Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Mini album share - Z&B

Z sometimes gets left out a bit on the whole scrapping thing, I suppose it is being the younger, or that fact that I work fulltime now, or something, but I do sometimes feel guilty for the fact his book is smaller or he has no minis of his own.  So I made this fir his birthday 2 years ago, when I was laid off….  It’s also weird to see how my studio has changed, but that’s another story….
I generally like 10-12 pictures total for the minis I make, not sure, it just seems to be a goodly number.  So here I have them laid out in the order I want them to be.


I then trimmed them to the size I wanted for the book, which was 4x4”.  The book is 4x6 made from scrap chipboard I have on hand.  I tend to save the backs of paper packs, notepads from work, or anything else that has the natural, non-bleached color.  If you are concerned about acid, spray them first.  I do not.  So here you see my stack of chip and the trimmed photos, still in order.



I used coordinating paper from a DCWV stack, the text paper has “friends” words on them and liked that since this book is about them growing together as brothers.


I tend to be somewhat methodical about  how I put everything together.  Here you can see I have the photos on the paper that will be that page, and I’ve started to go through and decide what embellishments I want to use for each page & have laid them out accordingly.  Notice nothing is adhered down, in case I change my mind.  Sometimes I make my own, which is what I’m doing here, I wanted a star & I didn’t have one, so I made it & then covered it with patterned paper.  I find it easier to embellish each page prior to adhering it to the actual page in the book.  I can see the flow better & it allows for no prongs sticking out….



Once I do start adhering to the pages, I find using a brayer or some sort of roller really helps squash down the adhesive to get a firm grip.  In this case, I know he’s pretty rough on stuff so it’s a bit more important.


I did sand the edges of the pages.  For this I just have a foam sanding block that I use.  I like it because it will fit to the contours.  I just keep wrapping new sandpaper around it as I need to.  A glue dot will keep it together.  Also nice because I can adjust the grit as necessary.  This is the cover, and you can see my practice journaling in the background too.


The last step is to punch the pages & bind it all together.  These things do have a thickness maximum so sometimes I have to do the picture page separate from the core page. And then in this case I just used a scrap of a binder I kind of like the incomplete look.


So here you can see it all together….








Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Love is in the Air

June is, after all, the wedding month, so to celebrate here are some cards made up from scraps leftover from my altered letter project…
Cardstock is Bazzill Basics, paper is Basic Grey, Stickers are Art Warehouse, I think, and of course a couple of Dymo labels.







     

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Altered Letters



 



This papier-mâché letters I found at Jo Ann’s, they are kraft colored and about 24” tall and just begging to be altered.  The M I did after I moved back home, but the R below I did while the ex & I were still together for our mantel.  The stamping didn’t quite turn out as dark as I wanted so I went back over it with a sharpie & then put another coat of mod podge on it.  I also did a J for a friend, but I can’t find the picture of it now…



The B is just of all the nametags & whatnots he’d collected from all of his meetings & events.  I left the straps as I thought they were cool.  I also had some leftover badge holders that I thought would be cool to stick some pictures in.