DIY...at Home: Chipboard Mini Album Workshop

Right now I'm putting together the Tip Sheet for the Chipboard Album class I'm teaching tomorrow at the scrapbook store where I work, Whimzee's Scrapbook Studio in Beaverton, Oregon.  I originally wrote the parts of this post as a DIY class for the store blog.  As I was doing research for my class, I realized that I haven't put many classes (workshops, tutorials or whatever you want to call them) on this blog.  I think I'm going to start including some here, so everyone can see how I put together my projects and maybe they'll want to try something new.  I have a few on the store blog, so I'll probably use those first while I figure out what to share with you all next.  If you want to get a head start on the rest of the class, zip on over to the Whimzee's Girls Online Blog and click on classes down the right side column, I've got a few fun mini album classes over there.  I'm off to get everything together for tomorrow, so I hope you enjoy your Friday!  And don't forget stop by my friend Ann's Virtual Girls Night Out tonight, she's lamenting being older than PACMAN and I'm right there with her!

PART 1 - Gathering the Supplies

I want to share how easy it is to create a mini-album with a Bo Bunny My Word chipboard album. I chose the PARTY album. For your own project, feel free to choose any of their albums (or any other chipboard album that suites your fancy). The techniques are interchangeable between chipboard albums.

See all of Bo Bunny's My Word Albums and check out their completed projects on their website.  Click HERE for Bo Bunny's Tips & Tricks for these albums. 

I started with my PARTY album, Junkitz Salsa Celebration collection papers, Creative Imaginations Art Warehouse Candles & Cakes collection papers, craft paint, Creative Cafe rings, Blossoms & Leaves by Creative Impressions, any coordinating ribbons I could find.....and most importantly Spray Adhesive.

As far as tools, I like to cut with my large Fiskars paper cutter. I used my lime green Doodlebug Designs craft knife and cutting pad, it's so nice when things can be so useful and also so stylish! I used Glue Dots and Hermafix squares to attach the embellishments on my pages. I decorated my pages with Fiskars Acrylic Stamps, brown ink and numerous shapes cut out in the store on the Cricut using the Alphalicious font cartridge. I love the Cricut! We have it available for you to use in the store for a $2 fee. It's so easy to use and we have lot's of fonts for you to choose from.

So after collecting all of my supplies, I was ready to start the project.

PART 2 - Choosing & Adhering the Paper

First I take a look at both sides of each paper. I use double-sided papers for the Bo Bunny albums. I make sure I choose papers that are truly 12 x 12 inches in size. (Just a few of our papers are slightly smaller than 12 x12.) I trim any white strips from the edges, on these papers there were white strips showing the manufacturer & collection names, UPC, etc. Next, I cut each piece in half, forming a 6 x 12 inch piece. I sort them and flip them from front to back, just seeing which patterns I like together.

When you make one of these albums, you have to choose a paper to cover both sides of each letter. So be sure to look over your choices for, say the back of the P and the front of the A, to be sure they look nice together. It's possible to mix & match small prints with large, dark backgrounds with light. As long as you choose papers that coordinate, it makes no difference if the papers come from the same collection. For this project, I choose two collections that I like together. If you aren't confident you can mix the collections, lay everything you like together on a table in the store and see what you think. Don't be afraid to ask one of the Whimzee's Girls for help, or ask someone who's scrapping that day, everyone has an opinion and one person might see something another misses. If you want a fail safe, quick way to choose your papers, pick them from one large collection. Some of our collections are very deep in their choices. Some of my favorites are Bo Bunny, Basic Grey, Chatterbox, Cosmo Cricket, Little Yellow Bicycle and Reminisce.

After I choose my papers, I use spray adhesive to adhere the paper to the chipboard. I like to use spray adhesive outside or in the garage. Not only does it have a strong odor, but the over spray creates a sticky surface on everything it touches.....your table, floor, carpet, etc. I spray the front of each letter and carefully lay the paper I have chosen for its front over the adhesive, lining the edges of the paper with the edges of the letter first. Spray adhesive is a bit forgiving, so you do have a little time to lift the paper in case it isn't perfectly lined up on your first try. After you are happy with the position of the paper, lay everything on your table and press the chipboard firmly onto the paper. Set the letter aside and repeat the process with each letter. By the time you're finished with this process, the first letter should be dry & ready for trimming.

PART 3 - Trimming the Paper




Be sure to use your knife to cut out the paper covering the 3 holes in the end of each letter at this point.

Next, repeat the instructions in Class #2 for the back of each letter. Don't forget to remove the paper from the back sides of the 3 holes.

PART 4 - Painting the Edges


After you cut the excess paper from each letter, it's time to paint. Choose a paint color that runs through each page or one that coordinates with all of your papers. I use acrylic paint. I mix colors together to achieve the look I like. If you can't find a paint in a coordinating color, you might want to give mixing your own a try. If you aren't in to mixing, maybe black or brown would look nice with your paper, eliminating the extra step of mixing.
Instead of paint, you could use a small ink pad to ink the chipboard and paper edges. Personally, I like acrylic paint the best because an applicator sponge allows me to get into tight corners that an ink pad doesn't.
Once you have the paint you like, dip a paint applicator just barely into the paint. Touch the applicator to the edges of your letters, dragging it slowly along all the edges. I like a thin border of paint on the outside of my letters, so I just touch the applicator lightly along the edges. If you would like your border thicker, use a little more pressure when you drag your brush along the edges. After painting the edges, use the applicator along the inside edges of the letters with "holes" in them. (In this album, the P, A & R have inside edges)
Lay your letters on wax paper and wait for them to dry. Do be sure to look at both sides of the letter, so that you can be sure you have covered the chipboard edge up to the paper on both sides.
After the letters all dry, place the rings inside the holes and arrange your album. You can embellish the pages while the album is hooked together with the rings or take it apart for easier access.

PART 5 - Ribbon, Ribbon & More Ribbon


On of the things I love about the Bo Bunny My Word albums is that I can go crazy with one of my favorite embellishments....RIBBON! I like to squeeze in some ribbon where ever I can, in my projects. For this album, I chose lot's of white background ribbons with dots & words like...party, celebrate, birthday. I also picked some lime green shimmery ribbon, a red sheer ribbon with a swirl pattern and a medium blue rick-rack. I don't have too much rhyme or reason to how I pick the ribbons. I usually grab all the ribbons I can find in the store that are coordinate with my paper and make a pile of them on the counter on top of the paper. I try to pick a variety....pattern, solid, printed, shaped (like the rick-rack). I think a bit of everything mixed together looks great in a project like this.

I buy about a yard & a half of each ribbon for a project like this. Next, I cut the ribbon in 4 inch pieces. Since there are 3 rings, I cut three 4 inch pieces. I use the rest of the ribbon to tie on the letters and to decorate the inside of the album. Take your 4 inch pieces and tie them, one at a time, onto the rings. Being a type A person, I divide my ribbon so that each ring has a piece of each ribbon. You can do it however you like, really, one can have too much organization in her life! I just tie the ribbon around the ring once, so that there aren't too many big knots taking up room on the ring and I like the ribbon ends to be a bit longer.

For my PARTY book, I used 7 different ribbons. The number is up to you. If I found wider coordinating ribbons, I would probably only use 5 or so. I think it really depends on how many ribbons you find that you like. As far as ribbon goes, I'm not a "less is more" kind of girl!

PART 6 - Embellish it!


OK, now the fun part! Take all the papers & ribbons you have left, flowers, brads, and any of your favorite embellishments. It's nice to see everything at once, so you can decide what fits & matches with each page. I like to take ribbons & tie them around any edges I can. For this project, I tied ribbon around the A, R & Y. (NOTE: I liked the way the double sided paper showed through the holes in the P & R, so I left it this time & didn't cut it away when trimmed around all the other letters. Just check out everything before you trim to see if you might want to leave anything.) For this project, I used the Cricut at Whimzee's & its Alphalicious alphabet to cut out a name & some other shapes. I'm giving this one to my friend's daughter, Josie, for her 1st birthday, so I wanted to put her name & age on it. I stuck with the scraps of the papers I had already used for most of my inside pages, and I added a little coordinating cardstock. I also used a set of Fiskars clear stamps (a birthday set) and brown ink to add a little something to many of the inside pages. There were so many colors in these paper collections, that I thought brown would go with everything. And I wanted the ink to be subtle, something you might miss on first glance but would stand out after you took a few looks at the album.


So let's check out the pages:

Since this is a gift & I don't have photos, I took scraps from the project and cut shapes that I thought would work well as backgrounds for photos. I used a square & a circle on this page. You could put a photo in the circle or a little piece of memorabilia. I snipped a couple pieces of the party hat paper to use as decoration. Next, I layered two flowers together with a leaf and held them together with a small silver brad. Glue dots are the best way to adhere plastic items and ribbon to paper, so I used them throughout the book. I added a piece of ribbon, to the edge of the square photo, being careful to include the words "happy birthday" in my piece. I then closed the page and saw a little area of the A showing through and decided to put a little "make a wish" stamp in that space. For one last touch, I took a piece of dotted ribbon and wrapped it around the page, through the hole in the A, leaving the knot and long ends to show on the next page.

When I put the ribbon around the A, I used a large needle tool to poke two holes into the ribbon. I put one flower & brad in each hole and tied the knot in the ribbon. All that was left was to add a square photo background. I like to use the paper from the facing page to make a background. Since I already made sure the papers coordinated, it was easy to pick the facing paper for this page. And on this page it was extra easy...the paper on the back of the A is the back side of the paper on the front of the R. As far as embellishing the front of the R, I went a bit conservative here. Since the back of the A is pretty busy, I placed one background (see, it's the facing paper again) and a small piece of green ribbon on this page. I like being able to see some of the words on paper that has so many words. I did use another stamp with brown ink here. Near the top of the brown box, I stamped a group of balloons that peeks out when the book is closed.



On the next pages, I love these dot patterns and wanted them to stand more on their own. I used the back sides of the papers as photo backgrounds. On the left, I placed two pieces of ribbon under the background with the words "birthday" and "party" sticking out. For the right, I used one large photo background and one small square with a stamp and a plastic flower & silver brad in the corner. I like the look of all the dots in circular patterns covering these pages.


For these pages, I used two different photo backgrounds. On the left I chose the party hat paper and cut it about an inch larger than I originally thought I needed. I used the extra room to place two thin yellow paper pieces, stamped with birthday sayings, placing them on the left and bottom. I used two flowers and brads, one on each piece of paper in the extra space at the ends. For the right side, I used pink cardstock, cut a little long, with a stamp along the edge. For a little extra zing, I put three pieces of ribbon, folded in half under the side of the background with the edges sticking out. On this page, I used the pink dot paper to cut a large "1" & small "st" on the Cricut and adhered them so that they could be seen when the book was closed.


For the back of the album, I used a turquoise dotted piece as a background, cutting it extra long along the top. To give the impression of a gift, I tied a ribbon on the side of the paper with the knot at the top. Then I used a few last flowers, layered two on a brad, and arranged them in a triangle on the left side.

I was excited to finish the project and can't wait to have my friend unwrap it for her daughter and use it to showcase the photos from her first birthday. I love the Bo Bunny My Word Chipboard Albums. And I think that whoever receives them as a gift will cherish them as keepsakes for years to come!

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 - Family with Graphic 45 Papers & A Special Annoucement!

This week, as the sun shines outside here in Oregon, I want to share my family with you.  Dave, my wonderful husband,  is a sports fanatic who loves to play with his kids.  He managed to combine those this week...he got Delaney to fill out an NCAA bracket and then had Jake do one too.  Dave used blocks with the first letter of each team and had Jake pick his favorite of the two.  Yes, it took quite a while and Jake's bracket is full of M-named teams (his current favorite letter).  Poor Jake didn't fare well with Montana last night, but he still has a chance to beat his Daddy.  I keep telling Dave that knowing about sports really has nothing to do with winning with these tourney brackets.  On to Delaney, my beautiful, talented, creative daughter, will be 9 on Sunday.  Delaney is so well-rounded, she loves participating in all sorts of sports (those talents come from Dad), creating original, eye-catching art pieces and she's a "bit" of a perfectionist (that, I'm sorry, comes from me!).  She is thoughtful and loving, especially to her little brother.  So that makes Jake last.  Mr. Jake is now two and FULL of ENERGY!  He loves the movie "Cars," any every character in it.  We're missing Sally right now and he asks for "Yaddy" every chance he gets...I'm sure she's around somewhere, probably in one of Delaney's shoes.  We all love to hang out together and are very excited that the weather's warming up here!

So that's a bit of our story!  On to my layout...this design idea came to me a bit backwards.  Usually I have a photo and then come up with a layout.  OK, sometimes I have a paper collection that I love and take photos to go with it.  This time, I was inspired by a pile of mismatched Graphic 45 papers laying all over my counter while I was creating projects for the Graphic 45 design team call.  Seeing these papers, most are the backsides, reminded me of a patchwork quilt.  I thought & thought about how to combine them and came up with using a brown background and my favorite sepia tone photos.  I didn't shoot a new photo for this page, I remembered that my mother-in-law shot some photos of us when she was visiting in early December.  This one was almost our Christmas card photo, but it didn't quite make the cut.  We were very excited at the time, being huge Duck fans and having just attended one of our most exciting games ever...the Civil War win over the dreaded Beavers!  So we decided to have a Duck theme Christmas card.  Even though we didn't use this photo, we found some even more fun Duck photos of all of us.  My trusty sepia tone came into play because dark green and almost neon yellow don't exactly match the Graphic 45 color scheme.

Since I had been thinking of this project as a patchwork quilt, I searched the internet for patchwork quotes.  I found a few that combined the quilt idea with the family idea.  I didn't find one that fit my thoughts exactly so I made up my own.  I didn't want a big wordy journal box or title on this one, so I used photoshop to print my quote right on top of my photo.

For the patches, I cut my papers to 2 1/2" square and then used a ruler to gently fold the edges in 1/4" on each side.  I tore upward along these folds so the white would show on the edges.  Next I inked the edges with brown ink.  I used one little Hermafix square on the back of each square and placed them on the brown background, leaving an area in the bottom right corner for the photo.

This was my very first attempt at machine stitching on a layout.  I'm pretty excited with the results.  I had been planning to give it a try.  Dave put a table in the laundry room for my sewing machine and I dug the poor thing out of one of the "holes" or storage closets in the bonus room.  It had been in there more than 5 years.  I was surprised it worked at all.  I searched the internet for ideas on machine stitching and found tons of them.  So I experimented with an extra sheet of my background paper and extra little squares.  I adjusted the tension, stitch width and lenght, writing each of the number combinations next to that particular stitch on my sample sheet.  When I found one I liked, I used it.  I chose ivory thread for this project.

After sewing around the page twice, I decided to create my own embellishment for my title.  I cut a piece of patterned paper twice as long as my photo, tore it leaving a white edge, inked it with the brown and folded it into pleats.  I used the same straight stitch I used on the whole page to stitch my pleats together.  I went over the pleats twice.  Next I stitched down my brown ball fringe ribbon.  For the title, I inked the edges of the Graphic 45 letters with black and adhered them with pop dots.  To attach my homemade embellishments, I used glue dots.

I was very happy with how this layout turned out.  I loved machine stitching and can't wait to use it again!  Next time you're together with your family, shot a photo and remember to create a layout to celebrate these special people!

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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

I want to share some exciting news with my readers!  I am now a featured writer on the Oregon Women's Report website.  I am writing a series of fun, anecdotal stories about scrapbooking.  I'd love it if you'd stop by over there and read my first one!  I'm planning to post each article here also.  I'll post one in both places every two weeks or so.  If you're from Oregon or just interested in all the cool women writers on the site, sign up to receive updates from OWR in your inbox.  Thanks! :)

Don't Forget!  Join me at Ann's tonight for Virtual Girl's Night Out!  Stop by to join in the fun, meet lot's of great women bloggers (and sometimes some male bloggers too!), hop around the internet leaving comments and getting some for yourself too!

Tips

Of course, use sepia tone or black & white to help your photos blend with your chosen papers.

If you're looking for a new way to include journaling in your layouts, give photoshop a try!

Look at the backsides of your papers, they might inspire a layout all by themselves.

Think about creating your own embellishments.

If you've got a sewing machine, try machine stitching!

Supplies

Graphic 45 papers...from all different collections, most are the backsides.

Graphic 45 alphabet letters

Bazzill brown ball fringe ribbon

Dark Brown Ink - Cat's Eye ink pad

Ivory thread for machine stitching

Meet my 200th Follower! And the Layout of the Week - Friends

WOO - HOO!

200 followers!

YEAH!

OK, you can tell I'm SO excited to have my 200th follower!  And since 200 is a pretty big milestone, I want to share my 200th follower with you.

Meet Adrienne from Kitschalicious!  She has one of the cutest blogs I've seen, all covered with polka dots, little cherries and a splash of glitter.  But that's not the only reason why I love it....the craft ideas & projects are wonderful!  If you've got tons of little Happy Meal toys underfoot, just check this out....a Happy Meal Toy Wreath!  Boy I wish I hadn't give ours all to Goodwill after they didn't sell in the quarter box at the garage sale!  So click on over to Kitschalicious, be sure to leave a comment to say HI, sign up to follow Miss Adrienne's adventures & tell her Julie sent you! :)

I met Adrienne on a great blog hop adventure sponsored by Today's Creative.  I've been participating for a few weeks now and I've met so many awesome bloggers.  I'm pretty sure that Today's Creative is now responsible for my last 20 or so followers!  ThAnKs! :)

Every week there are between 100 and 300 crafty blog posts listed for you to check out.  I have tons of awesome ideas for my scrapbooking, decor and organizing, so many that I'll never have time to get to all of them, but still, so much fun to hop around & see who's over there.  So click on over to Today's Creative to see the "Get Your Craft On" post.  And be sure to see whose crafty blog is being featured today.  Kim created Today's Creative & she's also got a personal blog loaded with funny stories & crafty ideas, so skip on over to Scrap to My Lu!

to see what's up with Kim.

OK, now on to this week's Layout of the Week!

This is one of my favorites that I've made in the last few months!  I really LOVE Lily Bee, who made this cool paper!  Their die cuts are to DIE for...is that a pun??? :)  I knew I'd save this paper for something special and this photo of me & two of my bestfriends is just the thing.  That's me, Amy & Julie.  We've been friends since freshman year in college, wow, 22 years, say it isn't so!  We've been through all sorts of things together good, bad & ugly, but we're still together, well, Amy lives all the way out in Denver, but as together as you can be across a few states.  Julie & I really are together, I bought her house and when she moved a few blocks away, that's pretty together for two almost 40 year olds!  Every time we are lucky enough to be together, we take a self portrait.  Now, we've been doing this since college and even with the introduction of digital cameras into our lives, we still do it the old fashioned way...no, not with real film, but without anyone standing there looking at the screen to see if we're really in the photo!  It's a tradition, even the order we stand in is always the same.  There have been many special occasions when Julie & I (yes, we're the 2 Julie's) have taken a self portrait, just the two of us with a space in the middle, to let poor Amy know she's missed!  This photo was taken last fall when Amy came out to visit for a Duck football game...we're all University of Oregon Alumni and fanatically proud of our school & just about everything related to it.  It's Oregon, afterall, no NFL here!  So GO DUCKS!

I knew I'd have to print this one in my old standby sepia tone if it was going to work with the cream/brown/pink color scheme.  There's no way dark green and neon yellow would match with this subdued color scheme.  I kept the photo 4 x 6 so I'd have plenty of space for lot's of fun embellishments.  I added some cute ball fringe ribbon and a couple other pink & brown ribbons.  I love the Mark Richards Mosaic Tiles, cute little pink squares.  This was my first layout using them & I just can't stop!  For a some more bling, I added a little field of pink & brown Prima flowers.  For the centers of the flowers, I looked for tiny bronze brads.  Not finding any in my HUGE stash up in my studio, I settled for some copper ones.  Then I dipped them into some G Studio glitter glue and then my favorite brown Pink Paislee glitter.  I think they turned out great!  I also used the G Studio glitter glue & brown glitter to add a little flourish to the brown birdie paper near the top of the layout, a little difficult to see in the photo, sorry!

I used brown ink on the edges of my papers in this layout, I love the added texture it gives.  For my title, I chose some brown THICKERS.  I painted "3" & "us" with pink G Studio glitter glue and sanded the letters for "of".  I like the juxtaposition of the soft pink glitter and the roughed up word in between.  Hey, aren't we all soft & glittery sometimes and just a little rough around the edges other times!

I did enter this layout in Lily Bee's Design Team contest this week, so wish me luck!

Hopefully I'll see you Friday, over at Ann's, for her Virtual Girls' Night Out!  Such a great place to meet other cool bloggers, get & leave a few comments and see what's going on in the blogging world! :)

Tips

Of course, print your photos in sepia if it will help them blend better with your papers.

Don't be afraid to use one 4 x 6 on a layout, it will give you lot's of room for embellishments!

Ink the edges of your papers & embellishments for a little added texture and it's free to boot!

Chipboard letters, dress them up with glitter glue or down by sanding them.

If you're brads don't match your layout, dip them in glue & coat with opaque glitter, no one will ever know what color they really are!

Supplies

Patterned papers & die cuts - Lily Bee

Mosaic Tiles - Mark Richards

Glitter Glue - G Studio

Glitter - Pink Paislee

Ribbon - Creative Imaginations, American Crafts

Flowers - Prima

Brads - Making Memories

Ink - Creative Cafe

Alphabet - THICKERS by American Crafts

Layout of the Week - Bo Bunny's Love Bandit

I hope everyone is all prepared for Valentine's Day! I still have a few cards to make & projects to finish. I've been a very busy girl for the last week or so. I've finished quite a few projects. One for Delaney, this Valentine layout and one to submit for an Ella Publishing contest...if it wins, I'll share it with you when it's published and if not, it will make a fun Layout of the Week. I'll share the others with you soon.

I created this week's layout with my favorite Valentine collection of the season, Love Bandit by Bo Bunny. (Check out Bo Bunny's Blog for lot's more Valentine inspiration!)  I love the use of color on these papers. It's refreshing to get away from just red & pink papers for this holiday. Not that I don't love all the hearts & sparkle Valentine's brings, but too much of anything can be overkill. So this cute collection full of little racoons & bugs jumped out at me.

Once I chose the paper, I happened upon a sketch contest on Ella Publishing's blog. When I looked over the sketch, I thought it was the perfect layout for my papers & the photos of my kids. Since brown is one of my favorite colors, I love to use sepia tone photos. These photos are from Jake's 2nd Birthday a couple weeks ago. He's wearing his red Christmas "mun-in" (monkey) jammies and they certainly didn't complement the Love Bandit papers at all. So I printed them in sepia which looks great with the browns & other colors of these papers.

Lately it seems like I've been making a lot of single page layouts.  In the past, I was a total double page spread (DPS) girl.  My love of symmetry always led me to create two pages for each layout.  But I have started to find more value in one nice large photo for a single page layout, you know,  a picture is worth a 1,000 words & all.  But I love this Love Bandit paper collection so much, that I decided to add a right side page to my sketch for the Ella contest.  I chose the blue patterned paper, I like how it coordinates with the brown background of the left side without being exactly the same.  See what you think....

And here the two layouts are side by side, just like they'll look in my album...

I hope everyone enjoyed my Valentine layout!  And I hope you enjoy your long weekend...hopefully it is a long one for you like it is for us!

Happy Valentine's Day!

See you back here tomorrow for Ann's Virtual Girls' Night Out!  All you bloggers out there really should check out Ann's party!  We have a lot of fun every Friday night, meeting & greeting bloggers from all around the web and the world!  I wonder if Ann's theme will be Valentine's Day or the Olympics or a combo of the two.  Those of us on the West Coast are very excited that they Olympics are in our time zone this year, maybe we'll catch more of the action!

Tips

Use sepia tone photos to easily coordinate a layout with brown tones.

Use 7 Gypsies buckles to hold just one little knot of ribbon instead of on ribbon running all the way across your page.

Don't be afraid to use two different background papers on one DPS.  Do try for a solid or unobtrusive background if one side is a pattern.

Don't let your photos hide your pattern.  Get out that craft knife & use it to trim around part of your pattern.  Check out the right side layout.  I used the craft knife to cut around the portion of the tree that would have been hidden under my photo mat.  Then I stuck my photo mat under that portion of the tree, letting the tree pop out over my photo.

Don't let those extra dots that come in the packs of THICKERS go to waste, use them as mock brads!  I put them on my tags on the left side layout.

Supplies

Bo Bunny:  Love Bandit patterned papers, chocolate dot paper, stickers, ribbon

7 Gypsies:  Pink Buckle

American Crafts:  Green Glitter THICKERS-dots & bracket

Martha Stewart:  Punch Around the Page Punch

Layout of the Week - Valentine Card #2

Well, it's finally Friday!  It's sure been a busy week around my house...Jake's birthday last Sunday and our niece visiting for the weekend...Delaney out of school on Monday and lunch with my parents...Lot's of homework, housework, preparing for my Valentine card class on Sunday...And then last night two burglaries in our neighborhood.  I'm housesitting for my neighbors, who are on vacation this week, and someone broke down their door, but didn't end up stealing anything.  At least the alarm was set and seems to have stopped the guy at the door.  But just knowing that someone was next door to my house, breaking down the door is unnerving!  The police officer who responded last night and the detective I spoke with today said that both houses were dark with outside lights on.  So now I'll be sure to leave lights on inside my house whenever we are gone at night.  Sure hope they catch the guy soon.  I was asked recently if I thought of my neighborhood as safe and I said yes.  It sure seems safe to live in a nice neighborhood with nice houses and nice yards, close to a nice school.  But I guess I would have to answer differently the next time I'm asked....

OK, I'm going to force myself to think about something more fun right now!  I'm getting ready to teach my Valentine card class on Sunday at the Hillsboro Library.  If you're in the area, it's free and we'll take the first 15 people who come to make 3 cards, a gift tag and a gift box.

I hope you are all getting into the Valentine spirit, making Valentine's, helping your kids with theirs, or maybe picking out fun decorations for their Valentine boxes.  At Delaney's school, the kids make their boxes at home and bring them on Valentine's Day.  I'll have to share a photo of hers with you, once she's done with it!  If you're looking for Valentine ideas, there are some very cute ones that you can download, just check down the right column of my blog in the "Get Your Creative On" section for some of the latest Valentine blog posts.

I'm in the middle of a lot of great projects right now!  I can't wait to share them with all of you!  I should have some fun Layout of the Week features over the next few weeks.  I'll share some fun details with you, so you have something to look forward to...I'm making Delaney a Bo Bunny Chipboard album full of memories from her last birthday party...I'm creating 2 travel layouts with Reminisce's new Passport collection...I'm putting together a layout about me, yes ME, we really do need to have a photo or two of ourselves in our albums every so often...and for one last Valentine's Day surprise, I'm excited about a layout featuring photos of my two sweeties and Bo Bunny's Love Bandit Collection, one of the sweetest Valentine collections out there!

So if you're a scrapbooker or papercrafter, or if you know someone who is one, please sign up to follow my blog or subscribe to my feed to get my latest posts in your inbox!  I'm on a quest to get to 200 followers, and I'd appreciate any help you can give me!

In a trend I've seen on tons of other scrapbooking blogs, I've chosen 2 words to be my Theme for 2010.  I'll share them with you in my next post!  But part of choosing these 2 specific words, is that I have to put myself out there and ask for what I want.  One of my goals for 2010 is to become part of a design team and another is to find scrapbook related sponsors for my blog!  If you have any ideas to help me reach my goals, please leave me a comment!  And thanks for helping me attain my goals in 2010!

Card Supplies

Patterned Papers - 3 Bugs in a Rug, Smitten Collection

Cardstock - World Win, Bazzill

Sticker - 3 Bugs in a Rug, Smitten Collection

Cardstock Strip - Bazzill, Just the Edge

PS-If you're looking for a fun party tonight where you can hang out in your pj's & meet some other fun bloggers, join me at my friend Ann's Virtual Girls Night Out!  Ann is certainly the Hostess with the Mostest...and she needs a little company while she's home tending to a sick little one tonight!  As usual, she's sharing a yummy drink, some party music and a little game...just for fun and perfect for the chilly middle of our Oregon winters.

My Mighty 3

3 places I'd rather be right now:

1-Mexico....can't wait, I'm lucky enough to be spending a few days down there with some friends celebrating our 40 birthdays!!!!!! YEAH!  More on this later!

2-Sunriver, Oregon....the thought of a little snow and a toasty drink in the lodge...ahhhhhhh

3-Kauai....the Grand Hyatt, a lounge chair & the red dirt margarita, I'm drooling!

3 things I'll never drink again:

1-Boones Farm Wine....freshman year in college, YIKES!

2-Cream Soda

3-OK, this isn't a drink exactly, but never and I mean NEVER EVER consider trying a Cuban cigar when you've had too much rum or any other liquor for that matter...worst Jamaican memory!

3 people I'd like to have dinner with, not necessarily all at once:

1-Patrick Dempsey...you know why...

2-George Clooney...duh!

3-Rachel Ray...she'd be fun at a party and she could cook for me!

(I wasn't sure if the people had to be living or not, if they don't have to be, I'd put my Grandma Muriel at the top of the list.  I'd love to get a chance to ask her all about her life and being a mom!)

OK, now head on over to Ann's, join the party and let me know your Mighty 3!