Carol's Smash Book!

I made a Smash Book to take on vacation!! I love the way it turned out! It's 6x12, and I used my Bind It All to bind it! I used paper that I don't particularly care for anymore, and it's perfect for this book! The papers are going to be covered up anyway! I can't wait to start adding things to my cool new Smash Book!!

The papers are pretty BOLD, aren't they!?! What was I thinking when I bought some of them!?! I hope you're having a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

Emily at 13!

Here's a side view of a special project that I just finished.


I made a mini Bind It All album for my daughter Emily. To celebrate her 14th birthday, I decided to make her a book that focused on her first year as a teenager. I used a fantastic American Crafts Teen Collection that I purchased at Scrapbook Steals! I love Scrapbook Steals!! ♥ This book has 41 pages inside! I cut most of the pages with my Cricut Expression. I love the different shapes and sizes! Most of them were cut with the Accent Essential cartridge. I also used Mini Mongrams. I love the way this turned out, and I think Emily loved it too!!


Here's a look at the first page. It's Emily's 13th birthday cake. You can see the cool shapes of the pages! Plus, I love how when you're looking at a smaller page, you can see lots of other pages in the book. I love the colors in this American Crafts Teen Collection.


I put photos only on the front sides of the pages, and I pretty much just put short captions and dates on the backs of the pages. This way, if Emily wants to write something about the photo on the page, she can!


I used lots of flowers, flair pieces, and ribbons in this too. The American Crafts Teen Collection ribbon is so cute too!


Love the flair on this one. It says "rock on", and it's on a page with Emily listening to her iPod. Love the iPod sticker!! In fact, I love the funky harlequin print on this page too.


This is a photo of Emily receiving her first iTunes gift card. The bag was weighed down with rocks from my MIL's Arizona landscaping. Very funny!!


This page had to be special, because it's Emily's favorite photograph from 2009!! Jessica asked me to take a picture of her jumping off the saucer swing. I did, and silly Emily jumped into the photograph! The expression on her face is hilarious! I also love that Princess is standing there no doubt wondering why someone isn't throwing her ball! These girls are the best!!


Here are the girls and I with our ginormous slushies from Speedway! We emailed this photo to Dave. He was out of town, and he is the one that normally take the girls to get slushies. He couldn't believe we would go get slushies without him. It was Jessica's idea! It really was!! ☺

In 2009, Emily got her first pair of glasses. Isn't she cute? I love the smaller pages in the book, because you can see so many of the awesome paper patterns behind it!

Love this photo! Jessica was also in the photo, but I cropped her out and enlarged the photo. I wish you could have seen the look on Jessica's face when I told her that I cropped her out! It wasn't good! She forgave me! I made a copy of the photo before I cropped her out. Just so you know that I'm not that mean!!

Dave and Emily were pointing out that the Diet Cherry 7-Up that they're drinking has "antioxidants"!! Ever since we saw the Alton Brown Welch's commercials were he talks about antioxidants and antioxidant power, we just love saying "antioxidants"!! We're crazy!


This is the last page in the book. It's a photo I took of Emily the night before her birthday! It's her last day as a 13-year-old. On the back cover, I wrote her a personal note!! ♥

So, that's just a glimpse of the pages in this 41-page mini album!! I had so much fun making it, and I think giving Emily a look at a year of her life was a great idea! It can't even begin to let her know everything that she did as a 13-year-old, but it can make her smile and laugh at her first year as a teenager!

I hope you're having a great day. Thanks for stopping by!

Teacher's Bind It All Book

Emily and I worked on this Bind It All book this week for her teacher who is retiring. Each page features a personal note from a student in her 8th and 9th period Language Arts class. Emily designed everything, and she had my help putting it all together.


This is the cover. It features a My Mind's Eye Daily Dose journaling card with Making Memories tiny alphas. There are also two Petaloo flowers with a Making Memories button center. The gorgeous paper is also My Mind's Eye. Some of the ribbons are American Crafts.


The inside cover features a couple of sentiments from an upcoming retirement set of printable images from The Cutting Cafe'.

This is the first page in the book. Emily typed up the information, and we printed it directly on the My Mind's Eye patterned paper. The circular sentiment is a cardstock sticker from my stash.

This is the inside of the last page. This is another sentiment from the upcoming retirement set of printable images from The Cutting Cafe'.

I love this sentiment! This is also from that retirement set at The Cutting Cafe'. This is on the backside of the last page of the book.

This is inside the back cover. Once again, an awesome retirement sentiment from The Cutting Cafe'. Hopefully this is true for Emily's teacher! Retirement is such a milestone, and I hope she enjoys her free time! Emily did a great job with this book, and I hope her teacher LOVES it! How could she not? It's gorgeous!

Have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by!

Frame Bind It All Journal

Regina at The Cutting Cafe' has done it again. Her designs always have such a "WOW!" factor for me! She just came out with Huge Frame Printable Stamps and Huge Heart Printable Stamps. This is a project using the small inner frame in the Huge Frame Printable Stamps set.


I received the new files from Regina, and I'm so excited, because this frame is so cool, and who doesn't love hearts? So, I cannot wait to work with them!! I really want to use them on some scrapbook pages. However before I get a chance to do that, my youngest daughter and I are looking through an Archiver's ad, and they're showing Bind It All projects. There are going to be some Teresa Collins Bind It All covers coming out, and they kinda resemble the Huge Frame that Regina just sent to me!! So, my youngest daughter and I print out the small inner frame, use it as a template, and we cut cardboard in the same shape. I just used my Xacto knife and followed the design. We then printed the small inner frame two more times on the backside of two sheets of patterned paper. These became the pieces that covered the cardboard for the front and the back covers!! In order to get a flat side for the Bind It All binding, I just trimmed a small portion of the side of the frame. We used a lot of My Mind's Eye on this Bind It All journal.



This is the inside of the journal. Jessica designed the inside. She really likes the natural look of the cardboard. The inside pages are 4x6 index cards. The first sheet is cardstock, and there are some Chip Chatter chipboard letters, a foam flower, and a rhinestone. The inside front cover just has a MME paper strip and a die cut flower. We also added some FUN Heidi Swapp tabs to some of the pages.


This is also MME paper and rub ons. Isn't this CUTE? I just LOVE the shape of this frame, and I think it makes an AMAZING cover for this unique Bind It All journal!! Don't you? You can click on the photos to see them larger. Be sure to visit The Cutting Cafe' and see what else Regina has to offer. You will be amazed at the fun creations that she's made!!

My girls and I had a very fun pajama party last night, and we've been hanging out all day. I hope you're having a fantastic weekend!! Thanks for stopping by!!

Teacher's Gift

My youngest's 5th grade award assembly was yesterday, and I am so proud of her! My daughter won the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence, an honor roll award (straight A's all year), a singing club award, and a perfect attendance award. She had a GREAT year this year! Go Jessica!


She had her 5th grade field day before the award's assembly, so she was a little disheveled at the assembly! Look at that smile! Well done sweetheart! I'm beaming with pride!


This is the teacher's gift that we put together for her 5th grade teacher. The 2nd card is for her social studies' teacher. The tin and the "don't forget" pink/green/yellow pad came from Target. We tied some pretty ribbon around the pad, and added a large altered paper clip. There's some candy too . . . YUM! We also included a Bind It All book.


Here are the gifts inside the tin. I used my big Cropadile, Mr. Big Bite, to punch through the tin and add the eyelet that is holding on the flower/ribbon stack. Jessica designed the cards to coordinate with the pad of paper. Aren't the cards FABULOUS? She used her set of "girly" ki Memories acrylic stamps on the cards.


These are the magnets that we made. We used one of my new Stampin' Up sets. CUTE! The magnets are so fun, because Jessica put them on the outside of the tin!


This is a binder clip that I altered along with the two cards. How fun! I hope her teacher likes it all.

Today is the last day of school, and they only go for one hour, and then summer vacation has officially begun! This school year went by FAST! Both of my girls will be at the junior high next year . . . I can't believe it! Have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by!

Another Autograph Book

I have another guest designer today. This time, I'm showing you Emily's autograph book that she made for her friends to sign at school. Once again, it's very cute and colorful!


Emily used Love, Elsie Riley papers, added a Prima Sprite stack, and a chipboard button to the center of the flower stack. The arrow is also a chipboard button.


She personalized and decorated the inside front cover and the first page.


She personalized the inside back cover.


This is the back cover. CUTE!

I have to cut the grass today. Have I mentioned that I hate cutting the grass? It takes way too long, and it's exhausting! Oh well! Maybe when I'm done, I can squeeze in some crafting time. I hope you all have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by!

Autograph Book

I have a guest designer today. My daughters both made autograph books for their friends at school to sign. This is Jessica's book. It turned out so CUTE! It's colorful and very FUN!!


She used Love, Elsie Lola papers and stickers. The flowers are Prima Sprites with a button in the center. This book is 4x4.


Here's the inside cover and the first page. FUN! She played the french horn all year . . . I love the addition of the little bit of sheet music!!


This is inside the back cover. 5th grade rocks!


And this is the back cover. I just love the Bind It All!

I'll post Emily's book tomorrow. I hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday. Thanks for stopping by!

Bind It All Extravanganza!

I plan on making quite a few Bind It All journals for the craft fair. If I don't get a space, I'll give them away as Christmas gifts! I actually used up lots of paper scraps on these! I used Provo Craft Slab papers, lots of rhinestones, a couple of Primas, and a whole bunch of ribbon! The first two are 2"x4", and the next two are 4"x4".

My chipboard covers that I have to work with are 4"x4". Since I'm using 4"x6" index cards for the pages, I'm left with 2"x4" index card pieces. Since I have all of those leftover pieces, I decided to make the 2"x4" journals too. At first I thought that size would be too small, but it's not! It's really cute, and they would be perfect for a purse or a briefcase. I hope to make more journals today. Once again though, I'm not sure what to charge for something like this! Pricing is definitely going to be my biggest issue! It's going to be very difficult to price the journals, because journals can be purchased from the $1 spot in Target and in Michael's. I would like to think that those journals aren't as cute as these, and these are worth it, but you never know if shoppers will think that!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Bind It All - Paper Bag Album!

WOW! I love the way this turned out! I made this my friend's daughter who will be starting college this year. I hope she likes it! It's an "all about me" album! I used 3 large lunch bags folded in half and it's bound together with O wires. I used Phresh & Phunky Basic Grey papers, Primas, and lots of brads. The patterned paper that I cut for each page is 5.75" x 5.75".


I love the cover! The front cover is also a pocket page. You can see the tag for the hidden pull-out page on the right. There are three hidden pull-out pages, because I used three paper bags, and the open portion of each bag is a "pocket".


The pink portion on both pages are pockets!


The triangle sections on both pages are pockets.


I added two 3.5" x 5" photo mats, and the title "Friends". I added two large QuicKutz photo corners to each mat.


The side sections on both pages are pockets.


Two 3.5" x 5" photo mats were added to these pages. I added QuicKutz small photo corners to the mats.

I'm really hoping that an 18 year-old likes this book. I love the way it turned out!

Thanks for stopping by!