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! :)
