Card Book

When my Grandpa died in 2003 we took all of the photos and put them into Rubbermaid tubs.  The plan was to get together and go through the photos the next summer.  Well, we finally got around to going through the photos eight years later.  Among the photos was a book filled with greeting cards, and I really liked the idea as a way to keep Melodi's cards.  After some searching I couldn't find anything pre-made so I decided to make one.  I don't know if I was packaging up a package to mail or if I was thinking about the project, but I realized that a USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate small box was the perfect size for a stack of greeting cards.

Here are some pictures.  I'll come back later and add some explanation.

Plugging Away

Getting so close to being done with Melodi's first year album.  I've finished a few pages in the last couple days.

This one is from the Cricut Community Layouts weekly LID challenge.  They are set up to be 12x12 pages, but I do 8x8 pages so I always have to do a little creative adjusting.

www.pagemaps.com

New Machine, Organization and a Page

I needed more space to store stuff because even with the shelf I have my work space was always cluttered.  We had a small cabinet that my parents gave us on the other side of the room I work in.  I ended up going through the stuff in it to get it a little more organized, and decided that it would fit photo boxes rather well.  It can hold a total of 12 boxes now that we have taken the shelf out of the lower section.  I have 9 photo boxes, which hold the following:

• Cuttlebug plates and embossing folders
• Adhesive
• Scissors
• Punches
• Stamps
• Photos (2 boxes)
• Embellishments
• Mat Paper

I also have a couple old boxes that still have photos in them that need sorted through (these boxes will eventually be replaced with black photo storage boxes).  There is a drawer that only has my chalks in it, so it's pretty empty.  The top portion of it folds down to give a little more work surface and it holds pens, random stuff, note pads, staplers, hole punches, and my address books.  Sitting on top of the cabinet are my paper files.  I needed some way to organize my 12x12 paper because the folders I was using were only 9 inches high so I got some clear envelopes from Hobby Lobby and have paper (and scraps) sorted into them.  I also have a box that contains 8.5x11 cardstock packs and my 8x8 paper stacks.  It is great that I am slowly figuring out the best way to set up my workspace so that I have the room to accomplish layouts.

I also got a page done.  This is one that I had precropped from the batch of photos that we took between the beginning of January and Valentines Day.  I have my layout figured out but was waiting to get my Cuttlebug folders to us them on the color squares.  Over the course of exploring scrapbooking resources on the web I have come across a lot of "square" layouts where all the photos are squares and they have some color squares, and everything is laid out on a grid.  I haven't had a set of photos that really works for a page like that, so this is my take on that type of layout.  I used the Robotz font for the title and the Tiny Mosaic Text embossing folder.

Back After a Break

I've taken a little bit of a break from scrapbooking, but definitely not paper crafting.  My baby girl just turned one last month and while everything from January 5th through February 14th was printed before her birthday, I haven't had time to work on her book since I finished with the Christmas pages in early January.

My other paper crafting included a banner for Melodi's birthday party decorations, thank you notes, and a birthday card for my cousin Alicia.

I took all the pictures up through Valentines day, cropped them down, and did a little layout planning.  This weeks LID on the ProvoCraft message board was actually going to work for one of my layouts, although I had originally only planned on using the larger photo for this layout.

Melodi's First Birthday

Last Thursday was Melodi's birthday and we had a party for her on Saturday afternoon.  I had fun doing a project with my Cricut that wasn't a layout.  This was also the first time that I used design studio for a major project.

My mom bought Melodi a "Baby's First Birthday" onsie with a cupcake on it so we did a cupcake themed party.

I managed to fit all of the banner pieces on four 12x12 pages, including the frill that went along the top, using Design Studio.  I added letters to each of the pieces in DS to spell out "Happy Birthday Melodi" then backed the pieces using black paper.  On the four blank pendants at the beginning, end, and between words I added smaller black cupcakes.

After hanging the banner we decided to add a large cupcake above the banner.  I used a sharpie to define the frosting lines from the back of the cupcake, and also around the green backing of the dot cuts.