I did a little scrapbooking over the break (thus the vacant blog) and have a few layouts to share.  These two layouts used the Christmas List it! and one of my favorite scrapbooking tools, my Epson PictureMate.

My formula for holiday layouts below

Bright and cheery colors + wallet sized photos + happy patterns + handwriting = cute holiday layouts!

Do your holiday pages have a formula? Please share!

Hi this is Teresa from Talented Terrace Girls [talentedterracegirls.blogspot.com]. If you are saying what blog is that? Well let me tell you….we are a group of neighbors (8 to be exact) trying to swap and share ideas, recipes, and fun monthly challenges between us girls. We have a bit of everything and we love creating. We just started our blog June 2011 so we are a baby blog, but I am proud to say we have over 150 posts!!

Thanks for letting me share my idea I loved creating it.

Okay let me explain how this idea came to be. Every month over at Talented Terrace Girls we have a challenge where we are given an item and told to “create” something AMAZING! Well this month we were given chipboard. After much deliberation I decided to make a photobook! I have always wanted to create one from scratch but was always a little intimidated until NOW!

Supplies: chipboard, scrapbooking paper, pictures, scissors, glue (mod podge or elmers), embelishments (ribbon, brads, clips, stickers, etc…)

First cut your chipboard to 4”x 4”. I cut 16 pieces and used 2 of those for my covers. If you have a husband who lays carpet like me then you can find a cool knife to cut your boards with ease.

Now cut some paper you will use for binding the book, you will need 1 less then the number of pages you have. I have 14 pages so I cut 13 binding strips. This paper can be seen or unseen. I choose to leave mine seen so I didn’t clog up the page centers. I picked my solid colored paper and cut it to 4”x 2”. Now fold it in half length wise (hotdog style) with the pretty sides facing each other (kissing).

Now take 2 pages and 1 binding strip. Glue the strip onto the 2 pages so it opens like a book. The paper fold will face out leaving 1” pretty inside each page. Continue to glue all your pages together using your binding strip in between each page. Make sure to keep them as straight and flush as possible to create a more precise book.Once they are all glued together I added a thick layer of glue to the back of the binding to give it a little extra strength.

Now the cover! Take a large sheet of scrapbook paper lay it pretty side down, white side up. Then place both your front and back cover on the paper. But wait.. what is the little skinny piece in the picture?? The spine of your book of course! To make the spine cut a 4” piece then place the binding side of your book on the 4” piece and measure or trace the width of your spine. Cut it out and placein between your covers. Leave a little space between your chipboard so you have moveablitiy, allowing you to open and close your book. Now glue your cover and spine to the paper leave a 1” paper excess on each side. Now cute the corners of the paper off (the little green triangle). Now get ready to wrap your book cover! You are going to fold and glue each side down making crisp corners.

Your cover should look like this on the inside.

Next cut 2 pieces of paper 4”x 8” This is the inside page that is attaching your cover and pages together. Fold this paper in half (hamburger) so you have a 4” square on each side of the fold. Cover your first page of the book with glue, then place the 8”x4” paper onto the front page. You need to have the fold match up with the binding side. Let dry for a minute so it won’t shift on you. Then put glue on the inside cover and attach the other half of the 8”x4” paper to the cover. This paper is what holds your cover and pages together. You wont be adding glue to the spine.If you want to tie some ribbon onto the spine of the cover now is the time. Next attach the back cover. TADA!! You have assembled your book.

Now cut and decorate the pages! I cut my main page paper 4”x 3.5” this left a little of my binding color showing on each page. After I attached the main page paper I scuffed it with a little brown ink to give the distressed look.

Let me explain the use of my book-One of the family traditions I grew up with was….Christmas morning pictures on the stairs! Now mind you this was before we got to open our stockings and while we were still wearing our new jammies from Christmas Eve. Lets just say mom has a ton of these Christmas morning pictures so this book is going to be our yearly Christmas morning pictures (I know this pic is not from the morning please don’t judge me I messed up on printing the pictures I thought I could crop them down but NO I need to print them in wallet size cause I edited them all and zoomed them in so there was no crop room)

Here is the cover completed!

This is a look at all the fun paper I used.

I love my little book and can’t wait to make more for gifts. Thanks for reading my post and please check out my fun blog Talented Terrace Girls

 

We are on the lookout for Father's Day gift ideas and so far the favorite DIY picks from the web are...

wooden alphabet block photo holder



free printable card from Cathe Holden


gift packaging shared by Amy Coon at the Creating Keepsakes blog

What about you? Have you seen any fun ones? Please share in our comments.

Summer vacation is just around the corner, and if you’ve got school-aged kids you know that means your scrapbooking time will likely take a backseat to keeping the youngsters amused.

Now that Spring Training has you in top scrapbooking form, it seems a shame to lose your momentum. What you need is a PLAN, disguised as kid-friendly fun, to score you some extra creative time this summer.

That’s where Kidding Around {2} comes in.



Six weeks of cool summer activities and journaling prompts will ensure that if you can’t beat ‘em, you can at least join ‘em in sitting down to record some excellent summertime memories. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to instill the value of memory keeping while the kids are young. These are the people who will be fighting over who gets to proudly display your scrapbooks one day, after all!

Because Ella always has some tricks up her trunk and wants to do everything under the sun to spread the scrapbooking fun, we’re giving away a seat in the hottest summer class for kids! Just leave a comment telling us your favorite summer childhood memory, and we’ll award one lucky reader with a summer full of Kidding Around.

Dive in, we can’t wait to hear what you’ll share!

(p.s. Tune in tomorrow and the rest of the week for JOURNALING WEEK here at Ella. You won't want to miss this!)

Happy Tuesday all! Ella friend Valerie here. I’m excited to be kicking off baby week at the Daily Trumpet. What a joyous occasion to celebrate and mark with a keepsake gift. I love making gifts for new babies!  I’m a huge fan of the mini album and I tend to make these the most when it comes to giving a gift for this special occasion.

Here’s a small album I whipped up that has the feel of a little board book:



The design is clean and the concept is simple: a page for a few facts about day 1, then a layout for each month of the baby’s first year.



Each mini layout has space on the left for recording important facts or milestones in that month of the baby’s life. There is space on the right hand page for a small photo or two. Simple and not overwhelming to a new mom, who may also be brand new to the idea of scrapbooking.  A mini like this is a great way to introduce someone to this hobby in a format that might not be familiar to them.  Most people tend to picture expansive 12 x 12 albums when they think of scrapbooking.  Starting off small and simple like this is so much less intimidating.



A simple little mini like this is a great, quick gift that could even be displayed as it is being completed.  I’m sure any new mom would love to receive a little keepsake book like this, and even more excited to be involved in its completion.

Materials
Chipboard album (Maya Road) + cardstock (Bazzill) + patterned paper: My Mind’s Eye, Basic Grey + letter stickers (American Crafts, Jenni Bowlin) + stamp (Stampin Up) + ink (Jenni Bowlin) + ribbon (Little Yellow Bicycle) + pin (Tim Holtz) + pearls, tag punch (Martha Stewart) + die cutter (Big Shot)  by Valerie Mangan

Because it is, in fact, Wendy's birthday today! And that means a discount for you. Ain't life grand?



Pictured: Wendy showing off the 40 birthday cards the old Simple Scrapbooks magzine team gathered for Wendy when she turned 40 a few years ago! (While we may miss several thigns about our old jobs, the gray cubicles are not among them!)

To celebrate her big day, Wendy is offering you a rockin' deal! (We'll, I'm offering it on her behalf because she's far too modest to be as shameless as I am willing to be.)

And just like last week, when Angie made a big freakin' deal out of her birthday, we're going to force you to tell Wendy HAPPY BIRTHDAY in order to enjoy the discount. There's no shame in a little coercion, is there?

To celebrate Wendy's fabulous 43rd year, if you buy one eBook today, you can get a second eBook for 43 percent off! Use the code HAPPYBDAYWENDY at checkout by April 7.

And be a pal and leave her a little note below, while you're at it!

Hello everyone- feast your eyes on these springy products- what are you exciting to be working on? I am finishing some pages that are candy colored- thus the candy. Do share your current projects.



spring colored candy by Selfridges

alterable wooden buttons by Maya Road

5 things I love about you project by LYB

say cheese stamps by Lawn Fawn

dinner party conversation starters by Kikki K

colorful twine by Pink Paislee

love the twine packaging sold by Kikki K

spring garland kit by Jenni Bowlin

Are you up for a good challenge? Here is the second challenge from Aby and I based on our eBook shown above.


Scrapbook about a tradition you have carried on since childhood.

Aby's take


Journaling reads, "Cutting down fresh Christmas Trees is a long standing tradition. When I was a kid, my family would get a tree the day after Thanksgiving. We drove to a farm out in the country and strapped the tree to the roof of the car. When Jay and I met, we carried on the tradition. He loves spending time in the country and he loves cutting down fresh trees. It's something we've done since our first Christmas together and we carry on the tradition with Collin and Kailea. We've cut down trees in the rain, snow, mud, warm days, and cold days. These photos were of a particularly frigid tree cutting expedition. The best part of a cold tree cutting day...hot chocolate and snuggling to keep warm.

Wendy's version


This layout is all about the tradition of dying eggs before the Easter holiday. It is a completely fun time- no stress, no pressure, just fun and easy for everyone to enjoy and participate. I found the photo of me and my dad- pretty cool! Plus I used the new  Neighborhood line from Crate Paper- so cute!!

Here is a new challenge for you from the authors of, Creative Ideas for Events and Holidays. The book features the dynamic team of Sara Winnick and Margaret Scarborough. In their new eBook, they tackle 12 unique scrapbooking challenges, sharing dozens of ideas for freshening up birthday layouts, Christmas pages, and Halloween designs—not to mention layouts about the first day of school, Valentine's Day, Disneyland vacations, and more! Get ready to get inspired. We asked them to make some pages exclusively for our blog. Second up is a photo mat challenge.

Mat your photos on a neutral colored tag, frame, or cardstock

From Margaret

This layout documents a somewhat bittersweet day for both Matthew and I. Although he was super excited to go back to school to see all his friends, he also knew that this was going to be his last quarter there as we would soon be moving to Florida. Thankfully, he’s made several good friends here in Florida too. And he still manages to keep in touch with all his California friends via the phone and computer.

If you have pictures that have colors that are hard to coordinate with, try using a neutral color scheme and add just minimal amounts of color. The shipping tags serve as perfectly sized photo mats and keep with the neutral color scheme.

From Sara

I love the look of kraft and distressed white paper for a simple clean look, but found that my page needed a little pop of color.  To add color without adding patterned paper I stamped the bottom edge of my kraft paper with colorful eggs.  Because this was all done digitally I was able to pull the colors for the eggs directly from my photos using the eyedropper tool. I used the mailing labels with decorative edges as photo mats to add minimal contrast.

Supplies: patterned papers (Sketchbook Artistry by Sue Cummings (for Oscraps), Kraft by Crystal Wilkerson) + stitching and eggs (Katie Pertiet) + photo mats (Paislee and Feifei) + Teletype and Calibri fonts

1. Smash book (K & Company/EK Success)

Smash is my top pick from CHA this winter. Part art journal, part notebook, and part scrapbook in the true sense of the word, Smash is a place for all the scraps, bits, and doodles that make your life YOURS. I love the design, the colors, the trend-on accoutrements…but most of all I love how accessible this makes scrapbooking to the average person who just wants a place to stick the stuff that matters. Plus, the included pen is completely ingenious – archival ink on one end, and a glue stick on the other. Smash will be smashing into scrapbooks stores in April.

 

2. Fun button sets

I can’t resist buttons in happy color combos or cute shapes. Here are a few that caught my eye on the show floor:

Little Yellow Bicycle debuted these adorable chipboard tree stump buttons as part of their new Twig collection.

Crate Paper and BoBunny both offered button sets with a hodgepodge of shapes and sizes, color coordinated to each of their new lines. I love the variety in these packages. It’s almost like someone rifled through Granny’s button jar and picked out just the very best ones.

5. Zapdots

I love using foam adhesive dots to add dimension to a project or page, but it drives me nuts when the white edges show. Clear Zapdots from Helmar are the perfect solution!

Favorite project:

I was completely “blown away” by this gorgeous kite at the Girls’ Paperie booth. What a clever way to showcase the colors and spirit of their new Jubilee collection!