Surprise Mail, Surprise Post

I love getting packages in the mail, particularly crafty packages.  Well, today, I got my swaps back from a recent swap I was in, and here is the finished product:

So beautiful, so gorgeous.  My letter is the "E" on the end!  If you like this, and might be interested in swaps, please come on over and join me at http://minialbumscraps.ning.com/.  I love that place and I'm sure you'll love it too!  If you are an international person (i.e. outside the US) don't worry, there are LOTS of people from all around the world that come to Mini Album Scraps!  Hope to see you there!

Fun New Project Mini Album for You!

I am so excited to share with you all my readers my project that I have been working on.  Okay well it wasn't a very long drawn out project, but still it is very exciting.  Why might that be?  Well I was able to play with some of the new nonconsumables that I have purchased lately, but also, is a project that did not require using a single piece of newly uncut Pattern Paper or Cardstock.  Seriously, you probably won't believe me when I show you.  So, with that introduction, I present to you, my "Beauty of the Earth" mini album!

 I dunno if you can tell or not, but this is a shaped acrylic mini album.  I have a rather large quantity of acetate sheets laying around in my craft hoard, from the point in my life where I was really playing around with acetate cards and stamping on acetate.  I used the new Stampin' Up! Sizzix Framelits Labels Die to cut out the acetate into a fun shaped mini album.  Truthfully, one of the reasons I bought this die set was because well, I was dying to try making a shaped acrylic mini album with them!  I have not finished the embellishing of the pages yet, but I did want to share it with you. 
As you can tell, the theme of this album is the nature that I have been blessed to be surrounded by.  That's right, all the photos in this album are of places that I have lived, or stopped along the way to a point in my destination.  I love natural beauty, just love it.  A large part of me is very committed to respecting, loving, preserving, and protecting my earth.

One other thing, you don't have to use brand new sheets of acetate to make this project.  I have another project I will share with you shortly in which I used the acetate backing that comes with my clear stamps to crate an acetate mini album. You can also cut out the die cuts from your scrapbook prodcut packaging - this will also be coming up in another post very soon. 

This was such a fun little thing to work on.  I made this in just a few hours, and LOVE how it turned out.  I'm seriously contemplating making more and selling them or giving them as gifts.  And to be honest, I get excited when I am able to reduce my scrap stockpile a little bit.  The recycler in me has a hard time recycling even the smallest scrap becase I may be able to use it *at some point.*  Hopefully, you have found some inspiration in this post today and have a desire to use up some scraps and create a work of art!

Happy Crafting!

Supplies:  Stampin' Up! (Sizzix Framelit Labels Die; Loving Through Stamp Set; Handbill Headlines Stamp Set - Retired; Early Espresso Classic Ink; Cardstock); Tim Holtz (Paint Dauber in Brown); Unity Stamp Company (Growing In Unity Stamp Set); Prima (Pattern Paper); Bazzill Basics (Cardstock);

Internet Inspiration, Pinterest and a Card

 I've been hanging out on Pinterest a lot.  I recently joined after I found it an organization mess to keep track of all the beautiful inspiration that I was seeing!  And to be honest, I have seen to only forget and not be able to return to so many places with such gorgeous inspiration.  So, recently in my internet wanderings, I came across this beautiful card from Paisley Scraps.  You can find the original post here.

I immediately and instantly fell in love with this card, it gave me a shabby chic nostalgia.  The focal point of the butterflies was what did it for me.  And based off of that, I came up with this:

I LOVE how it turned out.  I made this particular card for a dear friend of mine who has a birthday in a few days.  This card was made from scraps around my desk if you can believe it or not.  And that pattern paper, I bought ages ago and hate (seriously, everytime I look at it I think, "why did I buy 8 sheets of that?").  Oh and that postage stamp edge, that is left over from a cricut mishap!  And here are some closeups of the yummo details:

Thanks for stopping by!  Please if you feel inspired by my shared inspiration, leave a comment and let her know!

Supplies: Kindness Matters Stamp Set (Stampin' Up!); Curly Cute Stamp Set (Stampin' Up!); Bazzill Cream Puff Criss Cross, Recollections Kraft (Cardstock); Button (Gina K. Designs); Tim Holtz (Embossing Folder); Stampin Markers Marina Mist and Daffodil Yellow (Stampin' Up!); Early Espresso Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!); Versa Fine (Tsukineko)

Mini Album Mishap

Recently, I published about the ins and outs of mini album makings.  Well, today, I thought I would give you a quick share to show you what happens when you don't use Redline or ScorTape.  Let me be clear, I Love my adhesive gun, I would not choose anything else, and the adhesive sticks.  And I mean it STICKS, really good, but making mini albums is just tough business.  You can see the original post that I am talking about here.  With that said, here are some photos or what happens when you use your normal adhesive gun:

 The above picture is a side by side comparison of an album made using ScorTape and an album using my adhesive gun.  If it was not obvious enough, the top album is the one put together with ScorTape.

 These two photos are of the album made with my adhesive gun, notice all the lifting, and puckering.  So unsightly!

And for comparison, the inside of the album done with ScorTape.  As you can see, the seam of allowance is much smaller, but is holding MUCH MUCH MUCH better than the large seam allowance in the album made with my adhesive gun.......

Card share

Today I thought I would share with you all a little card I made recently.  I've been very interested in shadow and reverse stamping lately.  For whatever reason I have this weird thing where if I am stamping saying floral images I like some to face one way and others to face the other.  But that's kinda difficult with the stamp being made for one direction....... For whatever reason, I find the same image stamped multiply in the same direction weird and irritating, it's a personal quirk. I have tried the stamping on acetate version and I don't really like it, so in this card, I tried stamping directly onto an acrylic block.  The results were more to my liking but not as bold as the stamping directly from rubber to paper, so now I am on the hunt for some shadow stamp blocks.  When I find some, I will definitely be making a post about them.  In the same vein, these shadow stamps are also used to stamp a solid background, another thing I have been playing with.  I used both techniques in the card below and am very pleased with my outcome.

 Also because you may be curious about what I am talking about, here are some links:

This is using Tim Holtz Inks to create a distressed background.  I have Tim Holtz Inks, but I wil be experimenting with my Stampin' Up! Inks to see if it also works with them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL7UMBUzVj4&list=FLnd9CK8AMsQOiRR5Jk5uzRQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video

The Reverse Image (or Mirror Image) Technique I was talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxbiBFC_nIg

And the same technique using Acetate:
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/reflection_technique/

Supplies:  Whipser White CS (Stampin' Up!); Crumb Cake Classic Ink, Chocolate chip Classic Ink, Elegant Eggplant Classic Ink (Stampin' Up!); Simply Soft Stamp Set (Stampin' Up!)

A Mixed Media Cover

A while ago I went on a crop retreat with some of my good and dear crafty friends. As part of the retreat we thought it would be fun to have secret sisters. I made lots of cool stuff for my secret sister but the thing that I was really proud of was this:

It's a simple but jazzed up chipboard cover to a Cricut Material Cutting Guide and a Sizzix Sandwich Guide. The cover was fast and easy I haphazardly placed the tissue paper and crinkling it with mod podge. Once that dried I stamped the butterflies using acrylic paint. The Field Notes was stamped in StazOn over white acrylic paint. The brown paint splatters were created using a loaded brush and flinging it to the chipboard.

Supplies:  Tissue Paper from Gift packaging; chipboard; White and Brown Acrylic Paint, Butterfly (Unity Stamp Co); Field Notes (Tattered Angels); Corner Flourish (Fancy Pants);

First Ever Project Made Entirely With the Same Company

I am normally not a crafter that sticks to one company when crafting.  I like variety and options.  However, recently, I have been trying my hand at sticking to entirely one company line.  This particular project, from start to finish is all one company Stampin' Up!  I recently got a new box of goodies from them (this is one of several of my favorite companies) and I wanted to to play with everything that I got.  So I did, and this is what I came up with:

One of the nice things about working with stuff entirely from the same company, everything coordinates.  This is especially the case for Stampin' Up!  All of their inks, cardstock, papers match exactly.  Although I am sure that I will always be a mix and matcher till I die, it was nice to be able to not have to work as hard to match things and find ways to match everything up.  Oh and that stamp set I used, I am absolutely in love with.  So yummy, it's a feminine masculine set which means, it'll be perfect for elegant man cards!

Supplies: Old Olive, Pumpkin Spice, Chocolate Chip (Cardstock); Neutrals Stack (Pattern Paper); Lattice Squares (Embossing Folder); Curly Cute, Nature Walk (Stamp Sets); Pumpkin Spice, Tempting Turquoise, Chocolate Chip, Basic Black (ink); Sketch (Card Positioning System)