Graduation Album

I have been working on my daughter's graduation album for a few months now and have finally finsihed it. I will be ordering Creative Memories StoryBooks for this album, as I want a copy for myself and my daughter, and there could be others who want a copy too. I have posted a few of the pages so you can see the end result.

I used her favorite color, purple, as the main color for the album. I designed it in StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 as a 12 x 12 book but decided that it looks just as good as an 8 x 8, so that is the size I will be ordering. I really enjoy digital scrapbooking in addition to traditional paper crafts. Each has its positive aspects and works well for certain purposes.

Welcome!

This is a project I will be doing with vinyl, eventually. I did a test with paper just so I could get an idea on what sizes I wanted each word. It will go above our entry door. We currently have an old fabric sign with the word "witamy", which is Polish for welcome, and no one knows what it means, so I used some other languages for welcome. Now I just need to find some time to cut it all out in vinyl and get it on the wall!

Rylynn's Polka Dots

This is a page I did of my friend's little cutie, Rylynn. I had the scallop/polka dotted paper in my stash and mounted it on a sheet of butter yellow that coordinated nicely with her outfit. The tag with ribbon is Creative Memories Tag Maker, which I sanded the edges of to give it a little contrast. She's a little doll!

Kalib

This is a page I did of my nephew Kalib. I used Street Sign Cricut cartridge for his name, and the striped circles were punched with my CM Circle Maker. The 3 layered circle on the ribbon was cut with the CM Cutting System Circle Makers, as the sizes of those were slightly larger than my shape maker punch could do. I still need to do my journaling on this page, but I like the end result.

Giddy Up Cowgirl!

I saved this embossed leaf paper from K & Co. for YEARS waiting for just the right photo to use with it. I took a regular photo and used photoshop to give it that "aged" look. Also used fabric photo corners from Martha Stewart to keep with the vintage look of this page. The copper metal embellishment was another one of those items I've had forever, and it looks great here!

Autumn Page

This was a really simple page to do, but I love how it turned out. One of those beautiful fall printed papers you're not always quite sure what to do with. This photo fit perfectly with a couple mat layers. You can't quite see it, but I sponged the edges of the torn layer with some brown ink to add a little more dimension. More pages to come!

Sweet Baby

This is my niece at 6 months old. I love the jacket she is wearing, because I too like to wear my leopard print accessories. I used Ashlyn's Alphabet for her name, and the heart came from Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. This was a fun page for me to create. The scallop under the ribbon was Creative Memories Scallop Circle Maker.

Cute as Can Be

I was at a scrapbooking crop Friday night and all day Saturday. Wanted to share some of my completed pages. The one with this post is my niece Rylee. I had tried several times this day to capture a nice smile, only to get some form of goofy expression from her. This shot was taken after she had made some more silly faces and as she headed towards me and the camera she gave me this nice smile right at the very end of her approach towards me. I used the Storybook Cricut cartridge for the swirly shape behind the photo. The only other embellishment I did was stitch around the outer edge with white thread.

Quilting Again

I started quilting again after at least a six year absence. I don't consider myself a "quilter" by definition. This project, a t-shirt quilt, is only my third project, the first two being small crib size & wall hanging sizes. I learned to do embroidery and cross stitch in grade school from my grandmother, but have taught myself the quilting process by reading books. Of course home ec class in junior high school gave me the basic sewing machine skills, but I'm no master seamstress either.

I know I still have a lot of room for improvement. I am just now understanding why you really need to press your seams and still mastering my own unique quilting stitch, which is a form of what is called the "stab" stitch, not as common as the standard quilting stitch. Some day I'd like to master that as well, but it feels so odd for me.

I'll post more photos as I get closer to being done. These t-shirts are from my fifteen years as a Willmar Jaycee. I didn't want to get rid of them, but didn't wear many of them at all. I'm recycling and preserving fond memories of my years as a Jaycee.

My next quilting project after this one I hope to be a denin quilt using my old jeans I've been collecting.

Back to sewing

My craft project this past Sunday. Finally got one thing off my "to do" list. It's called a Sweet Treat Bag after the HoneyBun Fabric by Moda used to make it (just 10 strips of fabric 1.5" x 44").

All machine sewn except the button and velcro closure for the flap. This was something I picked up at the Bug Bee Hive weekend scrapbooking retreat back in October after watching the local quilt shop (Sweetwater Cotton Shoppe in Paynesville, MN) bring one of their samples with that Friday night to show us. The kit cost $6.00...I just had to buy some fusing, the button and the velcro, so it was an inexpensive project, and wasn't as complicated as I thought it might be.


I don't do a lot of sewing, but when I saw the finished sample I had to give it a try, and for $6.00 I wasn't going to be out much if I ruined it.

Here's the link to the PDF for the instructions...http://www.unitednotions.com/fp_sweet-treat-bag.pdf