Layout of the Week - Punky Posh Mini Album with Punky Sprouts & Chatterbox Part 2

I thought I'd share a few detail shots of the album I featured last week.  I'm still in love with this album.  I have some more ideas for creating a totally different look with this same album.  I did make another of Punky Sprouts's albums last week.  And after I return from my relaxing vacation to Mexico, I'll share it with you.  I'm in Mexico as you're reading this, hopefully laying in the sun sipping a margarita celebrating 40th birthdays with a couple of my closest friends.  I don't have my 40th for a few months, but we're all going to celebrate all year...there's no law against that...is there?

I like to embellish these little mini albums with all sorts of things.  For this one, I added some tags, ribbon & twine.

I liked the burlap page I made so much, I added a little scrap to the cover.  It was fun piling things on the cover over the dry brush painting I had completed earlier.  I think the date tag is a great idea, it's always fun to remember the exact date of an occasion.  The felt birdie was a fun last minute addition when I thought the empty space was a little too much.

For Delaney's page, I created a girly look...sparkly glitter paper, velvet flocked paper with a scalloped edge, pom pom fringe, ribbon and a butterfly.

I created my own page to add to this album, trimming burlap and using a zutter hole punch to create the holes.  I thought the rough texture suited a rambunctious little boy!  I added the bit of ribbon on the right at the last minute, just pulling on the burlap's twine pieces to create a space to weave the ribbon.

This was my quickest page of this album, just a square of lime paint to frame my photo.

This page probably took the longest to create.  I wanted a brown canvas page, so I got some at my local sewing shop and cut two pieces the same size as the album's other pages.  I used my sewing machine and ivory thread to add the details.  I'm not very experienced with the sewing machine, so I tried out the scallop stitch on this project.  It's so nice that when we use machine stitching on papercrafts people don't expect or want perfectly straight lines.  This would drive my mother nuts, she's such a great seamstress and tried for years to teach me to sew.  But she was forever pulling out my mistakes and I finally gave up.  I'm excited I finally found a use for that sewing machine that was stuck away in a closet!  And thank goodness, I still have my mom to do the "real" sewing! :)

Oh, and I love the felt embellishments that Chatterbox made to match these collections, so cute and self adhesive too!

On the back of my canvas page, I stuck with little circle embellishments and a tag to create a boyish look.

This was another quick page.  Delaney is our artist, she loves all things creative.  So I just grabbed a foam brush, dipped it into the paints I was using on this project and randomly added touches of color to this ivory canvas page.  For a final touch, I added a little tag & some fun embellishments from my packs.

After the last busy page, I wanted to calm things down a bit.  I used the self adhesive felt embellishments on this one.

I love acrylic, especially when it's mixed with other types of pages.  For the acrylic, I painted the Tropical Water paint around the edges with a small, dry regular paint brush.  When you try this type of technique, don't be too perfect, the messy look is in! :)  I used a Crop A Dile tool to punch two holes in the right edge and then tied a couple ribbon knots as accents.

I like how the acrylic page looks when it's turned & placed over the photo on the left too!

This page is on the right behind the acrylic.  I used a patterned paper to cover this page and then placed a smaller torn, inked piece of foiled paper on the left.  Next I inked around the whole page and added a little garden twine on the left, as a fun contrast to the foil paper.

For a fun Jake page, I chose a checked paper and some star & button embellishments.

For my last Delaney page, I used acrylic stamps and my lime & tropical water paints to stamp some flowers onto the canvas.  It was fun adding a little tag & butterfly as a finishing touch.

Again I used the stamps and my two paint colors for this page.  For my little journaling, I used a letter stamp that creates an old fashioned typewriter still look.  I stamped, "At Home Together, Our Favorite Place," in brown ink.

This acrylic page was my biggest stretch yet....  I used a large Technique Tuesday stamp in Versamark ink and then added lime embossing powder and heated it with my heat gun.  Just let me tell you, this technique is not for the faint of heart or perfectionists out there.  The acrylic folded up all funny while I was heating the powder.  I was doing this page while I worked a crop at the store and boy everyone was nervous about how it might turn out.  I'm pretty sure they all thought I'd ruined the page.  But I grabbed two pieces of white paper and used them to help me flatten the acrylic back to its shape.   I think it turned out great!  It definitely isn't perfect though.  There are a few little spots of embossing powder that didn't get blown off the ink and created little green spots.  And the acrylic isn't as flat as I would like it to be.  But I love the look and don't really mind the bumpy-ness of the page.  What project is really PERFECT in the end anyway.  How would you know it's homemade if it's perfect!!!?

Here's the stamped, embossed acrylic page laying over the page to its left.

For my final page, I used the teal blue flocked paper, a bit of ribbon and a little monogram tag.

As you probably noticed, I used sepia tone photos again on this project.  If you've never tried them, you definitely should.  It's impossible for me to imagine how busy this album would be with color photos.  And of course the perfectionist in me loves when color schemes are in harmony in my projects.

You should also know that it's OK to just shoot some photos around  your house or yard and use them in a family album.  This wasn't a photo shoot, we were just hanging out outside in the yard on one of the few warm spring days here in Oregon.  I did get my mom to shoot the family photo, but the rest are just candids my husband & I shot with my point & shoot.  So don't worry about everyone matching and setting an appointment, just get together & take some photos.  Depending on your chosen papers, sepia tone or black & white can cover a million color matching mistakes!

I decided to skip photos on the back cover.  Just a little paint & a dry brush...the ribbon is tied around the whole page.

Supplies

Brown Cardstock - American Crafts

Patterned Papers - artsy.licious, Fabulous and Together by Chatterbox

Embellishments - Tags, Buttons, Journal Boxes, Ribbon

Kaisercraft - Acrylic Paint: Lime & Tropical Water

Ink - Brown Pigment Brush Pad by Color Box and Versamark Pad

Stamps - Technique Tuesday and Provo Craft

Embossing Powder - Zing by American Crafts

Ribbon - Various Manufacturers

Garden Twine - Unknown Manufacturer

Sewing Supplies - Burlap, Brown Canvas and Ivory Thread from Local Sewing Shop

A little note from Julie...I hope you're all having wonderful weeks!  I am in Mexico this week to help my friends celebrate their 40th birthdays (well, I'm celebrating mine too, albeit a bit early!).  I can't wait to see what I can find on my vacation to inspire my next project!  Have a wonderful weekend! :)

Blog of the Week: Meet Melanie from Bags by Melanie

Today is the first day of a new feature here on JulieChats.  Whenever I get a chance, I want to feature other creative bloggers on my blog...every so often.  The world of creative bloggers is huge and I think it's a great way for us to meet other creatives from all over the world, so enjoy my first feature & check back soon for more....

I want to introduce you to a new friend of mine...Melanie from Bags by Melanie!  I met Melanie in a group I'm involved with in Creative Bloggers online community.  I'm excited to share Melanie's creations with you!  I love her litte bags, perfect for stowing your business cards in your handbag without bending them.  I've got to order myself one of these for those blog business cards I created a while back.

And for you scrapbookers out there, Melanie has a second Etsy shop she started with a friend to sell all those extra supplies left from their joint creative endeavors.  Stop by Blinky & check out all the fun crocheted flowers, ribbons & even Sizzix supplies.  I'd love to have some of their funky ribbons, this one is a favorite of mine...

Stop by & visit Melanie on her blog and in her Etsy shop!

If you're looking for a fun way to promote your creative blog, stop by Creative Bloggers and check out all the groups you can join.

Layout of the Week - Punky Posh Mini Album with Punky Sprouts & Chatterbox Part 1

Ta Da!  I shared a sneak peek of this album with you last week and here is the finished product!  As you can tell, I'm very excited about this mini album!  I love all of the albums from Punky Sprouts, who makes these very cool albums.  The albums all include pages made from chipboard, ivory canvas and acrylic.  The comb binding on this album, Punky Posh, holds the pages together very loosely.  The binding is loose so you can pull the pages out, decorate them and replace them on the binding.  The flexible style of these albums is my favorite quality.  It allows you to push your creative boundaries as far as you want on each project.

I took this album home and my first thought was that I should add some of my own pages into the mix.  After reading about so many creative uses for burlap all over the blogosphere, I just had to use it in this album.  And with my love of sepia tone photos, I knew that a brown canvas page would look great too.

To decorate my album, I chose papers, ribbons and embellishments from the Together, Fabulous and artsy.licious collections by Chatterbox.

If you're looking for more fun ideas using the Punky Sprouts albums, check out their blog!

As for me, I'll share some more detailed photos of this album in Part 2 of this post next week.  I'll be writing it this weekend as I pack for my trip to Mexico.  I'm lucky enough to be celebrating my upcoming 40th birthday with two close friends I met in the dorms my freshman year at UofO.  We'll be laying in the sun & having a few margaritas this time next week.  After I'm back, I promise to make more rounds of all the cool, creative blogs out there!

If you're in need of a party tomorrow night, don't forget to stop by Ann's Virtual Girls Night Out.  You'll meet lot's of other fun bloggers and get tons of comments for your blog.

If you're looking to find other creative bloggers, stop by Today's Creative for Tuesday's Get Your Craft On Blog Hop.

Layout of the Week - Spring Mini Album Project & a Punky Sprouts Sneak Peek

I've been a little busy lately to finish any actual layouts to feature as my "Layout of the Week," so I'm sharing what I have been working on.  This Saturday I'm teaching a class at the scrapbook store where I work, Whimzee's Scrapbook Studio in Beaverton, Oregon....in case you're in the area & want to sign up!  I taught this class at Christmas and a few people asked me to do it again.  I thought a Spring theme would be fun for the little mini album.  You could use it for a great Mother's Day gift or maybe for a special friend's birthday.

This project takes 3 pieces of cardstock, up to 14 different patterned papers, a couple feet of ribbon, lot's of adhesive and TONS of patience.  In just a couple hours you too can have a fun little album with lot's of little doors to hide all your photos & journaling.

I hope you're in the area so you can sign up for my class!  It really is much easier to make the album with a little help from someone who's done it before.  The instructions are kind of confusing, but if you're handy, you can probably make one up from my photos.  Give it a try when you have a couple hours & want to try something new.

I've got to get back to my projects for this week, two Punky Sprouts albums.  I've been very excited about Punky Sprouts for a few weeks now.  I had the chance to crop with one of the owners, Doralisa, and we had so much fun that I left pumped to give one of her albums a try.  It's so fun to be able to share a local Portland area scrapbook manufacturer with all of you.  Keep reading for links to the Punky Sprouts site & Facebook page, so you can ask your local scrapbook store to carry these awesome albums!

Here are a couple sneak peeks at my first project, using Chatterbox papers & embellishments, along with some great Kaisercraft paint colors!

Here's a quick look at the pages included in the Punky Posh album....

I'll share my take on this great album concept next week!

Head on over to the Punky Sprouts site to check out all their great albums!  I'm working on Punky Posh and Prim & Punky right now.  Punky Sprouts is on Facebook too & looking for a few more fans, tell them Julie sent you!

Just a little reminder to join me over at my fellow Portlander, Ann's, Virtual Girls' Night Out.  Join the party, every Friday night!  Ann's got a great music video, a yummy drink recipe and lot's of fun bloggers to hang with!  Get & Give tons of comments and find more followers for your blog!  Of course, you can visit Ann anytime...it doesn't have to be a Friday for you to get a laugh out of her adventures!

I also hang out every Tuesday at Today's Creative's Get Your Craft On party.  Head on over to another of my Pacific Northwest peeps' blog to find a huge list of links to other creative blogs.  Kim features a new creative blogger almost everyday and the huge Get Your Craft On blog hopping party every Tuesday.



Hey all you Mom Bloggers!!!!  Don't forget to head on over & check out all the fun, prizes & friends at 5 Minutes for Mom's Ultimate Blog Party 2010!



Join me & enter to win! I'm hoping to win #6 The Double Stacked a lot of Love Necklace, #11 $100 Gift Certificate to Restaurant.com and #17 The Books Found Art and Real Women Scrap!!!! Wish me luck!!!!!!!!!!!

Layout of the Week - FRIEND chipboard mini album

I'm excited to share this week's Layout of the Week with you!  But first, I want to apologize for missing all sorts of blogging opportunities last week.  It was Spring Break here and we took Jake in to have hernia surgery on Tuesday.  We were expecting to be home that day, but our wise surgeon advised us to stay overnight in the hospital just in case the little guy needed some extra pain meds.  And thank goodness we did, those extra pain meds let him sleep through just a few of the MANY interruptions...I know that the wonderful nurses & residents have to check in on patients all night long, but boy, it sure would be nice if patients could get more sleep in the hospital.  So my schedule was thrown for a loop last week.  But I'm bouncing back this week, just like Jake...baby steps for both of us!  If you're in the Portland area & in need of an excellent Pediatric Surgeon, I highly recommend Dr. David Bliss.  He's done surgery twice now on Jake and he's a great listener, explains everything so even people who aren't medical geniuses (like he is!) can understand and he's saved the lives of countless preemies, infants, toddlers & kids!

So back to my project!  I created this mini album to celebrate Delaney's 8th birthday.  I did actually get it done a couple months ago, so she did get to see it before her 9th birthday!  I used Bo Bunny's My Word Chipboard FRIEND album and Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection pack, plus a ton of fun embellishments to create a fun, bright colored album, perfect for Delaney's Tie Dye Slumber Party Photos. (Read all about our Tie Dye Slumber Party activities HERE.)

I used one of my favorite tips to squeeze a ton of photos into this small book.  I created photo collages with Costco's photo organizer program so I could cut them apart and put all different sizes of the tiny photos on my pages.  I love being able to create these collages and use so many photos in such a small format album.

Here are all the fun inside pages!

Of course, since it's Friday, you can join me over at Ann's for her Virtual Girls' Night Out!  I'll be celebrating mine by working the crop tonight at Whimzee's Scrapbook Studio in Beaverton...if you're in the area, call to sign up (we have a couple spots left) or stop by & shop, I'd love to meet you!  Be sure to check out our online community if you're in need of some extra inspiration, we have 300 project photos for you to enjoy!

Tips

Use Costco's photo collages to squeeze a few more photos into your projects!

Don't be afraid to mix it up with bright colors & patterns, it creates a whimsical page!

Use paint to coat the edges of your chipboard albums, it covers up any number of flaws in your (or my) paper cutting skills!

Supplies

Basic Grey Lime Rickey collection pack paper & stickers

Bo Bunny My Word Chipboard Album - FRIEND

So many embellishments...it would take a year to list them all, if you have a few you're wondering about, leave me a comment & I'll get you the manufacturer info.