The clear albums allow you to use the less is more rule since by the time you get to the end, you can see an awful lot of the embellishments from the rest of the album.

Had I really thought how the rub-on was going to lay on between the picture and the album, I wouldn’t have put it there, but it’s not horrible in person:)

Sorry for the terrible picture!  Apparently I rushed through that page!

These little felt flowers were terrific for this project!  Same place that I bought the felt boarder, and I just added some gems to them.  Great, easy embellishment that was quick!

And, the final page:

Those who know my scrapbooking style know that I DO NOT ever write in my own books.  I know, it’s important, that generations from now will appreciate it, however, I just can’t.  So, I felt like it was important to do it here.  Now, you know why I don’t do it:)  I can’t ever write in a straight line!  I’m sure a handwriting expert can come up with the real reason, but none the less, it’s there forever and ever.

Rae

Because of the nature of the album, I kept the cover simple.  I wrote her name with stickles (I copied a stamp for the M and then freehanded the rest) and added three rhinestone flowers that I bought when I bought the album 2+ years ago at the Scrapbook Expo in St. Charles. 

I used some felt die-cuts that I bought at the expo last year.  While they are a terrific idea, I had a difficult time with them keeping their shape with all the little swirls and thin pieces.  I think that I paid a dollar for it, and I would probably buy them again, at that price, I would just have to mentally be prepared for fighting to get it laid down the way that I think it should be.  I also had imagined that when I put it on the other side, that it would match up.  Thankfully, it’s a clear glue, but it still gives it a much more cluttered look than I would have liked.

This is my favorite picture!  She knows that this isn’t the real Santa (this is the Holiday World Santa) yet she still believes and thinks that this guy has some really strong connections to the big guy!

I’ll post the rest of the pictures later this week!

Rae

For April, I used some rub ons that I found in the clearance bin at Archivers.  (Notice a trend…*I’m* so behind in scrapping that I can buy things out of their clearance bin and feel like they are new and trendy!)  They are meant to be layered, however, I just used them as they came in the package, because that’s what I do best!

Again, another simple page.  With the Stick With It Designs.

You can see the lack of coverage that I’m talking about here:

I rubbed the glitter into the design but still not in love with the coverage.

Rae

Now, using the home made calendar does take some getting used to.  It’s hard to coordinate the colors from one month to another.  Had I planned it a bit better, I would have printed all of the pictures in black and white, and used an overall complimentary scheme. 

I also used a new product, for me, though it was in the clearance bin at Archiver’s for 25% off so I don’t think it’s a new product to the rest of the free world, but I thought it was an awesome concept.  While I think that the concept is great, either I’m incapable of doing it correctly or it just didn’t live up to my expectations.  While the white glitter worked fine, and photographs great, in person, I’m not in love with it.  I tried other colors (like blue and pink) and they didn’t cover that great…same brand of glitter.  Also tried flocking it, and anything but white, and again, it washed out.  Overall, it’s not a bad product, though I’m glad that I bought it on clearance:)

Rae

I changed it up from the life time and a half calendar making debacle. Instead of using a pre-made calendar, and having to stamp 365 dates onto the calendar (while a terrific idea it is TIME CONSUMING), I printed the date portion of the calendar on 8.5×11 on my printer. It takes a bit of planning and I actually DID that! It worked, by the way, making the process SOOO much easier and faster. So, here is what the cover looked like:

I used some Bo Bunny paper that I bought last a bit ago:)  After looking at it, if I could get my hands back on it, I would add a ribbon where the papers meet.  Otherwise, it’s the look I was going for.

Rae

and this:

Seriously people…this is out of control.  It is a great idea if you don’t actually use the ribbon, because then it doesn’t unwind on you, and create this mess of beautiful ribbon.  So, I went and bought myself one of these:

These aren’t cheap.  I think, with my michael’s coupon, it was about $15-20 ish?  You might be asking yourself, how does she not know what she paid for this.  That’s because I bought it two YEARS ago!  See the dust on it?  I put two rolls of ribbon it in, and it was SUCH a hassle, that I stuck it on top of my shelf, and only pulled it down for you to see that I did have good intentions.  Now, it will go back on the shelf until I can find a home for it (preferably someone else’s home) or Maggie decides she wants that too!  So, I’ve tossed around a million different ideas…none of them were appealing to me.  Than I saw THIS and I was in love.  I knew that I had to do it.  So, from the above mess, I now have this.  It is a work in progress…but the actual concept is lovely, and I just wanted to share, as I know that I can’t possibly be the ONLY one to have this problem…right?  (Please, I need confirmation that I am *NOT* the only one with this issue!)

On top of that mess that you saw above, I just got another 25+ spools of ribbon for Christmas…along with a dozen bags of buttons, with anywhere from 50-150 in each package…but for the price and quality, you can beat them!

Edited to add:  Those are old fashion clothes pins.  I was able to find them at hobby lobby, but I’ve heard you can find them at the dollar store.  You put the ribbon in the ‘middle’ of the clothes pin (that part that you would put over the clothes line, if you were to hang clothes with it).  Then you proceed to wrap and wrap and wrap:)  Once your spool is on the clothes pin, I used pins that have the ball on the head of them (I’m sure that there is a proper name for them), but push it through the ribbon, and I try to aim for that seperation in the clothes pin, otherwise the pin sticks out and I’m afraid that it would get caught on something, though I have no basis for that fear.  It is time consuming, but that’s because I have a LOT of ribbon.  Something that is easy to do while watching tv though.  For me, personally, I can only do about 10-15 a night, and then my hand starts cramping up a bit.  The jars are canisters, I believe.  I found them at Wal-mart for about $7 a piece…so slightly more than the ribbon storage that I bought, however, much prettier AND they will hold way more than the thing that I bought! 

Rae

This was Christmas 2005.  Oh the problems I had with this card were NUMEROUS!  The intention for the silver overlay was to put silver embossing powder on it and really make it stand out.  Doesn’t work so well on velum.  So, I had to improvise, thus the above results here.  Then, the sentiment…oh, that one sure does get me!  I stamped it and then cut it…again, didn’t work out so well, and really, it sucks stamping a sentiment over and over again.  You get off kilter as you go.  I have issues taking straight pictures, let alone stamping straight!  I attached the girls picture underneath.  Now, I see the possibilities of what I could have done differently. 

Christmas of 2008.  Oh what a mess this one was!  I used my wishblade to cut those circles.  I lifted this off of a card that I had seen…but my thought was, I’ll use the wishblade to make the snowflakes.  After hours, literally hours, of trying to get the snowflakes to cut small enough to fit on those ‘ornaments’ I knew that I had to come up with something else.  This is what I came up with.  The embossing was horrendous, as all of the circles were already cut.  Those of you that did receive this card last year, I HOPE that I sent you one that was WAY cleaner than this one!  Ohh…and I had the entire set of 65+ cards last year assembled before I realized, I don’t have anything for the inside, minus the girls picture!  So I hand wrote our names, thus forcing me to have a plan for this year (puts you in the mind-set of punishment writing that teachers used to give us…reinforces the lesson!  Some merit to that apparently!)

This was my very first christmas card.  I had to save the best for last:)  December 2004, and my lovely, wonderful, ever-so-helpful friend Cyndi convinces me that I should make my own Christmas cards.  It will be SOOOO much fun, she says.  I believe her.  That year, I sent out 82 cards.  Do you want to know why I remember that?  Because that time is permanently etched into my brain as I sat at my kitchen table, until 4am trying to finish these up.  Embossing powder everywhere, trying to hear the newborn that was upstairs and didn’t like to sleep, trying to stay awake.  Oh, it was a lovely moment in time, let me tell you. 

However, this first card, with all of its mistakes and flaws (one MAJOR flaw was that I had to cut 2″ off each photo to get it to fit IN the card…what a HUGE pain that was!) was what set off the card making tradition.  I do enjoy it…after they are done:)

I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane with me.

Rae

This years card involved the following:  110 score lines, 220 punches of the scalloped punch, 55 scalloped jumbo circle punches, 55 small circle punches and 440 cuts on the paper trimmer.  All of that to produce 55 cards that resembled this:

Nothing spectacular, but do-able by all means.  And, for mass producing (I’m down to 55 cards at this point) this was a project that I finished in a little under 20 hours.  For me, that’s a record!  Normally, I spend about that trying to figure out what I wanted to do.  There are a couple of things I would have done differently, had I truly thought out the construction of the card.  I wouldn’t have scored the ‘pocket’.  Way too time consuming, and not very precise, on my part (scor-pal would have come in hand at this point in the construction!)  I would have purchased more than ONE silver marker to do the outline on my cream piece.  Not all the cards got this detail, as my marker started to die, and I wanted this project off of my list of things to do! 

Now, the sentiment, that is usally what hangs me up.  Will stop me dead in my tracks, with this gut twisting desire to scrap the entire card.  Instead, I used our Print Shop (probably 2.0…the thing is older than the computer!) and made a circle that was a tad bit smaller than the large circle punch I had, and I was able to get 20 on a sheet, and then just punched them out.  Now, one might ask, why didn’t you do that before?  I have, but it never came out clean.  It usually depending on me cutting them out, which is fine, if you take margins and dead print space into account…again, with the planning and thinking ahead. 

The picture that I slipped behind the ‘envelope’ I just matted on cream card stock.  I had grand illusions of putting a silver border on that also, however, with the above mention demise of said silver marker, that was not happening. 

Now, in years past, I wasn’t as prepared as I was this year.  I had all but about 15 cards completely assembled, so the night that I got the pictures, I was able to wrap up the project.  That was a huge load off of my shoulders and list! 

Next time, I’m going to show you some cards from the past!

Rae

They are silly but I sure do think they are wonderful!

Rae

I couldn’t find styrafoam eggs, nor could I find enough different flower punches when I went to Micheal’s nor Hobby Lobby.  Instead, we ended up with wooden eggs.  After purchasing a couple of different acrylic paints, along with glitter, tissue paper, paint brushes and tissue paper (and $35 dollars later!) we had everything we needed to make the eggs.

The blue egg with the purple flowers is just the tissue paper punched and applied with some water/glue mixture.  We ended up having to put two layers of tissue paper down because I went with pastels and they were nearly invisible.

The purple egg was made with redline tape and rolled in glitter.  The blue egg was made with stickles (warning…very very messy!)

The overall project wasn’t too hard, though it was time consuming to wait for the paint to dry…considering we had to hold them because I didn’t think that far ahead.  I think it looked great on the table, and I look forward to putting it on the table for many more years to come!

Rae