that I did in this bunch and I guess technically the last project I did. This one took me a while, I had tried several other attempts but nothing had panned out until I went back to my tried & true which was using a Tim Holtz product, so here you have it, the last layout standing.

First up is the tattered floral die that I used in several places on the layout, I love using dies because they are easy and you can use them on about any kind of paper product and you can use them over & over & over. Some of your heavier items like: chip board, book board, or even some cardboard won't cut well if at all, but most of the paper stuff will and then some other elements like: fabrics, vinyl, and even some scrapbook metal will. Dies are such a versatile tool, that's why they are so popular now.

Speaking of dies - the other die that I used on this layout was another Tim Holtz one, the butterfly die (forgive me I can't remember the name of it) and with it I used that same pattern paper as the 'sewing' layout I did, but this time I made the paper the butterfly's pattern. In this layout I also played around with one of Martha Stewart's punches, this one is the kind that give you the option to punch an entire border including the corners or not. I love this punch system, to be able to do my own die cut border without having to invest in my own personal die cutter, I absolutely love it.

So there you have it, all of it. Hope you have enjoyed looking as much as I enjoyed creating!
thanks for stopping in and i hope you'll pop in again, until then
just B......inspired!

mini memories

2011-07-17T06:00:00.003-05:00

Good Morning All!

For today I thought that I would take you all back in time and take a trip down memory lane. This is a mini I made years ago @ Archivers, they had a make & take over the weekend and this is what I chose to make. I had forgotten about it until about a year ago when I was visiting my mom, I noticed it sitting on her book case and immediately was taken back to that moment, that is the extra bonus that I love about this hobby.

I forgot how simple this little mini is, in fact this would be a perfect Christmas mini that would be doable several times over for in-laws, grandparents, aunts & uncles, etc. - in fact I might have to put that idea down on paper for this year's Christmas gifts.

So what makes this project so easy you ask? Well the fact that the pages are done with plastic badge holders that you can pick up at any office supply store, which also already has your holes punched and will make the binding easy breezy, just line it up on the front of your chip board covers and punch them out with your crop-a-dile.

For the inside of the pages, a photo on one side and a journaling spot on the flip side, how easy is that? The tabs were added on afterwards on the outside of the plastic, and punched out using the McGill tab punch. Some stamped words in black give just a bit of added interest and viola ....a mini!

Now for sure you could absolutely add a pattern paper in there and stamp your journaling spot on top of it if you like, or you could just measure the space and go get preprinted journaling spots, that's the nice thing about it, it is totally up to you.

As you can see for this one I did my own journaling spot stamped on top of cardstock, I chose to use a black ink throughout the whole of the mini just to keep it cohesive. The photos I cropped to be more of a close-up shot only because I thought for me that just worked better, those were the moments that I wanted to remember, like above where my daughter was picking up rocks @ the park instead of playing.

As for the covers, anything goes. I used a pattern paper, but you could just as easily paint them or distress them however you like or do it based on the type of mini it is going to be or maybe depending on who the mini is for...that would be an idea and a great way to personalize the project even further.

So just try one, cut yourself a couple of chipboard covers, grab a couple of badge holders and get creative....fast!

Thanks for stoppin' in and I hope you have a great day. In my next post I will be sharing some layouts that I have done for my design team, hope you'll stop in again and take a peek.

just B

Fairy Graphics

2011-07-06T19:00:00.000-05:00

Good Day Everyone!

Thought today that I'd share another Design Team Project. This mini I did about two months ago I guess and it's been the only project so far that I was able to totally pick & choose myself. Of course we all know that the purpose of a design team is to promote something so in this mini the idea was to use the chipboard flowers & buttons. So hopefully you'll like how I incorporated them.

I've had this lingering idea for awhile to use with this fabulous Graphic 45 paper collection, so that immediately came to mind to use, as well as Tim Holtz's tissue tape, so this is what I made.

I did the covers from raw chipboard and covered the front side with a coat of metallic gold paint then used one of the fairy postcards from the collection; on the inside cover I used a textured bazzill cardstock in an olive color to match the paper collection, then added another postage piece from the collection.

On the first page I used one of the patterned papers from the collection, cut it length wise to size, folded it in half, used my circle punch on the top, then added some tissue tape around the bottom edge to make it a pocket page. On the inside of the pocket, I added a little booklet that I made from a cream colored bazzill cardstock and some of the paper embellishments from the paper collection. For the pull tab I used a couple of the chipboard buttons on each side of the booklet.

For the second page, I used a salmon colored bazzill cardstock, cut it to the length I needed, then at the bottom of it I used my butterfly border punch, folded it up to create a small slip pocket, then folded up the rest of the paper and made it into another pocket page, took my circle punch to the side, and then made another pull out booklet.

Here is a closer look @ the two pages

For the small slip pocket, I used a couple of the paper embellishments from the collection and just tucked them inside, the pull out booklet comes out from the right side

This is the second booklet, I used the flower chipboard as the pull, I did cover the front of the pages with patterned paper, and then did the back pages with the same cream colored bazzill cardstock. On the front of the booklet I did add one of the paper embellishments from the collection.

Here are the next pages, again I used the patterned paper cut to size, used a circle punch on the top and made it another pocket page

Here is a close up of the one side of the page

Here is a close up of the pocket page, with some of the paper pieces from the collection

Here are the next couple of pages

Here is a close up of the backside of the pocket page with some of the paper embellishments added

And another slip pocket, pocket page. Again in the slip pocket I added some of the paper pieces from the collection, then from the right side there are a couple of pull outs

Here is another look at a couple more pages

The close up of the right side, the backside of the pocket page

And another pocket page with a pull out from the top, a couple of paper embellishments added to it

And finally the last page the backside of the pocket page with a few finishing touches with the paper pieces added. I tied the book together using a strip of two-toned ribbon, the same one that I used throughout the book, I also used it to make the closure on the front of the book.

Okay well I hope that you like my book that I did, I'm excited about it and hope that you've been inspired to try something new. For my next post I will be sharing some of the layouts that I have done recently for The Scrapbook Page, be sure to stop by and check them out, until then thanks again for taking a peek.

just B....inspired!

Something XXtra Special

2011-06-29T13:00:00.008-05:00

Good Afternoon Everyone!
Thank you so much for stopping in to see me. Today I have something extra special to share with all of you. I was asked by a friend of mine a while back to do another one of my baby twin albums for a really good friend of hers. So naturally I said YES! Now if you have been to my blog before you may remember the first twin album I did about a year ago, but for those of you who are new you can find that album here, go check it out.

For the rest of you here is the new album!

With a quick glance the two books appear to be quite a bit different but they aren't; this one does happen to be much louder & a lot bolder, but I kept with the same vintage feel, so apart from the color factor, they are very much alike.

As for the structure of this book I kept it exactly the same as the last one, I did the gate-fold front so that the baby girl's photos could be on one side and the baby boy's photos could be on the opposite side. My thought in this was that throughout the year you could have the side-by-side comparison, to see how much the twins have changed and/or how much they have remained alike. I used my bind-it-all because it just works the best and the white rings matched the paper collection better as well. In fact the paper collection is why these two books are so different, ironic thing is ...I used October Afternoon here for both books, just different collections. For this book I used the 5 & Dime collection here in an 8x8 size, with a bit of the Campfire here thrown in for good measure.

For this type of album I think that the paper collection is a huge decision because naturally it is the main element, so in order for it to work as a baby album the collection has to be the right choice. So far I am hooked on October Afternoon, they have awesome papers: they are durable, they have a unique line that offers the vintage collections without going overboard, and they have the color quality that other lines just can't seem to get right. Now there are other Companies that have awesome papers too; I can name several off the top of my head but their collections don't fit this type of album.

Now as you may notice, I have added several ribbons & fibers along with a ball chain to the o-ring binding, that is just something that I think gives it a finishing touch, the charm that hangs from the ball chain has the word dream etched into it. On the opposite side from the binding I have more ribbon/fiber and a Tim Holtz trinket pin here that says 'Keepsakes' I think. Also on the cover I created a flash card that I created on the computer, printed it, cut it out, distressed it, then adhered it to the top. The little girl I cut out from one of the papers, backed her with a dark brown card stock then cut her out again, added pop dots to give her some dimension and then added her too (did the same with the little boy on the opposite cover). The two phrases came from a 7 Gypsies stamp set that I have had for a while, I can't remember the name of the set though.

Here is a look at the inside pages. This is where I decided to change things up, in this book I used my Sizzix envelope pocket die here for almost every page. In the first book their wasn't an option to add more journaling cards if they had wanted to, throughout the month, only in the very back of the book; so this time by adding the pocket, it gives whomever the choice to add more journaling if they want to. In fact the only journaling card that I did adhere to a page is the 'monthly checkups', I figured this was a safe way to go because for those of us who have little ones, we know first hand that the 1st year is crazy full of doctor's appointments and that's just for one, I can't even imagine what it'd be for twins.

As for the journaling cards, I did keep with the same idea and just did prompts, that way they could fill it in based on their idea The two prompts above are: Our First Ride (that could mean - the ride home from the hospital, first vehicle, first car seat - there are lots of ways to interpret that statement), the second prompt is: Our First Home (now more than likely that will mean quite literally where they first lived, some photos of that house, etc. but then again it could mean someone whom each of them first felt close to, or a spot they liked the best - who knows but at least they have the choice to decide what it means to them).

Here is a close up of one of the pockets with the journaling cards. By the way that is something else new that I added to this book, behind that 'prompt' card I also added in a blank journaling card and did that several times throughout the book, because maybe they thought of something else to record, be a shame not to have a place to jot it down.

Another close up of a pocket, and with the same journaling prompt so that means it is the same page for both sides - one is the girl's prompt and the other is the boy's prompt. I think that how a child receives their is very much worthy of documentation so that prompt is a must in all the baby albums that I do. Their name could be a family name, could be after someone famous, or like my girls - after characters in movie.

Here is a look at the last page, again I kept it exactly like the other baby albums I have done. Both of these journaling prompts are great ways to tie up the loose ends so to speak, or just a good place to keep all the random things that are important but that don't necessarily have a place to 'go' throughout the rest of the book. The other thing that I don't have a photo of but always include as well, are mini envelopes that are designated for the first lock of hair, and I do that because I just think that is the sweetest thing.

Okay we're almost done. Here is one other thing that is new, I added this at the last minute as I was cleaning up my space and getting everything put together. I had a lot of little 'left-overs' and I don't eat left overs very often, so I threw them in; my thinking is that they can add these bits & pieces as the year unfolds. They can glue them on to the pictures once they get them in the book or the journaling cards once they've added their thoughts, and what a great fun little hands-on, add on for mom & dad.

On the opposite side of the 'embellishment pack' I did type up a short little message to the newly, expecting parents to congratulate them and to give them 'permission' to use the book, that is why I made it. I don't know about any of you but I am guilty of this myself, I'll get something cool, or new, or 'handmade' and love it so much that I don't end up using it because I'm afraid I'll ruin it, or break it, or something else, so this hopefully will prevent that mind set.

So here we are at the end, the end of a very long year for mom & dad I'm sure and the end of the album. My idea is that underneath the 'twins' banner maybe @ the end of the first year they will do a family photo and put it right there in the spot where the envelop is (that pack is not attached so it actually won't be there) how cool would that be? I think that would a perfect ending to a very cute baby twins mini album.

Thank you all for stopping in today, hope you are having a wonderful summer, please stop by again and if you have any questions please leave me a comment.

just B......

Queen for a Day

2011-06-17T13:00:00.002-05:00

Good Day Mi Ladies!

Good Day Gents!

Hope this lovely afternoon finds you all very well. I have several layouts and cards to share with all of you today. I was asked by Carolyn several weeks back to do some 'Princess' themed things to celebrate not only the Royal Wedding between William & Kate, but also because of an exhibit here that was taking place locally. I had to chuckle to myself because even with 2 little girls, I had managed thus far to avoid doing any kind of 'princess' layouts. As it turned out, Carolyn called me on it. When she mentioned the assignment (which to me 'this' was mostly certainly an assignment) I cringed, and she noticed and said, "but you have 2 Girls!" ...... yes yes I know, it's pathetic. What she doesn't know is that up until about 3 years ago, when my oldest daughter decided pink was her favorite color, I couldn't hardly stand it nor any shade of it, so she is very lucky - lucky that I love a good challenge and lucky that I even like pink. :)

Working with all the different pattern papers proved to be a difficult challenge because although I have since changed my stand on 'pink' - I couldn't help but think that half of these looked like they'd been dipped in Pepto Bismol (case-in-point).

Eventually I got over it and just did whatever it is that I do when I get in the 'groove' and well.... this is what I came up with.

This one happens to be my favorite of the layouts that I created. I love the look of the tiara and with the tulle it makes it look like a wedding veil. That coupled with only a few other embellishments, it makes for a very simple wedding page that could house several favorite photos.

This is the second page I created, and although the pattern paper isn't my favorite, it works well for a back ground. I kept the layout simple just because that tends to be my go-to-style when I am not as confident in a particular area. My favorite element on this page happens to be the ribbon - I love working with ribbon, fiber, trim - you name it and I probably have it in my stash somewhere.

This layout was the first of the 3 and it is right up there in my list of favorite layouts. I think it is bold and beautiful, yet simple.

So here I have several cards but I can't remember which one came first so we'll say that this was the first of the bunch. It's interesting what I have learned just by being a scrapbooker. Take this white texture paper (for example) that I rubbed with a silver metallic rub-on, before being a scrapper I would never have given much thought to it's texture but now, I have a well polished love for the texture and it's detail.

This card was an accident in that it ended up looking a lot like a formal purse, with the ribbon (same one from that earlier layout) acting as the handle, and the flower embellishment acting as the closure. I absolutely love that sparkly, shimmery paper - it totally adds to it's charm and really makes the 'purse' believable.

This card along with the next 2 are all very simple, of course it is possible to add a bit more too the last one if you wanted and you could also add a bit of embellishing to the inside of each card. I chose not to because I wanted the simple look.

This is the last of what I came up with and it is my favorite, in fact I loved it so much that I will be doing two more of these banners - one for Liberty's room and one for Justice's room. If anyone is at all up-to-date with scrap booking than this 'banner' is no surprise but for those of you that don't follow scrap booking - then all you need to know is that 'banners' are huge right now. Needless to say that is mostly why I chose to do one, the fact that it came out so well and that I fell in love with it, is totally a bonus for me. I used that same shiny shimmery paper from the card earlier and used my scallop circle punch with a deep purple textured paper, then topped it with another shiny shimmery circle punch and the word 'Princess' spelled out using one of Tim Holtz's alpha die. To string it, I punched holes @ each corner on each side of the pennants, braced each hole with a gold eyelet, and then used a deep purple floss to hang it with. My goal is to get a couple more done for my girls and then if I have a good response to them, maybe do a few more as gifts for later in the year, that'd be good don't you think?

Alright well I think that is all for now, I still have lots to share and to do so I will be sighing off for now, but check back soon and hopefully I will have something new up for you to take a peek at. Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful Father's Day weekend!

just B......

Saying Goodbye

2011-05-30T06:00:00.023-05:00

For those who have served -

Thank You!

And for those who continue to serve -

Thank You!
My Grandpa was a vet and was honored with a military funeral, never realized that my dad followed so closely in his footsteps.
I was fine up until the trumpet wailed it's sad goodbye while 2 marines folded up the American flag and presented it to my dad's wife.
It was the 21 gun salute that finalized it for me and I was in tears.
Memorial Weekend will never mean the same to me again, it'll mean more
And my dad will be remembered..........

It's A Merry Day

2011-05-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

Good Morning Everyone!

Hope all of you are enjoying a wonderful Memorial Holiday. I have found over the years, as I get older, that the holidays tend to mean quite a bit more to me when I can get together with family, so our celebration will be on Monday evening @ my brother's house. It is so fun to watch all the cousins interacting with each other, although in the years to come I will be feeling sorry for my youngest nephew, he is outnumbered 4 to 1; lucky for him he has a much older brother that will hopefully help keep all the girls in line.

In the wake of my December Daily being posted, I thought that I'd share with all of you a home decor project I made several years ago that showcases my oldest daughter's first Christmas. Trust me I do realize that it is May, but I figure any of that 'holiday spirit' @ any time throughout the year is good - Right?

I got this idea from Shari Carroll here, in her book titled, "Layers" where she walks readers through her steps in completing this cute little mini. "Layers" here has inspiration galore and has motivated me many times over to get things done. This is one of those projects that worked really fast for me, I jumped in one night when we were having computer problems and completed it within a few days following. Funny how I seem to get a lot done when I don't have the computer or the laptop distracting me, does that happen for any of you?

Now you will notice that the framed mini is made from light switch plates, I thought that was so unusual at first, until we remodeled our home 5 1/2 years ago and I ended up with several left over switch plate covers; being that they were no longer needed I thought about that odd decor piece that Shari had done and decided to try it.

To this day, this is one of my favorite holiday decor pieces that I have done and although I have thought of doing one of these for my youngest daughter's first Christmas, I'm not sure it would have the same meaning because we aren't remodeling right now - in fact we have recently moved. But that was half of the point of this project, not only was it a mini about our daughter, it was also a tangible piece of our reality @ that moment in our lives. So for right now the material that I use for Justice's first Christmas project I feel, should somehow represent our living situation @ that moment in time. The problem... I wouldn't have a clue what to use as the base material. It's too bad I wasn't doing the mini right now, because I have all kinds of moving boxes that could make up a really cute mini. LOL

I think my reasons for liking the finished project so much is that I used black & white photos and the papers I chose all had the same tone (red & white), so mixing it all together gave it a real elegant look. So this is something to think about next time you have left-over light switch plate covers, do a mini altered art piece, they are F-U-N.....fun!

Thanks for peeking, hope you liked my mini as much as I enjoyed making it. Have a wonderful holiday, enjoy lots of love & laughter with your family & friends. I also just want to say, "Thank You" to all of our service men & women who choose everyday to protect our country and fight for our freedom daily.....
"Thank You"
just B....grateful

December Daily - the over view

2011-05-24T00:30:00.000-05:00

Hello again, I am back with the rest of my December Daily Album, hope you don't mind even though it's almost June. I am actually very pleased with this album and was surprised at how quickly it came together (once I devoted the time to it)
I decided to present the pages as if you were actually looking at the album and I think that I will be doing this for future album pages, they make more sense when you can see them side by side like this. Also on several of the pages, even though you cannot tell from the photo, there are lots of 'movable' pieces, for example on day 6 (the very first one in line) the two somewhat blue rectangle journaling spots that have each girls initials on them, well they actually flip up 'to open' to the journaling for that day for each girl. Another example is on day 8 - on the right side there is the angled picture that lays on top of the other 4, well just to the right side of that there is a little tab that is red and can be 'pulled out' to reveal the journaling for that 'craft project'. I absolutely love interactive albums and although sometimes they take a lot more time and effort during the creative process, they are worth it to me. I also think that as my girls get older and hopefully more interested in what I enjoy doing (being creative), I think that they too will love searching for the hidden gems: the flip ups, the twist & turns, or the tags that come out altogether - like on Christmas Day where I added a mini album to the envelop. To me that is 'cool' and it makes for a very creative outlet which is why I scrap book in the first place; the documentation of our family's journey in this life, is just an added bonus - one that I hope our girls will appreciate when they get older and start to make their own way in this big wide world.
So sit back and enjoy!

day 6 - I am a firm believer in starting the day with a good breakfast and some mornings it's nice to 'go out' for breakfast - so this morning I took the girls to iHop for pancakes & sausage.

day 7 - just enjoyed our day @ home today and was able to get some really good pictures of my little one

day 8 - this is probably a growing tradition in our home, as my girls get older I will probably continue on doing a couple of Christmas crafts each year that they can help me with and then we will give them to our family & friends during holiday celebrations.

day 9 - to the left is a picture of our living room with it's twinkling lights, to the right is - on the front of the 7 Gypsies packaging, the Christmas cards I made for this year, if you were to flip that 7 Gypsies packing over, on the other side you'd find our family letter that I sent with the card and a picture of the girls on Santa's lap

day 10 - as you can see I haven't gotten my journaling done on all of my pages, might not ever get it done, I do however have a December journal in my desktop so that if I do want to add some later I will be able to. On this day I also added a Starbucks coffee sleeve because I liked the message it had printed on it, it says, "stories are gifts to share"

day 11 - here is where I included - several pictures of Liberty writing out her letter to Santa, mind you she is not quite 5 but working very hard on getting all of her alphabets mastered. She is actually a very smart little girl and she amazes me everyday

day 12 - these photos were taken the morning after I had wrapped a whole bunch of gifts for our family, Justice our little one couldn't help but notice all the pretty packages.

day 13 - again she is noticing all of the pretty packaging, so cute

day 14 - today Liberty & I got all the Christmas cards ready to be mailed, I had done a total of 87 I think and was so over it by this point that I made her help me by putting the stamps and address labels on them; thankfully this was my last year to do 'handmade' cards, who has that kind of time?

day 15 - I had to @ some point in my December Daily, include a few of the Christmas 'things' I have made over the years so here is a picture of my advent calendar (left) and several of my ornaments (right)

day 16 - this day sticks out to me the most, I absolutely cherish this day with my mom. She had come over to visit with me and the girls and we decided to try our hand @ a gingerbread house, OMG - I hadn't laughed with my mom like that in awhile, this is so on our list for next year. : ) But in the course of creating a wonderful new memory an amazing thing happened, my mom & I connected in a whole new way, we talked about when I was a kid and then when she was a kid and different holiday stories in between, it was fantastic
thanks mom!

day 17 - another fun day, today was picture day with Santa and we also got to 'mail' our letter to him. Both girls did great with Santa, Justice even sat on his lap, wasn't sure if she would but she surprised me. Liberty of course rattled off an entire list of things she wanted to open on Christmas morning, it was a bit flabbergasting.....about 90% of it was all news to me too. : )

day 18 - for this day I wanted to get a shot of just the everyday things, so on here I have a couple of pictures from around the house and then I also included: the iHop silverware band, a wrapper from my favorite chocolate, the rest of the sheet from a book of holiday stamps, and the packaging from the tree skirt that we got for our 'pink' tree - it's quite the collection of things & will be interesting to see a few years from now

day 19 - today, as you might have guessed, we spent time with family - extended family that is - every year we get together with my mother-in-law's side of the family and have an afternoon full of food, fun, and a comical gift exchange
family time = good times

day 20 - as you might have noticed I have several days where I just added a printed copy of my computer journaling to my page - this helped me fill the space with quality, instead of just stuff - not that the stuff isn't important, but in 20 years it's the days activities that I'm most going to want to be reminded of.

day 21 - here we are again with my little one, she was just so much fun this last year. This little 'Santa' Teddy Bear had gotten her attention from the moment I took it out of storage. I was a bit curious if it was going to scare her because as cute as the picture is, it doesn't explain that he actually sits on a little bicycle and peddles across the floor while music plays (up to this point she had not liked the things that moved), she was a bit hesitant right at first but within minutes decided that this little fellow was going to be her friend so this picture was taken half way through the season and you can see how close these two have become; so sweet and such a precious memory for years to come

day 22 - again another full page of journaling and looking at it even 6 months later, I am so glad I took the time to jot all of this down, yes getting to my computer every night sometimes even every other night took effort but it was well worth it. To the right is a picture of my dear grandmother whom I have a huge amount of respect and love for, she is one of the finest ladies I know

day 23 - I had thought about the idea of having a dinner party for my immediately family earlier in the month, so I talked it over with my husband and my mom and came up with a game plan. Turned out that this was the perfect night for everyone I wanted there, to come. So I cooked dinner for: my mom & her husband; my older brother, his wife & their 3 kids; my younger brother; my nephew; and my grandma; plus of course us - it turned out wonderful. Afterwards we exchanged gifts with everyone then dove into a couple of desserts that my mom was so kind to bring. It was an enjoyable evening, enough so that I might have to make a tradition out of this too, in the years to come.

day 24 - Christmas Eve, what's to tell..... our oldest daughter was so excited - to the point where I almost considered drugging her in order to get a thought in edge wise (not really) but she was super excited and I'm still amazed that any of us got any sleep @ all..... oh wait...... ~~we didn't~~.... I didn't because my youngest one, bless her heart, decided to get sick that night about 11 PM, fabulous timing huh?

day 25 - Christmas Day - Oh My Goodness - talk about a wonderful day, it was quite possibly the best Christmas morning we had had for the simple fact that it was the first time ever that any of us woke up on Christmas morning in our own home. Because of our job, my husband & I are required to work holidays - last year I somehow managed to get it off and I'll tell you, what a magical feeling it is to see the sheer surprise and awe on your kiddos faces when they realize that Santa came in the middle of the night. And doubly magical when my husband called me only an hour into our morning and told me he was on his way home - which meant that literally we had the rest of the day to celebrate, how wonderful!

So there you have it in a nutshell, my December Daily about 6 months late. But better late than never or at least that's what I've always heard. Hope you enjoyed flippin' through my album with me, make sure to check back later in the week, hopefully I will have some design team things to share with you. Thanks

Just B ..... thankful!

Hello Again

2011-05-19T16:29:00.001-05:00

Good Day Everyone
I have lots to share with you this week because I have been an absentee long enough. I have several weeks of design work to show you and some new house pics to post and then just what ever else I can think of to throw in here.

First up I will have to say that I am loving our new home, it has been a very long time coming and to be able to jump on it several years early (so that our soon to be Kindergarten daughter doesn't have to transfer schools in between grades or the middle of a year) is huge to us. But with the move comes a lot of unforeseen work, and although I technically don't work full time, I do still work 4 days a week and to throw a move in the mix has been my excuse for not blogging lately.

Another thing that I am still doing is my design work for The Scrapbook Page, during the course of our move I was able to take several weeks off, but here lately I've been right back @ it and I think slowly but surely I am finding my creative groove again. It was a little rocky there the first couple of weeks but with the organization of my scrapbook room finally coming into it's own, it has certainly helped. And just in case you missed that - I did say my scrapbook 'room'

check it out....

(it's obviously a work in progress still, but I am so loving it...oh and yeah it's also our guest bedroom so when ever we have family or friends over we can offer them a place to sleep if need be)

As for the house I have not taken near as many photos as I would have liked @ this point but here is a couple of nice shots I took last week when we got our living room tables in

taken in the living room

new landing table and coat rack that my mom had

view of the living room taken from the kitchen

mother's day roses that my 5 year old picked out : )

a peek into our dining room

As of right now I don't have much up on the walls, heck I'm lucky to have the curtains up, but my 'coffee' shelf there in the corner of our dining room was a must to get up before I used up the wall space. For those of you that don't know, I am a coffee freak! They say the road to recovery is to admit you have a problem, well I haven't a single problem with coffee: I love it in the morning, I love it in the evening, I love it in the Fall & Winter and most definitely in the Spring & Summer, I will have it here or there - pretty much anywhere, and for those of you that care..... I don't drink.....beer. : )

Okay so here are a few sneak peeks @ some design work I've been doing lately. Carolyn has me doing a little bit of everything: layouts, cards, mini books, etc. Can you tell which is which?

it was a princess theme...can you tell?

in ode to Princess Diana

first attempt ever @ doing a princess one, not bad since I have 2

another princess theme

this one is my favorite

this one uses my favorite patterned paper

really like this one for a guy

and this one was just genius on my part

i just love Spring! it's my favorite season!

It wasn't that hard to figure out was it? Didn't think so but I had to try. So as you can now 'see', I have lots to share and hopefully the next few days I'll be able to get a couple things up for all of you to enjoy. Now that the house is finally coming together and we have somewhat of a routine, I should be able to post a bit more often....be even easier once I get my laptop up & running again!
Okay then I'm off to get some other things done before my entire day escapes me, hope you are having a fine day yourself and thank you for stopping in.

Just B ..... joyful!!!

p.s.
just a quick look @ my first altered project for our home

these two ended up in my youngest daughter's room

and these two went into my oldest daughter's room

love how they add a little bit of something to their curtains, may have to try something more down the road to add to that - I'm thinking maybe a fabric pin board is in order for both rooms - hum

: )

December Daily Days 1-5

2011-03-23T05:00:00.002-05:00

Hello Everyone

A made a promise a while back that I would share with you my December Daily album when I completed it and well.... finally I have it complete so for the next couple of weeks I will be sharing several pages @ a time.

So for today I will be covering days 1-5 of my December Daily, hope you enjoy taking a peek into what our holiday time is like and how it is spent.

For the 1st day of the month, we actually pulled out our Christmas trees (3) and started unpacking Christmas boxes. In this photo I took pictures of my 4 (almost 5) year old decorating our living room tree, she was having such a good time.

On this page I have a couple of pictures of our completely decorated tree and on the right side of the page I made a pocket for some journaling cards where I will (always the last thing that gets done - if ever) jot down a few random facts, luckily I am very good about keeping a daily journal throughout the month so that I will be able to go back and reread and then recall specific details.

Here is a photo of my oldest daughter's Christmas tree and yes before you even ask, she does have a small tree for her room, a gift from her grammie a few years back and a tradition we have decided to keep. She absolutely loves her Christmas tree and knows exactly which ornaments are hers to put on her tree.

On this layout I made another pocket to jot some more notes about the day on and as much as I'd like to be able to do this project every day throughout the month of December, it just isn't possible so as I said before if anything @ least I try to keep a consistent daily journal of our where abouts and happenings that way I am able to go back and hopefully recall the day & it's events enough to remember what it was I had thought to write @ the time.

Ahhh Yes!!! Our 3rd and final PINK Christmas Tree!!!

If you were sensing a story behind the Pink tree, you are correct, there is certainly a story behind that one!

Just a cute photo of me & my baby girl - she is so sweet - I also made the photo a pocket so I could add some journaling in later.

Can't have a photo of one girl and not the other so here is a photo of Bill & our oldest daughter.

On this page I made the whole thing a double pocket page and added all sorts of papers, receipts, tags, and misc. from our month.

A picture of my dad & his new wife - thankful that maybe he wants to be apart of our lives!

Okay there's our 1st couple of days in December, later in the week I will post the next set of 5+. Remember if there is ever something you would like to ask me please feel free to leave me a comment and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks for stoppin' in!

just B

Grads Rule

2011-03-22T05:00:00.003-05:00

Good Morning Everyone!

Hope everyone is enjoying their week. I am in the middle of packing up our house because this weekend we will be moving. So excited but it's kinda surreal, I have never bought a house before so this waiting period, although I understand is necessary, it is also torture in the only way that torture can be good.

: ) LOL

So being that about half of my scrap supplies are already packed, I decided to share with you one of my Design Team projects. In the wake of doing Graduation Cards, Carolyn thought that I was on a roll and wanted me to continue in that direction, so in the spirit of 2011 Graduates, I give you a Graduation Mini Album. This album represents Shawnee Mission North West High School, which is the area HS closest to The Scrapbook Page here, located in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.

Although I am far removed from high school and the colors couldn't be further from what my HS colors were; I gave it my best shot and this is what I came up with. Now before we go any further I will admit that the chip board letters and all the card stock to match the letters, were die cut for me. The only thing that I had to do was adhere the die cut pieces to the chipboard letters.
That and of course make it look pretty!!!

So to start off I decided that the card stock was just too plain, so for the orange pages I distressed the edges with vintage photo here, and then for the black pages I had to get a bit more creative. I took a piece of bubble wrap and inked it with clear embossing ink here and then stamped it all over each of the pages, then I used clear embossing powder here, heated it up, and voi·là. The shiny dots against the flat black adds depth without taking away from the integrity of the color.

Here is a close up of what the distress looks like on the orange card stock and then the black page behind it (not a good close up but you get the idea). Also in this photo you see the mini banker's clip that I embellished and then clipped to the W. The silver tassel is one that I made myself using silver cording that I unraveled, then I cut several 5" lengths, folded them in half, then added a thin piece of striped ribbon to hold it all together, attached a jump ring and hung it off the clip. It's rather cool I think.

Here is the front cover, the clear embossing technique is obvious in this photo, giving you a very good idea of how much it added to the textured card stock. I decided to keep this front page pretty simple only for the fact that it will be the one that is most exposed to everyday elements and trust me it is very frustrating when all the little details that you've taken the time to make continue to fall off or just disappear altogether. Now granted on this type of book, there is not just one front cover that you have to worry about there are several so as you scroll down you may notice that most of my 'covers' don't have a whole lot on them.

Looking @ this photo you're probably thinking, "Ok.....did I miss something?" No you didn't miss a thing, I left this page plain as well because as small as the letter S is, there wasn't really a whole lot of room to do anything noticeable. And @ this point I am still working on drawing you in, so in this case less-is-more.

Here I did step it up a bit, added a few stickers, one in which I popped up with pop dots here. Then I used a couple strips of ribbon underneath the popped up sticker.

On the back side of the letter M, I added one of the paper borders except I cut it down to fit on the page.

On the opposite page I added the 1st interactive element, a coin envelope that holds 2 journaling tags. Over the years that is the one complaint I had with mini books, there was never any room to even jot down a few thoughts so in this Grad book I wanted to make sure that there were plenty of places to write thoughts.

Because the supplies I was given to work with were limited, I used my Tim Holtz design ruler here and my black Sharpie Pen here to draw the lines on.

The back of page N, I did a matted postcard and stuck 2 more journaling cards in it.

Had to get the 2011 in there a few times!!!

For the front of the W I had quite a bit more room to work with so I added in 2 more interactive journaling spots, or for that matter photo mats.

I suppose if it were my book I would have a photo on the blank side and then have whomever the picture was of write a message on the back, like a photo/autograph book.

On the bottom of each pocket I used a piece of the pattern paper, punched a couple of holes in the design, weaved some ribbon through it and then added it to the top of the black card stock piece using pop dots to give it some dimension and to make the pocket for the journaling cards.

On the back side of the W I did another journaling mat (or it could be for a photo or even a favorite quote) and another coin envelope to add a few more spots for journaling; topped off the page with a few stickers and several ribbons.

Here another look @ the journaling

The mat has a ribbon that goes over the top of it so in case you have several quotes or photos or whatever they will all tuck together into it and it will stay in place.

On the last page I made 9 wallet sized photo mats for friends senior pictures. Obviously if you have more than 9 pictures, you could either do pictures on both sides or add however many more mats you may need.

The mats are just card stock and I inked the edges in black soot here to define them a bit more. Inset the corners and called it good.

The back cover of course signed by yours truly. : )

Another look @ the front of the mini

Here is close up of the mini banker's clip that I clipped on the side of the W

On the spine of the mini I made 3 little double sided tag charms and attached them with jump rings

The opposite side of the charms, the middle one could even be used for another short quote or maybe the name of the graduating senior who is keeping the album.

So there you have it, my 2nd Design Team Project. I had fun with this one but I love minis so that is no surprise. I will say though that it was still a challenge because as I mentioned early I am not given a lot of product to work with mostly pattern paper(s), card stock, ribbon(s), stickers, and a couple of odds & ins. Of course most would tell you and I would have to agree this is when your 'creative' side truly shines, when you let your imagination take over to solve whatever problems arise.... and that really is what it is all about for me..... the creative imagination!!!

So have a wonderful week, enjoy the wonderful weather nature has bestowed upon us and just b......

creative

2011 Rules

2011-03-10T06:00:00.039-06:00

Good Morning Everyone!
Just a quick post, I want to share with all of you my first Design Team project. Carolyn asked me to do 4 or 5 graduation cards, and then gave me several sheets of patterned paper, some stickers, ribbon, and a few extra embellishments....this is what I came up with.

This first one is a tag card. I used one of the pattern papers and folded it into the pocket, lucky for me it was a double sided paper and therefore I didn't need to worry about making a second layer, the stripes were already there.

For the pull-out tag, I used a black card stock as the base then added a square of white card stock so that you could write your message to the Graduate. For the top of the tag, I punched a small white square to give the hole some re-enforcement, then once I had the hole punched I also attached an eyelet to give it a finished look. I tied a piece of tulle through the hole to soften the look a bit and then using a strip of pattern paper and one of the word stickers, I made a paper tag embellishment and attached it with a couple of jump rings.

The final outcome, I added one of the chip board stickers to the front of the pocket and on it a message to the Graduate, a quote I believe. Each card I created had one of these quote chip board stickers.

For this card I started with the window cut-out, then added the double eyelet holes @ the top & the bottom of the cut-out that suspend the chip board sticker quote in the window. For that, I matted the sticker on pattern paper then punched the double holes, added eyelets, then used jump rings to attach the whole piece.

For the inside I matted a piece of patterned paper with white card stock, then added a band of silver ribbon around the top of the white piece and put a word sticker in the middle of it leaving the bottom half of it blank to write a personal message to the Graduate.

Here is a close up of how I hung the cut-out in the window, I really like how this one came out, quite unique.

On this card I was curious about an idea I had seen several years back and thought to try it. I am very happy that I was able to make it work. The entire base is one piece and the cut-out is done with a craft knife. The way the piece is folded is how the cut-out is able to set out apart from the rest of the card, very cool.

Here is a side view of what it looks like. On the one side of the cut-out I did a double mat of white card stock & pattern paper, on the top I added one of the chip board quotes. The black brads in the 4 corners give it the finishing touch.

On the opposite side of the cut-out I did a triple mat, white card stock, pattern paper, then white card stock again. Along the top of the white card stock I added a piece of border sticker and left the rest of it blank for a personal message.

Card #4: This one is more traditional in it's overall appearance. I used white card stock as the base, did an overlay of pattern paper (just on the front), and using repositionable adhesive I cut out the window from both pieces @ the same time so that they would be identical.

I added a twist, in between the layer of card stock & pattern paper (after I cut out the window), I sandwiched a wide silver ribbon in between them. Unfortunately it is hard to see. My lack of know-how when it comes to taking really good photos shows unmercifully in many of my blog posts, forgive me.

This photo shows the wide silver ribbon a little better if you look close enough. On top of the ribbon, centered in the middle of the window, I added the chip board sticker quote. On the inside I decided to spice it up a bit with a black card stock mat to write your message on, plus it helps that silver ribbon really stand out.

For card #5 I did a tri-fold card that sits up on it's self.......did that make sense? I'm sure there is a name for this type of card I just don't know what it is, so bear with me.

For the entire base of the card I used black card stock and scored it @ 4 inches from both ends(my base was 12" by 4"). For the front of it I added a piece of tan card stock to trim out the pattern paper piece so that it wouldn't get lost in the black background; then topped that pattern piece off with the chip board sticker quote. On the inside middle section I added another piece of the same pattern paper and topped it off with one of the border stickers that says, "congratulations".

For the inside bottom section I added another piece of the tan card stock, trimmed it off @ the top with another of the word border stickers, then added the half back pearls in all 4 corners leaving the center of the page for a personal note to the Graduate. In this picture I was able to capture just how this card stands up on it's self, the half back pearls act as a stopper so that the top section can fold down on to it and remain in place.

Now looking into the card, you'll see even more of the tone on tone in the pattern paper, and the white goes so well, now that you can see the card as a whole. I finished trimming around the middle of the inside with the same border sticker and then made a faux piece of school notebook paper to write a personal message on.

That chip board sticker quote....well we just couldn't call this card done without it, so there I added it to the bottom right corner of the notebook paper. It adds a nice touch.
So these are the 6 cards I came up with and I have to admit, although the design ideas came quickly enough (my background started in card making), the construction was quite challenging. I am use to scrappin' with lots of tools & even more product, so to be limited as far as what I 'can' use....well that's hard for me. In my scrap booking, I really don't like having 'rules' and although I understand the need for them in this 'role', it does challenge me and well I suppose that was the whole idea so..... so far so good!!!
Well folks that's all I have for you today hope you have liked what you've seen. Feel free anytime to leave me a comment, I'd be happy to hear from you. Up next is the Grad Book I did for my 2nd creative project, hoping to have it posted within the next couple of days, thanks for stopping by and come again....anytime!
just B ......

I Have Great News

2011-02-19T04:00:00.001-06:00

Good Day Everyone

Hope all is well in your neighborhood, I have been greatly enjoying the warmer weather these past few days in my own. I am very much looking forward to Springtime, I have never really been a fan of Winter but I know that without the cold season, I wouldn't love the rebirth of Spring near as much. And really that is what it boils down to for me, I really like the changing of this season. Springtime with all the blooming trees, the Cherry Blossom & Blooming Plum, the Lilacs coming into their full sweet scent with soft purple hues, the earth awakening with the first glimpse of green in it's grass. I simply savor all these wonderful & amazing changes. Second to Spring - is Fall - I just love that there is so much to do in the Fall - all the festivals, the 'Ren' Fest, the circus, those are all a few of my favorites. Hoping to get lots of neighborhood walks in this Spring, lots of 'park' time for the girls to burn off some energy, even more 'pool' time @ the YMCA so that our oldest will become even more comfortable in & around the water. So we'll see! Well are you all ready for my news?!!!

I am officially a Scrapbook Designer!
I signed my first contract on Thursday with "The Scrapbook Page" in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. So I am now a 'Page Girl'! : ) I posted a few weeks ago that I did their team tryout challenge ... well they like me and asked me to join their team for the next four months, so as I begin this journey I am going to try super hard to post more frequently so that you can join me in my new adventure. Just to give a quick recap, here are a few photos of my favorite project (I actually turned in 6 for the tryouts), these photos are of my process in creating the mini heart album.

The first step obviously was to get all my butterflies cut out, I used this Sizzix die. Once they were done I used Antique Linen distress stickles (here) on the 3 card stock butterflies, which is the one I used for the bottom layer, to give it some shine.

Then for the 3 patterned paper butterflies (used as the top layer), I added the cystal gems down the center to represent her body and then used the brown fiber to act as her antennas. The whole idea was rather ingenious I thought and made for a really nice addition to the mini.

Here is what the butterfly looks like all put together. The double layer I think certainly gives it the dimension that I was going for, and added to the bottom layer with it's shine helps it to really stand out.

Here is one of the butterflies in the mini, unfortunately I didn't think to take a side-view photo so that you could see the bottom layer and it's shine, but trust me, it is really cool.

Well that's all I have for you today- hope you enjoyed. I hope that you'll venture back around to check out some other things I have coming soon. Thanks for joining me!
Just B........

Clear Stamps Reorganized

2011-02-10T04:00:00.026-06:00

Hello Again

Hi everyone! Hope everyone is warm & well. We have been covered in snow for far too long now and I have a real bad case of 'Cabin Fever' but lucky for me I also have lots of scrap book toys-n-things to play with and I have lots of ideas going on in my noggin. : )

Of course with that comes lots of unfinished projects too, like my December Daily (Gasp!!!) yes folks, once again I am having far too hard a time completing it. Sounds silly I know, take a couple of pictures everyday and throw 'em in a book - add a couple of thoughts & some cool quotes to mix it up a bit and there you have it; sounds simple I know (I have fallen for this twice now) but I assure you it isn't that 'simple'. I forget about the part of uploading all the photos, then editing them, don't forget cropping, then finally printing; if printing from home-which I normally do (heaven forbid if I had to wait for a printing company) then you have to make sure you have photo paper & plenty of ink. Then after all of that, I still have to put the photos in the book, and of course I want it to look good, but I also want to incorporate some - if not @ least half - of the ephemera that I have pain-stakingly collected for the last month; so now comes the fretting (what if I screw it up, what if it isn't perfect, what if nobody cares, what if...blah, blah, blah) and so now you understand why for me, it's a losing battle. So if I EVER decide to do another December Daily - somebody PLEASE pinch me! : ) Needless to say that project is NOT done yet, but as soon as I get it done, I will be more than happy to share it with you.

Now on to greener pastures, let me think....... Today I want to share with you some of the reorganization steps I have taken to improve my efficiency in my scrap space. For Christmas I asked my husband to get me the 'Clip It Up' by Simply Renee (here), and well in order for me to use it the way I envisioned I had to get something other than the pockets that they offer, so I got on-line and found Century Business Solutions, they sell job envelopes (here) - they are basically an over-sized plastic badge holder, but even bigger. The ones I decided to try are about the size of a piece of paper, maybe a bit taller, and they are vinyl - which I am hoping will last a bit longer. So.... last week as we were being snowed in with about 9 inches of the white stuff, I got to work on getting this new system in play.....the outcome......OMG - I love it, absolutely love it. I now have all of my cling mount/clear stamps sitting within arms reach of my desk and being that it is on the 'clip-it-up' it spins so that I can get to any one of them in a matter of seconds. For those of you that don't scrap - imagine one of those older clothes racks, the circle kind that all the department stores use to have, this clip-it-up is similar to that and it spins, super cool and super handy.

This is what it looks like with all of my stamps in their envelopes

This thing is huge but so worth it I think in the long run

I think later I will add some side labels so that I can find my favorite 'go-to' stamps even faster

My first reaction to it, once I got it up was, "Do I really have this many stamps?" The answer is, "Yes I do - how lucky am I!" The reason I like this set up so much better is because I can actually see the set, I couldn't do that with my old system. With this one, while I was putting all of the stamps into their envelope, I added a plain white sheet of paper behind each one - which I'm hoping will be helpful when I'm looking for 'the one'. Do any of you ever have that feeling that even though you don't know exactly what it is your looking for, you'll know it when you see it- well it's hopefully going to work something like that, I think.

To the left is a look @ my craft desk - it's actually clean - a rare sight

Some other storage that is in my scrap closet

Some new storage that sits below the shelf of baskets in my craft closet

Here are a few other random shots I took of my space. In the first photo, my desk, although I hardly ever work @ it, it's usually the one covered with all of the products I'm using for whichever project I'm in the middle of, but you're lucky it was cleaned off for this photo (LOL). I also have a 4 foot fold-out utility table (not pictured) which is where I do most of my work. There is more space to work @ my table rather than @ my desk, so like I said, I use the desk more as a dumping ground.
In the second photo I have all of my baskets & other storage. On the very top shelf of this closest I have 5 wicker baskets that I had picked up years ago to use with the changing table in our nursery, now that those are no longer needed for their original purpose I thought it would be good to find a new home for them and so here they now sit in my craft closet and house all of my ribbons, laces, & trims - well almost all of it. I did break down each of my baskets to have a color theme (sort of) they are as follows:
white
   black, silver, & gray
   brown, creme, & tan
   red, pink, orange, & yellow
   blue, green, & purple

As for the rest of the storage: the canvas/wire baskets hold 3-dimension stickers and embellishments, along with some sticker packs; then the silver tins hold all of my paper things to alter: mint boxes, pillow boxes, paper lunch bags, even mini Chinese to-go boxes, and I believe that they also have all of my ATC blanks (you ask: what the heck is an ATC? go here &/or here to find out). The clear box on the very far right has all of my DMC floss in it from when I use to do cross stitch, I now use it in my scrap projects instead.
In the second photo, I have lots of things going on, I should have taken some things out before taking the photo, but oh well. I'll start @ the top of my new black wire shelf: top row on the left I have 4 black fabric/wire baskets that hold all of my big punches, the 2 white boxes on the right hold my odd sized paper packs (4x4, 6x6, 5x7) and different office type paper packs (index cards, note pads, etc.) On the 2nd & 3rd shelves I have 15 black photo boxes with different things corralled in them. For example one box has metal things: binder rings, mini banker clips, extra large paper clips, chains, etc. Another box has all my paper flowers in it and another one has lots of different pieces to make my own flowers. One box I keep empty so that when I have new stuff and no time to put it away, I can put it in there until I do have time to put it where it belongs. My 2 favorite boxes have a specific brand in them - one is Tim Holtz (here) and the other is 7 Gypsies (here). As for all the other boxes; some have fabric, some have all natural elements (wood-cork-mica), one has felt & foam, another has plastic embellishments, and so on & so forth. The bottom of the wire shelf is where I keep some odd-size things: so starting on the left I have a file folder with all of my stencils in it; next to it is the big black file box that has all of my solid color scrap card stock (meaning that it is not a full sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 or 12x12); then next to that are 2 other black boxes that have more things to alter; last but not least is the brown & black bag, that is my crop bag, so when I go somewhere to scrap - I pack up what I need in it along with a couple of other smaller bags for tools & such and take it all with me. So there you have it, my scrap space & closet. I do also keep in the closet - my sewing machine; my tool bag; my tool box; my 3 drawer cart that has all the rest of my ribbon stash, my large wood mounted stamps, and all of my dies & texture plates; and then also my small 5 drawer wood chest that has everything else in it....it's a large closet..... thankfully! : )

So I guess that about wraps it up, I hope that you have enjoyed my mini photo tour of my scrap space; one day maybe I will put up a video on YouTube walking everyone through it, but until then I hope all of you are safe & warm.

Here's to Springtime.... come & get me......I dare ya! : )

just B.....

Design Team Tryouts

2011-02-04T04:00:00.003-06:00

Hello Again, I'm here, really!

How is everyone doing on this 4th day of February? Is it really already a month into the new year?.... Wow - someone once told that time flies even faster when you get older, damn, I must be ancient. But I am doing good, kids are good, husband is working hard ( so that I can spend more money on scrap supplies - just kidding). Actually I have not being 'work' working so much lately and I am really getting spoiled, as most of you know I went part-time @ my job last February and once again they have hit their 'slow' period and so when they don't need me - because I am a part-timer - I always get kicked out first over the full-time people who need to keep their 32 hour average in order to keep their benefits. I'm okay with that because in all this extra time off I have been able to get lots done.

The first being a re-vamp of my craft space; yes I got down to the nitty-gritty and redid the entire area surrounding my craft space (did the actual cabinet a few months back so I left it alone for the most part). So far I am loving the new reorganization, things that I use all the time are now @ my finger tips and the supplies I have an excess of are all together in one spot. I have paints, glimmer mist, distress inks, distress stickles, etc all right there @ my desk now. I have all my journaling spots and altered art pieces sitting within arms reach of my desk too. I have also gotten a little bit better lighting finally, I scrap in our downstairs 'family room' (for lack of a better word) and so even in the middle of the day it can be quite dark so the "Ott Lite" lights have been a blessing - probably need to get one more but all in due time.

The second 'big' thing that I have gotten done are my projects for a design team - yeap you read correctly, there is a local scrapbook store that does team 'try-outs' every 4 months and so I decided to try it this time around. They have a prepared kit with a few odds & ins for you to create with, which was challenging enough, but then to top it off - you could add any other embellishments you wanted so long as it was supplies they currently have in the store - What? double whammy! Anyways, somehow I was able to make 6 projects to turn in, not sure what they will think of my attempt, but I have decided to be okay with it no matter what, I tried it, it was okay, I have learned from the experience, and that's all it needed to be, so good! So just to give you all an idea of what I did, here are some photos of the projects.

This first one is a card that I made with some of the left over scraps I had, and I made it a generic type of card, so it absolutely could be a 'birthday' card or it could be a 'thinking of you' kind of card.

The inside message

A place to leave your own personal message

This is the very first project I tackled, I am not good with 12x12 layouts, well layouts at all really, so I figured if I could get past this one, then I could finish the rest fairly quickly, lucky for me all my ideas worked.

It even happens to be a double 12x12 layout, which is almost unheard of in my 12x12 albums. If I'm going to torture myself, one layout is usually more than enough for me to get the story told.

Just a close up of the tag

Another close up of the journaling I did about our annual canoe trips (which unfortunately Bill & I have missed out on now for 2 years - boo hoo)

These cute little file folders give the location of where we were and the dates that we went.

This is the last official project I did, or so I thought @ the time. These are coasters that I altered using several of my favorites by Tim Holtz here, when I realized that I could only use products that the store carries, I was thankful for our shared love of Tim because they have a lot of Tim Holtz and I have a LOT of Tim Holtz.

I also have a budding love for Graphic 45 here, their papers are awesome quality and their patterns are unique and compliment each other very well, I can see me using more of their papers in the very near future.

Once I came up with the direction I wanted to go with these, it didn't take very long to finish them. They were actually fun, I have several coasters that I've picked up along the way thinking that I'll do something with, after playing with these guys I will definitely have to do that.

I didn't journal on any of them, but if I end up getting them back I think I will make them 'gratitude' tags, sounds like a good idea anyway.

The close up of the flowers that I made, yes made. I watched a tutorial on 'YouTube' on how to make these which sent me in the right direction; and then about a week later I got an e-mail from somewhere that had an even easier tutorial, so I tried it and I really like the look of them; can't wait to try it with some different laces & ribbons, that will look really elegant especially on one of my wedding albums.

These are just close up shots of the other side

Another close up

Last one

For this project, I really had to think about what I needed to do. Knowing that I could only use certain products kept me quite limited, but as a went through my stash I found a die that I had been wanting to play with, and it just so happened to be one that the store carried, lucky me.

So this is what I did, the actual 'book' is the die I used, and for those of you once again that don't scrap - a die is basically a cookie cutter except for paper, cuts out exactly what the shape is: a flower, a heart, in this case a luggage tag - I believe that is what is it called. So I got all my pages cut out and got the stickers on and then had to figure out how I was going to bind it. I knew the binding was gonna have to be small, but I didn't really want to use ribbon because it wasn't going to be stable enough and that's when I found the mini binder clips (lucky for me they do carry those - pretty much a standard)

So the pages look something like this

Second page

Third page

Fourth page

Last page

This is the last project I did and it was a last minute idea too so I'm hoping that this one doesn't hurt me as far as getting on the team.

What I came up with is a mini set of mini cards. I still had a couple of the stickers left over along with some of the felt ribbon that came from our kits, added some more of the same cardstock and came up with 3 little 2x2 happy cards; they have no greeting inside so someone could personalize it.

I kept it super simple, for 2 reasons: one - it's just easier that way and two - because I wanted to show them that I really can do it all, I have several different levels of work: simple to extravagant.

Speaking of Extravagant

This was my labor of love

And I now love it

In my design team kit there was this white, chipboard, heart-shaped album. You open it up and it is a double heart-shape starring @ you...... : /........ I'm not really a 'heart-shape' kind of person so needless to say, I have been challenged yet again; oh and by the way, I had 2 weeks to create all of this, every project had to done within 2 weeks.

I will have all of you know that I turned in all 6 of my projects today.

My pages are similar and somewhat simple to look at, but they are loaded with grunge work.

I have been a mad woman for the last few weeks: inking, distressing, sanding, rubbing, buffing, etc. And I can't wait to get my hands dirty again, that was FUN!

Again with this project, once I got a vision in my mind I just went for it, no second-guessing, and if I ran into an issue - I just figured another way around it. I really did like the mental game of it, the challenge. At first I was 'stumped' on how to create without being able to use 85% of my own stash, then I had a headache for a couple of days thinking about it (this is my 1st time ever to try for something like this), but then finally the realization came to me that the worst that could happen is that they decide not to take me on as a designer.

I'm okay with that!

Because I had fun....

and because when it's all said and done.....

I have this super cute, altered, chipboard, heart-shaped album that opens up to a double heart-shape starring back @ me! : )

Thanks for joining me today!
For all the sweethearts out there - this post is for you. I know that without my wonderful husband I wouldn't have much of anything in this world, so let there be love - Happy (early) Valentine's Day!!!

Just B....loved

The Lazy Days of Autumn

2010-11-23T06:00:00.004-06:00

Sunset in Cancun taken by Ashley

Afternoon rain shower in Cancun taken by me

Really needing to do a post soon, sorry I've been really busy on vacation this last week and before that I was really busy making stuff, so as soon as I get done being lazy (needing a vacation from my vacation)...I'll get a post up. Starting December 1st, I'll be joining Ali Edwards along with many others, in doing a December Daily Album. We'll see if I can really do it and keep up with it (didn't make it even a week last year -what with a new baby and all), I don't know but I'm gonna try. : )

If you are wanting more information on what the December Daily is, click here and it will take you to Ali's site and give you an idea of what this album is all about. Now that I've gotten my R&R, on with it I say. Hope everyone is doing well and wishing all of you a wonderful holiday!

"Happy Thanksgiving"

The Second Addition

2010-09-09T22:00:00.002-05:00

We have another addition of the baby album, except this one didn't happen to be for twins, instead this one is for a special little girl that is due in October. A friend + co-worker asked me a few weeks back if I could make her a baby album similar to the Twins Album {here} that I did earlier this summer and of course I said, "Yes! I can do that."

So here is a close up of the second addition. For this album I found a great collection of Tim Holtz's paperie {here}, which seemed perfect for this album, not too pink and not too babyish. In fact I decided to go with a more vintage look overall and who better to get inspired by than Tim, after all he is the guru of 'vintage'.

Although this photo is a bit blurry, I still like the angle of it. I have to say that I am really proud of this album! Technically this is the first album that 'I' have ever sold. Now I have made another album for money but for that particular one, I used an SEI Album Kit {here}, so in my mind it didn't really count as 'my' work {basically I was paid to put it all together}; this book is the first one completely designed by me so therefore I have to share it.

Being my first 'sold' project, I wanted it to be extra special and perfect, so I made myself stick to an idea and go with it. It most certainly helped having made the other baby album {as a gift} earlier because I knew what to expect and how to go about setting up all the steps.

Over all I wanted the design to be compact, to hold 4x6 photos, to capture & collect, and then to decorate. So I started with 4 3/4" x 6" chipboard covers, covered them with the Tim Holtz's papers {here}, then added in some journaling cards that I typed up on my HP desktop, then I also added in 12 Zutter 4x6 Movable Pre-Punched Page Protectors {here}. That was my base, my core, then from there it was all details; the grunge board letter M on the cover that I painted over with Silver Stickles {here}, the baby doll dress that I found in package of Dress-It-Up buttons {here}, the over-sized flower, the 'baby girl' button {here}, the Memo Pin {here} that has the threaded tag, all of these little bitty elements adds its own very significant flare to the whole giving it it's "WOW"

On the back I decided I needed to sign my work, so before I covered the back with the Bazzill paper {here}, I measured it all out, then cut it to fit, then did the sewing all the way around it using my Singer. I very much on purpose made sure that the tag {same one I used on the front cover} that had my signature on it was sewn into the paper as well. For me it made it 'offical', hopefully for them it made it 'special'.

As you can see from the photos above, I pretty much used the same journaling prompts that I used in the other baby album, with a few excepts here & there. There are a ton of things to remember about your new born especially if this is baby no. 2 or 3, so my hope is that this book will not only make it easier to keep moments & memories safe {i.e. the smaller size} but that also it will be fun to share with family & friends.

Another classic that I just had to include is the 'Locket of Hair', yea it's an oldie......but man is it a good one; along with the 1st tooth {although I didn't put a place in here for that}.

Another one of my favorites is, things that are popular right now; you might think that you'll remember {and you might} but chances are, over time, you'll forget so what a great thing to include.

Now this journaling prompt is on every 2 page spread, meaning that every month the parents will have somewhere to jot down all the cool things that little one is doing that month. It is a great way to keep track of all those small stepping stones: 1st smile, 1st word, when they started crawling, and standing up, then 1st steps, and 1st laugh, etc.

On the very last page I used a vellum envelop that could be home to receipts, or the hospital ID bands, or the announcement tag {that one they put on the crib to say who the baby is and what the gender is} all of these pieces put together help tell the story in a more comprehensive way and besides that....you know ya wanna keep 'em! : p

I also made an insert for that envelop in case the parents needed some extra room for writing; it works as a catch all for those little tidbits that trickle down from someone else {aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, etc.}.

Once I was done with the journaling prompts I went back to the computer and printed off 4x6 inserts to slide into the photo protectors. On the front side of the insert I printed, "1st Month", "2nd Month", then "3rd Month" - you get the idea. I did this for all 12 months; then I went through again and on the backs of the first 3 months, I typed up some 'photo ideas' to get them started on what kind of photos to take to get their minds thinking about what they might want to remember 20 years from now.

Here's a look into the opening of the album. I created a chipboard badge that says, 'Completely LOVED' - that about sums it up for any mom or dad! : )

Well this is all I have for you today, sure hope you enjoyed my brand new baby album, it's one of a kind no doubt. My goal is to be back in another week or so to share some layouts with you, so plan to swing back by soon and give me another peek, thanks!

just B!!!!

San Diego Travel Album

2010-08-18T06:00:00.001-05:00

Finally I have found some time to post this travel album now that I finished it and got some pics of it. This is the infamous San Diego album that has been in the works for the better part of a year {almost} and I have to say that now that it's done, I am very happy with it. I think that it is probably the most detailed album I have ever done and I will explain why as I walk you through it.

The cover is my favorite of all the covers I've done because it's fun yet simple, I used the Making Memories Passport Line throughout the entire book so if you're curious about a product start there. For the 'S' in San I used the negative of a chip board punch out, I painted it and then stamped it with a different color of paint. Once it dried, I wrapped a bit of baker's twine {Martha Stewart} and then used one of the fabric flowers from the Passport line. The rest of the title is done with black letter stickers and the 'D' is the positive portion of another chip board punch out. I used a couple of different brads to add the finishing touch, along with the fabric tag, and called it done.

Here's a look @ the inside pages, I love this photo angle, it gives some great hints but doesn't spoil the surprise inside. As for the pages, I decided on the overall layout long before I ever even left for the trip so that I knew what to look for and what to keep along the way.

My first thought in creating this travel album is that I wanted it to have a ton of personality, so to do this I used clear pages for everyday of my trip. I used the photos to back each other from one side to the next so that you had something to look at other than the back of the front photos, I think that not only worked out very well but it also gave the book a cohesive line across the board and I am finding that I like for things to have a connection.

Next I wanted my album to have a place for lots of journaling. It's ironic to me that I have so much to include in a travel journal but can't for the life of me ever figure out what to say on my layouts, so anyways I wanted to go with this tradition I have {every trip I've ever been on I have taken a notebook and pen and journaled almost everyday of the trip - and then again on the way home} and include my thoughts in the book, this is where the line of paper I used really came in nicely, the Passport line by Making Memories has a wonderful ruler pattern and that is what I used to jot my entries on. Now in all fairness, I don't actually write in it while on the trip, once again I use my notebook, then once I get home and have some time I take my time and just recopy everything that I wrote down, very rarely changing it from the way that I originally wrote it out - I think it keeps it more authentic that way.

My last thought in creating this album for myself, is that I wanted a place to store all the maps & brochures that I know I'll want to keep but not necessarily use on the actual pages. In doing travel albums in the pass this is usually my most frustrating issue, so I decided to include a 6 X 9 white mailing envelop for each day of the trip that way everything would fit and not get torn up from having too much in an envelop. I absolutely loved the way this worked out and will definitely have to do this again in my next travel album, it was simply a great solution for me.

Last but not least here are a couple of photos of some of the ephemera that I like to keep {ephemera: paper items not intended for a long time usage}, other things to include would be ticket stubs, postcards, subway pass or bus pass, anything of the sort that 'would help to tell a more complete story' - as Ali would say.

Now don't ask me why I kept what I did, there really is no rhyme or reason for any of it, but boy does it look cool having all those things now just tucked nicely inside, I love it.

Well everyone I hope you enjoyed looking @ my book with me, I always enjoy sharing with everyone. Would be nicer if I had time to make more stuff to share but oh well, eventually all things come to pass including more scrapbook works from me. So until next time, thanks for spending time @ my blog and have a great rest of the week!

just B...... creative.......ur way

the organization continues

2010-08-12T06:00:00.002-05:00

So for those of you curious to know how the reorganization is coming...well it is slow. Everything I do these days seems to take forever, guess that's life with a family, but I'm okay with that. I'm trying really hard to be really thorough so that the next time I need to purge it won't take near the effort, besides where's it gonna go... right?

Here is a look at my downstairs floor {which is my scrap space and where we keep our desktop} covered with 12x12 patterned paper and this is just the warm colors, with a few of my blacks & creams showing @ the top... that's a lot of paper

Here's another look, this is all of my cool colors, blues & greens & teals, etc. Yeah I know what you're thinking, "What in the hell were you thinking?" Well...I'm not quite sure, but I like all of my options : )

Here is the last photo of my 12x12 stash, now keep in mind that this pile doesn't include all of my 8 1/2 x 11 papers, nor does it show all of the 8x8 papers I have so in actuality, this is probably only 90% of it all.... patterned paper that is {please don't even get me started on card stock}. The good news is that in my quest to purge, I have unloaded about 20% of my paper stash, so I am very happy about this progress. As for how long it will take me to finish this over-whelming process of cleaning out my scrap stash, I have not a clue, but you will hear about it the minute that it is all done. Now off I go to purge some more, take care!

just B.... and let it go!

2010-08-11T06:00:00.003-05:00

For Today

outside the window....

the kiddie pool that needs refilling is staring @ me

i am thinking...

how I am going to get some scrap time in today

i am thankful for...

the few extra moments of quite before both of my beautiful girls get up

from the kitchen...

trying my hand at banana pancakes

i am wearing...

a new pair of Capri's I picked up last week @ Sam's Club

i am creating...

an organized scrapbook space

i am going...

to get my chores done so that I can play

i am reading...

the lovely bones

i am hearing...

the TV coming on which means my quite time is done

around the house...

the laundry has piled up, toys are everywhere, and my scrap room is a mess

one of my favorite things...

is waking up to fresh brewed coffee

a few plans for the rest of the week...

*finish decluttering my scrapbook room

*do a layout or two if I can find some extra time {have some new Tim Holtz's dies that I really want to use}

*make a couple of birthday cards that are creeping up on me

*post my San Diego travel album

things that can wait...

*the house cleaning

*e-mail

*me...waiting for inspiration to come or maybe I should call it motivation

a photo to share...

Coming later this week: San Diego Travel Album

Status: completed

Rating: ****

Hope all of you will continue to stop by off & on throughout the month, I don't post often so no need to hurry. Sure hope you are liking what you are seeing, leave me a comment anytime, until next time take care

just B.....creative....u style

Organization

2010-07-18T06:00:00.007-05:00

Good morning everyone, today I thought I'd share with you a goal I've been working towards for a while now {but only seriously for maybe 2 weeks}. The goal is for me to clear out the clutter, in my scrap stash!

Now in all honesty, I think I'd rather have teeth pulled, but thus is the reason that I have an over abundance of supplies. I have been doing crafting of some sort my entire life, on the scrap side for 10+ years, and well as you can most likely imagine - things start to add up. After listening over & over again to the Paperclipping Roundtable Podcast {episode#6 - how to deal with all that stuff} I decided it was high time I made a few major changes within my own system of doing things, I especially like the idea of not having to wade through all the extra crap to get to the good stuff, so on with my mission. Below I have some photos of my craft closet, this is the one I tackled last Sunday and I wish I had thought to take a before and after picture because you're probably gonna wonder why I didn't clean it out - the fact is: I did! This is what my closet now looks like and so far I am very happy with it. Most of my shelves have a specific product on it. In this top photo I have my stamp shelf, all lined up nice and neat so that when I am looking for a certain set I will be able to find it quickly and not waste precious time.

In this next photo I have my embellishments shelf, with everything from archival spray, to adhesives, to glimmer mists, to buttons, and of course my paper towels, and toilet paper. This shelf is kinda where I keep all my 'go to' products, and of course the ones I have entirely too many of {buttons - I mean come on - 4 cans of buttons - crazy - and what's worse that's not all of them - shame - I know}

On this shelf I have all of my over flow of paper, some card stock, some patterned, lots of 8x8 stacks, and then themed packs. I think I have a couple of Christmas packs in here {Christmas is about the only holiday themed paper pack I will buy other wise it just goes to waste}.

On this shelf I have my over flow of punches in the drawers and then all of my stickers in the white binders. I know there are a lot of different ways to store stickers, I've even toyed with the idea of re-doing mine, but the fact is that the binders work just fine. I do have them broken down into categories: one is just for letters & numbers, then another one has everything to do with family, parents, kids, pets, etc., and then the last one has travel, and holidays, and then just borders & corners. Yes sometimes it does suck to have to dig through the entire binder to find what I'm looking for, but then I think about what it'll cost me to re-do the system, ahhh NO, I'd rather spend that else where.

On this shelf I have all my miscellaneous items, raw chipboard, printable fabric, photo negatives, mini envelops, and a few other odds & ins that probably aren't even related to scrapbooking; but hey what's a girl to do? I gotta have my 'lighthouse' coloring book stored somewhere! : )

This is the last of the individual shelves, and on this one I have my extra 12x12 albums that I hope to fill one day, I also have in the boxes lots & lots of mini albums just waiting for the right story to be told in them. Those particular boxes I do have categorized as well: one box is all chip board minis - including their pages, another box is just minis with pages already in them, another box has acrylic albums only, and then the last box is all tins that will be used for a mini someday.

These last two photos will give you a better look into my closet; I wasn't kidding when I had an excess of stuff, I still have an excess of stuff but hopefully over time I can get this stash back down to a more manageable size. The top shelf of my closet is where I decided to put all of my tools, now there are a few tools I kept even though I haven't used them in a very long time, but that was one thing I decided not to get rid of just yet. Who knows when that one thing you do get rid of could be the next big thing again, so tools - I'll keep and store them for a while longer before I toss 'em, just to be sure.

As you can plainly see, I have a lot of stuff to use; this is not even all of it and that's why I desperately needed to do this, so as the weeks go by and I continue to go through my stash I will keep you updated on the latest re-organization goal/process, it's more for me to keep me in check but what's the harm in sharing then maybe you can give me a nudge when I need it.

Hope everyone has enjoyed this little peek into my scrap world, hopefully I have a new post for you all this coming week; I finally got a major project done and will be taking photos tomorrow for it - stay tuned and have a great rest of the weekend!

Just B ...... organized!!!!!

I will be organized I will get organized I will be organized I will get organized I will be organized I will get organized

twins baby memory book

2010-07-11T06:00:00.015-05:00

Good Morning everybody, just wanted to do a quick post here of a mini I made for a friend of mine who recently had twins. The concept for the book came when we all found out that they were expecting two, I wanted to find a way for them to track each twin side by side each month for the first year, so this is what became of that idea.

Throughout the book I used the 'Fly a Kite' paper line from October Afternoon, it made a wonderful nursery themed alternate because I didn't want it to be completely 'baby' in the sense of pink & blue pastels with baby bottles & rubber duckies, that just didn't seem to fit either parent and this is a book for them, so I wanted it to represent them in a more genuine way.

I love the front cover with the KC on it because not only do the twins live in Kansas City, their names are Kayla & Colby. Going one step further, I just happened to have a couple of ribbons, one that says 'baby girl' and the other that says 'baby boy', how fitting is that? and they matched the papers to boot....lucky!

The album ended up being kinda thick but I think that since I did a 'gate fold' (where it opens in the middle) with the dual binding, it'll be able to withstand a bit more wear & tear.

Inside of the album I did a couple of things; first I decided that I would split up the two sides, the left side being Kayla's and the right being Colby's, their are a few exceptions where the journaling prompts apply to both twins the same (ie: they both have the same 1st home & the same 1st vehicle) so in those cases it's a double spread, no need to be redundant.

The second thing I did was add photo protectors on each side for each month so that they could compare the twins side by side to see how each was growing and changing or for that matter to see how much they remain the same.

As for the journaling prompts, each month has a different idea to document. And on the back side of the photo sleeves I gave them some ideas of other photos to take to help tell the story.

The first page is 'our day of arrival', even though they were c-section babies I figure it is still important for them to have the story of their journey into this world told.

On these two pages I have put a mini envelop for each twin to have a lock of their hair placed in it (an older tradition I think but one still worth doing)

Another page has a place for their older brother to put his story, his name and how he got it, his birthday, and what his first impressions of his two new tiny sibblings is. A couple of other pages have a place for mom & dad each to tell their story, their name and how they got it, their birthday, etc. Another page has another oldie but goodie which is best song, and artist, and album. Another page has a place to put each twins medical stats from their bi-monthly doctor's appointments. Another page has a place to document what each twin likes: be it a certain toy, or song, or game, etc. I suppose it is very similar to a typical baby album, but with a whole lot less stress

On the very last page I left it open for mom & dad to jot down tidbits that maybe I didn't think to add or things that they think might be worth remembering. And I also included a page sized envelop to add the little things like the hospital bracelets or the little tag that the hospital puts on the side of the crib to let everyone know who that little someone is. I think these are all things worth documenting and remembering, if not for us, at least for the next generation.

Well that's all she wrote, hope you like my first 'baby' album. Feel free to leave me a comment and in the meantime I will try to get some more things done. Hope you are having a great weekend...thanks!

just B

the final outcome

2010-07-10T06:00:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone, boy how is it even possible that I've been gone for so long? I used to think my mom was crazy when she'd tell me that time flew, but she was right; here it is already July and I think I'm still stuck somewhere between May and last year. Anyways, I have finally gotten around to post this mini - finished. Yes, it is done it's been done for awhile now I just can't seem to find the time to jump on here and get it up. So without further ado.... I present to you the very first mini I have made for my youngest daughter, Justice.

If you'll scroll on down to the last post you will have an idea of where this mini started and can therefore is how even that beginning turned into this adorable little masterpiece.

The front cover has several embellishments on it, including the flowers I made with my own flower punches. I punched several of them, distressed them, stacked them on top of each other to give them some dimension, then used the copper brad in the middle to hold them together; the final step was the distress stickles by Tim Holtz that I added to the edges to give it a softer shine. I then used my butterfly punch added 2 pearl dots for the body, then tossed on a straight pin and a copper heart that says 'love'. Justice's initials are also on the cover!

On the inside cover I used a very old sticker from my collection {in the near future I will be using lots of my older product along with the newer stuff} and then one of the new memo pins by Tim Holtz. The tag you see hanging from the pin is actually a punch that I purchased a couple of months ago and I am loving it, using it constantly {a very good buy for my scrapbook stash} the butterfly I used as a constant throughout the rest of the book, just to help keep it all grounded a bit more. Besides I just like the punch, another of those 'go to' tools that I use a lot {which is why I bought it - having 2 girls I figure it'll never get old}

In this mini I created it to be interactive, which basically means that there's a lot to look at. Most every page has something to pull out and look at because that's where all the photos are - they're hidden - not that I didn't want people to see them, but rather wanted people to look for them. That and I also was practicing with 'collage'. I have not really cared about collaging until recently, with all the stuff that Tim Holtz does, it has certainly grown on me, but it's not a style that anyone can just do, @ least not me, so I have been practicing - over all I don't think I did half bad.

This project has been really fun - although it's been a semi-long one {seemed like it was on my desk for awhile anyhow} - I must have finished it in a good amount of time because I wasn't totally sick of it by the time I completed it so that is certainly saying something

What's cool about this mini is that the original idea for it was to have a mini done for Justice, but it turns out that I learned something too {go figure} -collaging is fun - no I'm not very good @ it just yet but this has been enough of a taste that I'm ready for more and willing to try something bigger next time.

After looking through these photos again {haven't seen them in awhile} I can honestly say that I am very happy with the way this mini turned out. Not @ all your typical 'baby' mini but then again I'm not a very 'typical' kind of girl.

As I'm sure some of you can see, I have used a very wide range of products, everything from very old to very new, some everyday to very original and I have to say I like that. I think sometimes we get caught up in the very latest fashion - be it clothes or shoes or electronics - when really all that 'older' stuff is just fine and sometimes better. Right now in scrapbooking {for those of you that don't know} 'vintage' is all the rage and some of the things that people are using to tell their stories are things that your grandma and my grandma used daily and thought nothing of, to me that's saying something and I think it's totally cool. "Antique Market here I come" : )

Another thing that this project taught me, is to think even more outside the box. The flower in this photo again is one that I made using a punch that I have; I stamped it, distressed it, inked it, folded it and aged it, then added the 3 tiny pearls to the center of it, and in my opinion it looks as good as the flowers that were on the market so hot & heavy just a few years ago, if not better than those. Of course I have a ton of those but think of all the ways to alter them now and use them in new ways - damn makes me wish for just a split moment of insanity that my days were a bit longer.

And oh boy does this remind me of a couple of new favorite products; I tell that Tim Holtz is a genius some of the things he has come up with - I absolutely love his new embossing folders, they are cool! The piece of paper that looks kinda like a 'bingo' card is one of his folders and I like it - it gives a very well defined raised surface which only enhances the inking technique, then he has expanded his grunge line to include 'grunge paper' - that stuff is amazing - it's like cardstock but almost like it's made from rubber, because you can bend it and wad it up and punch it and emboss it and sand it and God knows what else and it keeps its sturdiness, it's flexible and has a give to it that no other paper that I have found can. Amazing stuff!

Well I am going to stop typing for a moment and let you get through the rest of the photos !

Okay I have to jump in here just real quick because I want to point out my hook & eye ensemble that I did here, if you look closely you'll see it on the measuring tape ribbon. I love it and will certainly use that again - I'm thinking on my next series of layouts that I have lined up

Alright well this is it, the finished book, hope you liked what you saw. Unfortunately this is all that I have for you today but as always my goal is to never wait as long as it usually ends up being but if I can get something else up for you all soon then I will, until then Thank You for stopping in and have yourself a great weekend!

Just B....creative....your way!

Another Mini...Really?

2010-05-19T08:00:00.002-05:00

Good Morning Everyone

Hope all of you are off to a great start this week. I just wanted to share a project with you that came to me sometime around 'Earth Day', I know I know, what's the hold up? Well truth be told, time is my biggest factor still and energy; but I have finally come up with an idea that I think will be a keeper.

First of all I have to say that I have been really excited for this pattern paper to hit the market, it is probably one of my top 5 favorites and until about a week ago I hadn't even seen it. I first heard about Basic Grey's 'Basics' line from a podcast that I listen to regularly {paperclipping roundtable} and knew that I had to have it. It is all ledger paper, graphs, grids, etc. and it seems to me the more 'officey' it is the more I am drawn to it so this line is like, a one-stop shop for me, and I couldn't be happier with it - it's awesome!

That being said I had to come up with something to use it on, so I looked around my scrap room and found the back of the packaging from a Jenni Bowlin product I had bought. I remembered that I kept it because of it's shape, I love that 'parenthesis' thingy, it's just cool & cute all at once.

I decided since I had two of them that they would make great covers for a mini album {yes another mini album - what can I say they are my favorite} so I covered the inside of both covers with papers from my new line and then used a different paper line that matched, to cover the outsides of the covers. Once I put them together using book rings I realized that the charcoal paper on the outside was a bit darker than what I was going for, so I lightened it up by adding yet another pattern over the top about half way down, then used ribbon to create a break between the two papers.

Once I had the covers done I needed a way to close the book, so I rifled through my box of 'Tim Holtz' trinkets and came up with a hitch, grabbed a '7 gypsies' 6" elastics to slip through the back cover and hold it together by way of the hitch on the front cover. I had another thought to re-enforce the holes that the book rings use but decided that the chipboard really didn't need them, so other than getting some pages in it, it is pretty much complete. I think that I will use 'Bazzill Basics' Vanilla Creme for the inside pages, it has a unique texture that's new to me and that specific color matches all of the pattern paper the best; aside from that it's also just a great cardstock for any scrapbook project, neutral but not boring.

The final result - one darn cool & cute recycled mini album!
As I look @ it closer, I think that this will have to be the first mini for Justice. This album, because of the color scheme I used, has an 'autumn' flair to it and being that she was born in November, I think it's only fitting that it belong to her. I counted up the other night, Liberty has 6 minis devoted entirely to her {not including her 3 birthday books} so it's high time that Justice gets a mini devoted entirely to her too. Now whether or not she'll end up with just as many, remains to be seen - most likely not since she is younger - but then again she is my baby.........
and the last one........
so who knows.....

Well I hope that you like what you see, and if you are ever interested in having an album done or want something totally unique for a gift, please contact me @ my e-mail address posted in the left-hand column at the top of the page. I would be happy to talk with you - Thanks!
Just B.... green!

p.s. here are some links to things I mentioned today, take a look if you are @ all inspired to do so

http://www.paperclipping.com/roundtable/

http://www.basicgrey.com/

http://www.jennibowlin.blogspot.com/

http://www.timholtz.typepad.com/

http://store.scrapbook.com/bazzill.html

http://sevengypsies.blogspot.com/

Hudson's Mini Album

2010-05-17T06:00:00.001-05:00

Hello Monday - Hello World

Hope everyone had a great weekend, I sure did. Bill & I invited my mom and her husband over for fresh fish yesterday evening and my younger brother was able to come too; we had a real good time. I think we all ate as fast Bill could fry, and boy it sure was good. I guess that's one of the things I love about where I come from, I don't know a whole lot of people who appreciate fresh fish {bass, crappie, etc.} but growing up a little bit country, man I sure do. Then for desert I baked a short cake and had Bill go get some strawberries & cool whip; topped it off with a bit of coffee to wash it down and if I do say so myself - it made for quite a meal.

Anyways on to the album for today.

This is a baby album I made for my brother & sister-in-law to celebrate the birth of their youngest son, Hudson. This is in fact the 3rd mini baby album I have made for them, I made each of their girls one too when they were both born.

The albums are made the same way and all bound the same way. I started with 2 chipboard pieces cut to the size I wanted, cut 2 more chipboard pieces that I used for the spine, and then covered them all with whatever paper I decide to use. With this particular album I did a whole lot more than I have with the other two {be cool to see them all together - might have to see if I can do that}. On this one, first I stitched the paper, the pattern already had a thin criss-cross line in it, so I used that as my stitch line and used a soft green thread; to me it gave it more texture and an overall quality to it.

Next I layered 2 pieces of ribbon {white & blue} and stitched that down one side of my pattern paper. This was a tad bit tricky because I had to align it the right way on the pattern paper so that when I used the paper to cover the chipboard, it would all fall into the right place for the covers. As you can see in the photo below I think that I did pretty well with it. Once I got both pieces of chipboard covered with the patterned paper, I finished the inside of each cover with a matching piece of card stock, which I think gives the album a tailor-made look.

In each book I think I put 12 pages, and similar to the wedding album that I shared with you last week, this album was the inspiration for that album idea; which is to use this as a place to keep track of stories and funny little mishaps that will inevitably happen throughout his childhood.

As you can see, the final touch I made to the album was to add the charms along the side once I bound the whole album together. My picture didn't turn out so well on the close up of those charms but you can see one says 'star' and the silver heart says 'love', both are fitting I think. I also added the name plate on the front, I printed his name out on my computer and then cut it to size. On the inside back cover is where I put the cute little tag, 'frogs & snails'.

Last but not least I did make a card and yes it matches the album, not sure why I did it that way but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Hope you liked this album, that's all I have for today. Have a great week and thanks for peeking!

Just B

A New Mini Wedding Album

2010-05-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

Good Morning World!

Today, just real quick I'd like to share with you a wedding album I made a few weeks back for my step-sister. First is the card I made {yes to match the album}, I think it is quite elegant and subtle. I love the Fiskars border punch that I used for the edge of the card, I think that is what gives it it's defining touch.

Here I have a closer shot of the front of the album's detail. I am really enjoying the prima flowers, not only are they beautiful and available in all sorts of colors, they are sturdy enough to dye them whatever color you like; unfortunately the photo doesn't show it, but I sprayed them with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist to give them a shine and it turned out wonderful.

On the inside of the cover I used this over-sized beaded sticker and it is gorgeous. I'm not usually a girly girl, but I saw that @ Archivers and had to get it for this album, and please forgive me because I am not remembering who made it, but I will try to find out and post it later.

On the front cover I also added a strip of lace down the side closest to the spine, and there was no particular reasoning for this just that I like it and thought that it would be a nice addition. I actually machine stitched the lace onto the paper before I ever made the cover, thinking that the thread would hold up longer over time than tape, I did @ least plan a little bit ahead of time for this one : )

Last but I'm sure not least I added a couple of heart charms along the side of the spine, along with an extra long tassel, once again...no reason other than I like it. Anytime I make something like this I ask myself what would I want it to look like and is it too much?...maybe for some, but I tend to be a minimalist when it comes to things that are typically for display, for the simple fact that I would like people to feel comfortable putting them 'on display'.

The final result, a beautiful wedding album that Ross & Candyss can use for years to come. When I gifted this I did give them an idea on how to use it, because it really isn't for photos. The idea of this album, which has 12 blank pages in it, is to document their life together. Now they could choose to do a page a year and have the first 12 years documented or they could document just their first year as a married couple, or they could just add bit & pieces here and there and not worry about a time frame. All this is meant to be is a tool to help them tell their story, and being that their story together has just started, what a great place for them to jot down those wonderful little moments, those memories, those tiny slices of heaven that come every so often to remind us that.......yes.......we are loved.

Hope you enjoyed my moment here, sharing this with you and I hope that you all have a wonderful day! Thanks!

p.s. feel free to leave me a comment anytime for whatever reason. I think I have finally got all the settings right so you should be able to anonymously if you do not have a Blogger account : )

A Week in Our Life 2010

2010-05-09T08:00:00.001-05:00

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Hello again everyone, I am finally back and getting down to business. I have a lot to share with you so those of you who have been waiting awhile for some new stuff, this is for you!

This is a week in the life - it is a project inspired by Ali Edwards and probably one of my favorites. About 2 weeks ago I spent the whole week taking lots & lots of photos, jotting down notes of bits & pieces that happened throughout our week, and keeping anything & everything that came to me via mail or other means.

I collected everything from receipts, to do lists, grocery lists, couple of e-mails, things from the snail mail; it was quite an under taking and I did a mini version of the album. Maybe next time I do this one, I'll do it bigger, then again, maybe not.

For this album I took a leap of faith and tried a hybrid attempt - final result - one really cool album! The pages that have the pockets full of stuff are traditional scrapbook pages, and the photo collage pages are all done totally digital using Photoshop Elements. I got a bit frustrated when on the second day Photoshop decided it wasn't going to play nice {had to uninstall the program & then reinstall it} but finally I fixed the problem and cruised right through the rest of the pages.

The hardest part of digital comes in the same manner as traditional scrapbooking; which is - figuring out what papers to use, what products will help tell a more complete story {as products is no longer my main concern anymore} and then how to pull it all together on the page - the overall design. I think for me design is still my weakest area, yes I could use a sketch, but to me that kinda takes all the fun out of it {so I save sketches for when I get really frustrated}.

You may notice that each of my days have 4 pages to them all 6x6 in size. Two of the pages have the photo collage or one large photo, then the other two pocket pages is where I have stored all the stuff.

As for 'what' to store? There really wasn't much to think about, if it came in the mail or by other means and applied to our everyday life, then in it went. So above in the pocket page I have an e-mail that I printed right from my desktop, I have a 4T clothing tag {that is what Liberty is wearing right now}, there is the bar code from a 100% recycled package that I had purchased {it went in on Thursday - which was earth day}, then I even put in a handwritten note about Justice.

Somethings I collected were to large for the pockets but I still wanted to work them into the book so I tucked them in between the photo collage pages that were done digitally. The paper that I used to print those photos on {HP Premium Presentation Paper}, is very smooth paper & takes the ink very well giving the photos rich colors, but it is not very heavy so the addition of the other stuff in between actually helps give those pages some stability, solving two problems @ once.

So on the last two pages, for the photo collage, I used the grid in Photoshop so that I could have several photos between the two pages and still have them all spaced right, by no means is it exact but it worked well enough. In this collage I purposely chose photos with no one in them and only used the photos that had places or things. Throughout the week I used several photos that had one or a couple of us in them but still wanted to incorporate other things & places that have meaning to us right now, so that is why I chose to use only those photos for the last day.
For the last page, as of right now it is blank. My plan is to do a page of journaling to recap our whole week and then include it in that spot, but then again I like the idea of just doing one large photo maybe of the girls together. Had I thought about it during that week, I would've used my camera timer and taken a family portrait, but such is life - maybe next time!

Okay well that's all I have for you today, hope you have enjoyed taking a peek into our life. More importantly though I hope you find your own lives full of life & love.

Thanks for letting me share... just B