Vintage baby boy album

I believe that a handmade gift really tells someone that you care.  You can spend lots of money to give someone a special gift, but there's just something extra special about a handmade creation.  Non-crafty people may not understand all the work that these projects take, but those amazing people in your life that are worthy of a handmade gift will sure appreciate receiving such a precious treasure.  For those who don't appreciate it....is a real shame

I made this album out of chipboard.  I made it for a baby shower gift.  It's a 6x6 album and I used the Graphic 45 "Little Darlings" collection.  This paper is so precious and it's the same paper that I used in my earlier post "She's Clearly and Emma."  For the album in that post, I used the girl pages and for this album, I used the boy papers.  The vintage baby images and prints are almost too cute to cover with pictures....but I still made this mini album with lots of room for those new baby pictures.  I distressed the papers with tea dye and antique linen distress inks.  I had the 12X12 sheets and the 8X8 pad, along with all of the chipboard tags.  Since this album was for a little boy, I used American Crafts jute,  opposed to lace and seam binding.  I also used lots of buttons and twine.  I bound the album with the jute, through punched holes, set with eyelets.  Here's the album and card I made to go along with it!

French Country cards....

Big sunflowers, chicken wire and artsy roosters.....all part of the gorgeous images in this Graphic 45 paper line, "French Country."  In one of my earlier posts, I showed an accordion album made from this paper and I really loved it, so I decided to make cards to sell at my craft fairs.  I used kraft Recollection cards and inked everything with walnut stain.  I had the 12x12 papers, the 8x8 pad and all of the chipboard tags.  Of course, I added lots of crinkled seam binding and vintage lace.  Here's what I came up with!

Autumn is falling down again.....

Autumn is my favorite season!  The air is light and crisp, the trees become a warm shade of orange, pumpkin spice everything is everywhere and most importantly...it's craft season!  I had a mat stack of the paper collection "The Gilded Orchard" by DCWV and I wanted to make a mini album out of it.  The papers were all oriented vertically, so I decided to make a vertical paper bag album, with chipboard covers!  I used a tutorial from mysistersscrapper on youtube (she's amazing!) and of course used the stack the deck binding system from Laura at following the paper trail.  I used 6 Recollections kraft paper bags, the entire mat stack, American Crafts Thickers, walnut stain distress ink, lots of different flowers and other various embellishments and crinkled seam binding.  The paper is absolutely lovely.  The colors are beautiful and include rich reds, purples, oranges, greens and trims of gold foil accents.  Here's my completed mini album!

 

 

A Year of Cards.....

Graphic 45 really did it this time.   They have created another absolutely beautiful paper line.  "Place in Time" is a vintage inspired collection that showcases gorgeous images for each month of the year.  My mother-in-law and I, of course, had to have ourselves another card making series.  She came over a few nights and we made 12 cards....one for each month.  We used Recollections kraft cards again for the card base.  From the paper collection, we used the 8X8 pad, 1 each of the 12X12 sheets and both chipboard tag sets.  We also added crinkled seam binding and various other embellishments.  They came out so pretty and I can't wait to make another project with this gorgeous paper line.  Here are all of our cards!  My favorite one is August!

January and February

January and February insides...

March and April

March and April insides.....

May and June (June was a wedding theme...so lovely!)

May and June insides.....

July and August (my favorite!)

July and August insides.....

September and October

September and October insides.......

November and December (I love that Santa!)

November and December insides........

October Afternoon

I wanted to share a few October Afternoon cards that I made using the Woodland Park collection.  I just love this paper.  The colors are gorgeous and it's such a happy paper line.  Here are my creations!