My Mind's Eye and Perfect Paper Crafting Blog Hop!!

Hello!  Welcome to another Perfect Paper Crafting blog hop!  Today, the Perfect Paper Crafting Design Team will be featuring projects with My Mind's Eye products.  There is a $50 gift certificate to the Perfect Paper Crafting online store available to one lucky person who comments on all the blogs along the hop.  My Mind's Eye is also giving away their Happy Haunting collection.  You have until Friday, November 1st at 12:00 AM PST to leave your comments.  Good Luck!

It's a short hop list this time around!
Perfect Paper Crafting & Laura
My Mind's Eye
Pam
Jenny
Eva (Me!)
Roxie

Recently, I saw these layering tags dies and thought I really wanted those.  I love the look of layered tags so I used my Perfect Layers rulers to make some with My Mind's Eye Happy Haunting papers.

I have a tag die from Papertrey Ink so I used that as my smaller tag.  I glued that tag onto kraft cardstock and used my ruler to cut a 1/8th inch border around the whole tag.  I made 11 tags and put them together to create this mini Halloween tag album.  Hopefully, I will fill it with photos from this Halloween.

Here are some of the tags.  Lots of glittered paper in this Halloween set.

I love this tag because of the fun saying.  This was actually a sticker that was just a bit shorter than the PTI tag die so I placed the sticker onto cardstock first and cut it out with the die.

Another view.  Did I mention there is a lot of orange glitter on these papers?  A LOT.

Next on the hop is Roxie!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mini album continued (part 2)

I actually finished my mini album, woo hoo! I'm getting somewhat more motivated and trying to set aside more crafting time nowadays, but I guess I'll have to see if I can keep it up. This album didn't take too long since I kept it pretty simple, essentially using the PTI library ledger background and date stamps. I guess I should now make one for my son too, unfortunately I wasn't very consistent about taking a photo of him every month with the teddy bear. Plus I still haven't decided on what kind of embellishment to use for a boy, that I can make 12 different versions of.Anyhow, I'm reposting the first page because I added a swirly die cut from a Sizzlet flowery border decorative strip. It looked a little bare, and after I put some leaves on one of my flowers, I went back and added greenery to most of the other pages.

This is a folded vellum flower idea from here...minus the glimmer mist, which now that I see a photo of my flower, actually looks like it would help to add some interest to the color.

This one was a stamped flower from Beautiful Blooms 2 on the matching die cut. I don't know if I ever got the points on the stamp to match with the points of the die as per this video, I figured this was the best I was going to be able to do. Then I added a yellow papertrey ink button and stuck everything on to some girly K & Company ribbon that I picked up on clearance. I also happened to find the matching embossed cardstock stickers which I used on another page.

I tried to make a poppy like this. Somehow I couldn't get my cardstock to separate into layers very nicely or stay very poofy, so I used 2 die cuts to make it look a little fuller. I added some Spellbinder leaves from the daisy heads set.

This was a layered Beautiful Blooms 2 die cuts with the matching stamps. Hopefully with the sweet blush ink blending in to the sweet blush cardstock, the stamping is not too obviously off. Then I added a candy dot to the center.

This again was a layered Beautiful Blooms 2 die cut and matching stamp. I used pink vellum for the die cuts and a darker ink, I think it was hibiscus burst. Then I added an extra large eyelet for the center.
Well, that's it for now before this post gets too long.

The start of a mini album...

that might take me a long time to finish, so I'm just going to post the 2 pages I've done so far. I put these away while I made the birthday cards since those actually had to be sent off by a certain date, so hopefully I can get back to this at some point. I still have all my Disneyland summer vacation photos to go through too!

Anyhow, during Natalie's first year, I tried to take a monthly photo with the same teddy bear so this is going to be the collection of all of those pictures. At least I know there will only be around 14 pages.I used the Library Ledger mini kit from PTI, minus the patterned paper which is mostly in shades of blue. I stamped all the backgrounds in Sweet Blush on Rustic Cream cardstock. It took me a while to get the hang of lining the background stamps up nicely, good thing the photo covers most of the page (excuse the big face and messy mouth photo, but I didn't really have as many pictures to choose from as I thought). The words are from Simple Alphabet, maybe I should have actually stamped "1 day old" but it takes me forever to get the letters lined up straight on the block, so the less words the better. I think I'm going to aim for 1 main embellishment per page, hopefully I can manage to think of 14 separate embellishments.

The flower idea came from here using the Beautiful Blooms die. Except my felt is not as nice and fluffy as PTI's. I think I got mine either at Michael's or Hobby Lobby, it was on sale, but technically only like a few cents cheaper than the regular price. The regular felt looked a little fuzzy, so I got the "stiff felt" which yes, is pretty stiff, so it looks more like folded paper or something. I think I want to try the vellum flower next, minus the Glimmer Mist, which I don't own since I can just imagine my son asking "let me try" and making a huge mess. The page looks a little bare, but I couldn't think of anything else to add so I just moved on to the second page.

The photo is a little big since I printed everything at 3x3 and didn't particularly plan on using this fleur de lis pendant from Spellbinders until I saw it lying around. I was practicing cutting with the pendant because it was kind of difficult at first for all the little pieces to cut out nicely until I shimmed it with a piece of cardstock. Ha ha, I even used another piece of scrap ribbon and again, it matched pretty well so I'm glad I saved it! Again, simple, but I think at this point, my goal is to just get it done.

Graduation Gifts

So two of my most favorite cousins graduated recently from Northwestern University.  Isn't that such an accomplishment?  We are so proud of them and I can't wait to see where life takes them next, professionally and personally.  

I knew Sunghee's Graduation Cap Box and Almost Square Bag with the Mini Album would be perfect gifts for them once I personalized them.  Note:  Sunghee is closing her store TODAY at After Five Designs and her templates won't be available.  Grab them while you can.  

So here are the little hats!  They turned out so cute!  The little top/cover comes off where you can put a little gift inside.  I made the tassels with embroidery floss and attached with brads.  It's funny that I have almost 2 boxes of embroidery floss from when I used to cross stitch but I didn't have the right color orange or white so I bought new ones.  They aren't expensive though and really adds to the caps.  They are different colors to represent the different colleges they graduated from.  

These are the little boxes.  The pink one has crocheted handles and the flower in the middle was made with the garland die that I had won from Sunghee.  You just roll it up together and smash it down.  I have to say PTI makes some strong paper cause I really had to put some strength into smashing it down.  Either that or I need to work out more.  I attached a little button in the middle.  The kraft one has a handle made of raffia (I had that in my storage room too) that I just twisted together.  The flower is from some blog candy that I had won.  And the leaves are rub-on.

These are the mini albums with TGF's Grad Anya.  Aren't they cute?  I attached some pages with inspirational quotes that I found online. 

 

Some inside views.

 

I sewed the pages to the cover of the mini album with embroidery floss.

 

On the last page of each album I attached a ring that's inscribed with an inspirational saying too.  Overall, I thought these albums turned out cute.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Mini Albums & Goody Bags

Ever since I found Sunghee's blog Creativity In Progress, I wanted to create a mini album but didn't really know for what occasion.  Originally, I wanted to create a 5x7 photo collage of each child in my son's preschool class and put it in a frame as a graduation gift but then I thought why not make a little photo memory book instead?  So, I made 19 little 3x3 books!  Being a SAHM I'm so lucky to be able to go to a lot of the class activities and field trips even if I have to drag my toddler with me.  So most of the time I am carrying my youngest and trying to take photos of all the kids in my son's preschool class. 

I thought about how to put the photos in the books.  If I had a really great printer I could've printed the photos directly onto the cardstock and then just assemble the books but my printer sucks.  So I made 8x10 photo collages (each individual picture was 2x2 or less) on Photoshop and thought I could print them out at Sam's Club or Costco but thought I could save some money by using my father's printer.  His is newer.  But half way through printing, it ran out of ink!  So I had to buy some ink and didn't save as much money as I thought.  Anyway, I printed out all these little pictures and then had to cut them all out. 

Here's a close up.  I used the corner chomper and rounded all the corners of the pages and photos too.  Don't ask how many corners that was.  It was a lot!  But I like the look of it.

Here's another sample.  I stuck on some glittered chipboard letters (child's initial) from Doodlebug that I've had for almost 5 years!  The covers are all from DCWV grade school pad.  I ordered a couple of sets of these when they were on sale and they've come in handy for all these school projects.

Here's a sample of one of the pages inside.  I printed out little captions on return address labels to stick in the books and under the photos.  I also printed out a page for the teachers' names, school year and all the students' names.  I decorated some of the pages with little stickers too.  I wrapped each book in cellophane cause I didn't want the glitter to get everywhere.

I put some snacks, tattoos and a little note and tied it all up with the TGF name tags (See post HERE).  It's a good thing I found these clear bags at Walmart to throw all this in.  Otherwise I'd still be wrapping everything with cellophane! 

Finally done with these little goody bags.

If you'd like to make mini albums too, check out Sunghee's blog.  She has new templates out which are just adorable!  I already have a couple of ideas to make with those templates.  And they are on sale for a limited time only!  It's a deal.  See her store HERE for the templates.

I'm still finishing up some teacher gifts too.  Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Mini Tag Album

Hi!  I'm back (sort of) from being sick the past few days.  My New Year's Eve was spent trying to sleep early though I had a fever and some chills.  I feel better tonight to at least post my project for TGF's Retro-Fresh Tag ... You're it Challenge.  Now that Christmas is over and the New Year has begun, I'm faced with the next big milestone in my daughter's life.  She will be graduating from 5th grade and moving on to middle school this fall.  Seems like a long time off but I know it will come too quick like all special events do.  It makes me a bit sad and worried and I hope she transitions well into 6th grade and her new school.  I'm always worried about her making new friends.  I know she's got quite a brain on her but socially, I'm not too sure what's going on.  I'll be happy if she meets 1-2 really good friends that she can rely on.

Oh, did I mention how bright she is?  I truly do not know where she gets her brains from.  It is definitely not from me nor my hubby though we would really like to think it is from one of us.  She can read a book so fast and we're talking thick, a few hundred pages kinds of books and still retain the info.  That's definitely not me.  But I'm glad that she has found her talent early and that is what she enjoys.

Anyway, sorry so much blabbing and bragging about my daughter.  Hehe.  I'll introduce my tag album!

I cut some tags using PTI's tag sale die.

 Then I knew Annika would be perfect because this is one of my very first TGF's stamps and I bought it because it reminded me of my daughter.  See her books too?

Kindergarten.  (sorry, I had to conceal her face).

First grade.  (The grade sentiments are from PTI as well).  You can see how her hairstyle changes through the years.

Second grade.

Third grade.  I made some cork embellishments.

Fourth grade.

And her current 5th grade year.  Yeah, she's got some wild hair going on here.  Her used to be so fine and straight.  I don't know what happened!

The last tag is for me to write a little note to her and give to her on graduation day!  On the back of each tag, I hope to write down some memories from each of her grades.  I asked her if she remembered anything special from each grade and she said no.  Geez.

Being sick, I didn't get to make a special New Year's Day card though I had something in mind.  Maybe I can still get to it.  I'm really looking forward to this new year!  Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!