Mini Smash Book

 I've been hearing a ton about smash books lately. Apparently, EK Success has a blank version of a smash book out that you can buy and make your own. I decided to give it a try. I came to realize that I've been making "smash" books for quite some time and just hadn't been calling them that.

I used my Bind it All, a bunch of scraps from my paper bin, and CTMH Roxie Acrylic Stamp Set to make this one.

There are probably way to many photos here, but bear with me, I wanted to show you some samples of where I stamped and the different sizes of papers I used in this book.

I stamped a little too hard on the left page and got a smudge of CTMH Cocoa Ink. Ordinarily, I'd rip out the page because it wasn't perfect. However, because this is a smash book, it isn't ment to be perfect, so my mistake just may turn out to become part of something special.

These are a set of little half pages I put in. If you've ever got those paper stacks of cut up papers from a local scrapbook supply store, you've probably seen these or have some in your stash.

 Most of the pages in this book are 5 1/4" square. But you'll find some are 3" and 4" wide x 5 1/4" too. I used mainly pink and hot pink with a few ivory pages.

I have this habit on not being able to throw away left over scraps of ribbon and paper. Bug wanted to help, so I left her use my stamp sets and stamp out some roses, hearts, and other images that we cut out of white card stock. Then we took a handful of tags, embellishments, scrap ribbons, and stickers and stuck them in a little clear bag to cooridnate with our smash book. Bell added a fuzzy pen and asked if she could have it as a christmas exchange gift for one of her friends in girl scouts.

What a neat idea. Don't you think?

Suzy
shop online now

Amore Scrapbook Photo Memory Album Keepsake

My husband's side of the family is a Italian. This photo album was inspired by the word "amore" meaning love in the Italian language.

I had this cute blue cherub angel love paper from DSW and used a recycled orange bag for the netting. (a brilliant idea by my son.)

A lot of love went into the creation of this book, and a lot of little hands helped put it together.

I created a felt pouch for this album just like I did for the A Lifetime of Love Album.  Using some red fabric paint we decorated the felt pouch with this book's title Amore.

The inside of this book, look like this (in random order):

This one was also placed in my shop over at etsy. I'm working on make a video as I mentioned about doing for the A Lifetime of Love album, which I'll share with you in tomorrow's post.

My favorite feature of this album is actually the red netting on the front. As I mentioned, it is a recycled orange bag. When my oldest daughter asked what to do with the bag, I told her to throw it away. Bless my son for speaking up and saying, "But we can use it!" When I asked how or for what, he said, "On the book."

My oldest daughter loves the wooden beads we placed on a journal card that you can slip a photo down through the ribbon or write on. Of course, my youngest child loves all the sparkling rhinestones.

What's your favorite feature of this Amore album?

Holiday Meal Planners for Teacher Gifts this Christmas

Every year, as Christmas approaches I'm always in a mad dash to come up with new ideas to give my children's teachers for gifts.  Last year, it was brownies in a jar, this year my local MOPS group made peppermint bark, bagged it, and put cute little tags on it. This year, however, I didn't make enough peppermint bark to go around to all the teachers during craft time. 

So this year, I thought it would be a neat idea to pass on the peppermint bark to the bus drivers and do something different for the teachers.

While standing in my local Michael's I picked up small weekly calendar pads that had the days of the week down one side and a shopping list down the other side.  Along with the calendar pads, they had matching recipe cards, note pads, and blank cards.

The cogs of creativity got to turning in the store and I brought home calander pads and recipe cards.   Then it was matter of getting out my Zutter Bind-It-All and with a few small helping hands to punch holes, another to do some artwork, and to-da!

These meal planners came together quite nicely, my son is exspecially proud of the books he made for his teacher as he punched, stamped, and picked out paper to help put them together. 

If you'd like to find out more about how I put this together you can check out the following article:

How to Create a Meal Planner Book