This is the cover of the mini-album I made for my mom. It was cased from Tricia's idea on www.tvweekly.com from the week before Mother's day. The album is entirely home made from a shoebox! All the paper used, save from the binding, was purchased in one paper pad, but unfortunately I don't know who created the set. If I can find out, i'll be sure to post it. The album is based entirely on my moms last trip in before Mother's Day, where we took the kids to the Butterfly exhibit. The pics turned out so beautiful, they deserved more than just a two page spread!! On the front you see embellishments (like the swirl things) that came fromt he booklet of paper, as well as the purple tag. I stamped the tag with a butterfly stamp and embossed in sparkle powder. The Making Memories was a set of individual letters purchased at Dollarama, and the swirl I've had forever. The binding paper and silver textured papers were purchased at Dollarama as well. Hope you enjoy the pages...I believe you'll need to click on the link "Older Posts" at the bottom to see some of the other pages, as well as some pages from a mini-album I made for my nan. Enjoy! And Happy Scrapping!!

This was the look of all the pages when it was all put together. If you look at the end of the posts for each page, you'll see one of the pages before I actually scrapped anything on them.

Page one. It's the first letter, G, so theres not much room here to add anything. So I used a rubber stamp of a butterfly (borrowed from mom...lol) and stamped and embossed in white. Then I did it again on a scrap sheet, cut out the butterfly and overlayed it on the other, so I could lift the wings, and you'll still see the other butterfly beneath. love this affect. Then I took a smaller butterfly stamp and stamped around the G and embossed in clear sparkle powder. The brads holding this together are two prong brads that I purchased on ebay. Love them.

Page two. My sister sitting in the butterfly exhibit with a butterfly on her arm. Across the top says "Mother....Grandmother..." and on the bottom, stamped and embossed in white powder says "Friend". My mom has been a great friend to us, and I wanted to really drive that home. She's a scrapbooking friend, and a sounding board when we're having trouble. Since I became a mom she's been a great help, respectfully helping me when I ask without ever stepping over her boundaries. She's great. The green flower is a plastic one from a set I bought last year that comes in all different colours.

Page 3. My Son, sitting on my Brother, sitting on my mom!! lol This page was simple, since I didn't have a lot of room to work with! It's simply the pic, with white ribbon around it, and a brad frame holding in place an embossed white stamp of xo's from Studio G.

My favorite of the pages. This is the fourth page. My mom and my DS one morning. The butterfly was cut from the page itself to overlay the pic, and is stamped with a butterfly stamp and embossed with sparkle powder. The G and M are cut with my baby alphabet set in my Cuttlebug. The ampersand I purchased at a local scrap shop, The Paperie. The page simply says "Gramma and Me". I love it.

Second last page. My sister, brother and DS Chase again, and the behind pic was Aiden, my brother and my son again. The little blue swirl came in a paper pack I purchased along with all the paper from the album. Not sure what the paper package was called, I misplaced the cover, because the entire paper pack fell apart when I removed the back to use for thick letters!! I think the sticker says it all here, since they live 4 hours from us. "Laughter connects the Distance between me and you" held in place with two brass dragonfly brads.

The final page. This is my mom, my DS Chase and me at the butterfly exhibit. I cut the corner butterfly out of the paper background, and stamped around it with Stupid G stamps and embossed in white powder. The purple butterly has little flowers stamped on it and embossed with Kaelidescope powder. The purple ribbon and purple string was added to finish it off, and stamped below the pic in black was the I Love You. Studio G stamp.

This was the pages before I started adding pics to it. As you can see, the words spell out Gramma, which is what my DS calls my mom. I came up with the idea one night while falling asleep, trying to think of another spin I could put on the beautiful album that Tricia had created! Once I thought of it, I could hardly sleep!!

Ok, if you look down a couple of posts, you'll see the cover for this mini-album that I made for my nan. It was approx 12 pages, front and back, and took me two days (not sure why it's called a 12 minute album! ha!) Anyways...here was page 1. This was a family picture taken about 3 years ago (as I was preggo with my DS at the time, thats me on the left with the belly! And my husband in the red sweater.) Anyways, where do I start with this page...I wanted a background that basically said Family. So...I got on my computer and wrote out anything I could think of in relations...ie, cousins, aunt, grandfather, sister, etc. In no particular order (so I made sure aunt and uncle were not together, type thing). then I used a different font for each title and printed it onto the paper. Well...my printer has a nasty little habit of taking the paper in on an angle...but I felt like Tricia for this one...lol instead of starting a new page, I used it with the words printed on the angle, and I think it turned out beautifully. I prefer this to the straight-on affect I was going for. So I inked the endges in matching brown ink, and added pink paper, and brown and pink flowers to accent the pic. The flowers came from a store in my moms town called the Crop Shop, and they were sold in little bags, so I'm not sure what the name of them is, but they are little thicker-than-tissue-paper flowers. So cute. The brads are puffy material with brown and pink stripes, and they were bought at Dollarama (my new fav store). I think it came together nicely, especially since theres a lot of pink and brown in the pic. I love looking at pics like this...although only 3 years ago, our clan has increased by 3, and soon four. My sister, brother and cousins are so grown now, she's taller than me now, and three years ago, she was the little girl in pink standing next to me!

This page was part of a two page layout along with the one below. I think it has a retro feeling to it, which I like, since the pics are from the 70's. The background was stamped in brown ink using three different flower stamps from Studio G. (I was going for a retro wallpaper affect). The photo corners were also stamped with the same stamps. The scalloped oval was made with my nestabilities.

This was page 3. I only took pics of the first three pages, because my camera was on the missing list of course. So I'll have to get more pics when I visit her again. Let me tell you what I did here...and mom's gonna kill me for posting this pic! hehe The middle is mom, the left is my nan and Uncle and the right is my Aunt and pop. The page was stamped randomly with a Studio G heart stamp. The middle strip of paper I've had for ages, and LOVE it...(I believe I've posted things with it before, actually), and it has a silver frame with I Love You. stamped on the inside in brown ink using a Studio G stamp. The black and white flowers are velvet self-stick flowers, love them, got them from mom. I think the page has a retro feeling, thats what I was going for anyways!

It's been a while since I blogged anything, but there is a good reason behind that! I have been busy making Mother's Day gifts (My MIL Loved her album, btw). But because my mom and grandmother live a few hours away, I didn't have such a deadline to get theirs finished. My moms gift is complete now, but I'm not going to blog it until tomorrow, incase she checks my blog. But I'll give you this...my nan has been a very important person in my life, so I wanted to do something special for her since the last couple of years have been difficult. I decided to put together a mini-album for her, using the 12 minute scrapbook as inspiration. I have pics that came from old slides they had, and I'll be using some of them, and then some new pics that I have gathered from our entire family. I have about 40 pics. I started it last night. She's coming to town tomorrow. I'm on a deadline. lol. But I work well under pressure...(good thing!) So I wanted to show you the cover. I L.O.V.E this paper!! Darren gave me a new paper pad 12x12's for Mother's Day, and this was one of the sheets in it. The pad is called The Breathe Paper Collection...bought at Michael's, and I completely recommend it to anyone, as it is beautiful!! So here's the cover, the letters were done with one of my alphabet sets for Cuttlebug, and using one of the pink papers in the new pad I have. Loves! Hope you enjoy! Check back tomorrow, I expect there will be a lot more to see!

Oh Dear....

REALLY should read my posts before I post them....LOL When I went back and reread what I had written....(I really shouldn't find this as funny as I do...lol) I realized that in the second last post from today, the page with the gold thread embellishments, I had referred to the stamp I used as a Stupid G stamp....LOL.....oh mys...it's supposed to read Studio G....and in NO way reflects how I feel about the Studio G stamps...I actually really love them. hehe....oh mys....

Here is the finished Project for the Circle of Life project that Tricia made on www.tvweekly.com a few weeks ago. It's a Mother's day gift for my MIL, and features mostly pics of her and my son, although there are also other people in here as well. I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out, it took me a while, the inside was harder than I expected it would be. I think it came together well, though! I hope she likes it! :) Happy Mother's Day to you all. Thanks for visiting, and happy scrapping!

Page one. For the sake of showing the pictures better, I've placed white paper between each layer so you can see them seperately. This is the top layer, and the only one with three circles. The first circle to the left is a pic of my unborn baby girl, Shaelin. The outlining paper matches the binding of the book, and the flower is a velvet 3D flower that sticks on, and was given to me from my mom. The middle circle has my handwritten lettering (My Nan) which was written in liquid emboss and then sprinkled with gold microbeads. The right circle is just three punched hearts and a wooden cut out heart which I bought in a set last night at Dollarama. I inked the heart gold.

Page two. Love these two the best I think. The left side is DS Chase, DH Darren, MIL Marjorie, and Uncle Eddie (Rest in Peace). This is four generations, and Uncle Eddie was the oldest living relative that they had on Marjorie's side of the family. The plaid paper I've had for a while, don't know the name off hand, but it's really beautiful. The corner is just brown torn paper and the word 'family' is a set of rub-on alphabets I have. The pic is held in place with two bronze drageonfly brads. On the right side is a pic of my neice Marlo and my DS Chase. Love the pic. The embellishment is a little die cut flower, purchased at the Paperie here in town. It's held in place with red craft wire.

This is the third page. The paper is brown, beige and tan diamonds. The left side is a pic of FIL and DS Chase at the beach a few summers ago. It is scalloped around the edges. The ribbon is held in place by a shiny silver brad. The left side I stamped Making Memories with a little alphabet stamp set that I purchased at Dollarama I think, and then a corner stamp that I've had forever. I was going to emboss it originally, but I think it looks better like this, and I LOVE the striped paper that it's on...it's by All My Memories, and the name is Happiness Stripe. I have a dotted co-ordinating paper as well, and I just Love to use them together.

The second last set of circles. These are done on a handmade paper that is stitched in gold thread. Wasn't sure I'd ever find a use for it, but it fits pretty good here. The left is MIL and DS Chase, and the heart is from a set of wooden cut outs that I bought at Dollarama last night. The outside is inked in black (wish now I had used brown instead) and the inside is brown paper lightly dusted with pink embossing powder, so you can sort of see the brown (which is why I wish I had used brown ink instead). The right side is a pic of MIL and DS Chase again (surprise!) when she came back from a visit to New Zealand. The embellishment is a little silver frame thingy, and instead I Love You is stamped from a Stupid G stamp and embossed in gold powder.

This is the last page, the circle on the left has a pic of MIL, FIL and my DS Chase at Christmas time. It's wrapped in two braided ropes, and the knot is unbraided. The colours are off-white, brown and goldish. The pic to the right was taken at the cabin last weekend when Chase and Marjorie were picking through Marjorie's mothers old jewellery. The embellishment is a little brown frame, and inside I used a Studio G stamp thats a heart and xoxo and embossed it in a metallic bronze. Love it!