Scrapbook House

Finally I have arrived in my craft room.


What a busy week last week was with viewing 6th forms & work I don't think I sat down until Thursday. I don't think that it helped as I had a major blitz of the craft room, airing cupboard & then decided I needed a bedside table!!! Simple enough request you may think, but not in this house. We have been living in our house now for 5 years  & we are slowly getting the house how we want it. I must confess to hating the house for the first 18 months that we lived here. It was a newly built house and week after week we had builders in & out with there trusty mastic guns to fix the ever lengthening faults list, well I digress. Two years ago following up on a census our house was chosen to be surveyed by a government surveyor, where we found out that although we have 4 bedrooms, my craft room is not large enough if we wanted to let it out as a bedroom & our room is only 1" over the legal measurements for a double bedroom. Can you see the problem here? With fitted wardrobes the only option & they had to have folding doors, we are extremely challenged for space. So yesterday DH thought he would move the bedroom around into the only other position it would fit so I could have a bedside table. Well he managed it & now I have space for a bedside table, although it will have to be a small one.
So all week I have been full of inspiration but I have only just made it into the craft room


Whilst I was away at the recent Stampin' Up convention I was very fortunate to see some very inspiring demonstrators on the main stage, one of these was a fellow UK demo called Michelle Last, Her blog is wonderful so pop over and see some of her creations.


My Inspiration

One of the projects that Michelle shared with us was the mini scrapbook houses using this template

Roof panel measures 14cm x 9cm

For my house I have used the card stock & the papers from the Simply scrappin' Christmas Jingle kit & have made a little house to give as a Christmas card, inside the roof panel I've stamped a greeting from the occasional greetings stamp set, I will also use this to write my message.


Just a note, it is easier to stick your ribbon onto the base card layer before covering both sides with the designer series papers, it is much stronger & tidier.

Ready to decorate with some pictures of our Christmas preparations

If you pop over to Michelle's blog you can see that she has made them for a variety of different occasions & they are all equally as lovely


This will be one of the projects that I am making with  my stampers 10 & Stampers 6 groups on our optional December meeting.
There are two sessions Monday 6th December at 7pm & Thursday 9th December at 7pm.
be sure to let me know which session you would like to attend.


All of the product used in this project is available from Stampin' Up & can be purchased through me as an independent creative coach.

Paper bag scrapbooks

A while ago I was given an undecorated paper bag album to create, I was very new to scrapbooking when Alsion gave me this to decorate & until I had seen some other examples online I was a bit confused as to what I was supposed to do with it.
I managed to source the flat bottom paper bags, which were amazingly hard to find, whilst i'm sure that many of our american cousins throw them away on daily basis these bags are like gold dust.

This is the album I made for Paul, it is just awaiting the photo's and finishing touches.




The tabs are on the edge of pages that slip into the open ends of the bags.

Hard to believe that this mini book started life as a plain old paper bag.

Making paper bag books is really quite easy. Using 3 lunch bags, stagger them so that the open flap falls to the right, then to the left, then to the right again. Lay them one on top of the other.


There are several ways you can bind your paper bag albums. You can punch 3 or more holes down the left side and later use ribbons to tie them together.

Or you can sew down the center, creating a sewn spine.

Another option is to bind them with a bind-it-all if you have one.
Or use metal rings, which you can purchase at scrapbook stores.
Once the holes are punched you could also thread ribbons through the spine.

To create additional inside pockets you can use brads, eyelets, glue or even sew down flat bottom portion of the lunch bags.

Over the weekend I have made three of these & made them into valentines cards

Scrapbooking me ~ page 2

Whilst spending the day in my craft room last week I had my new netbook upstairs with me so I was crafting & chatting with Alison whilst she was trying out ideas for projects for her forthcoming crop when she found this beautiful little mini album.

With the mini book closed

With the mini book openThis is page 2 of project " Scrapbook Me"

Link on elsies blog ~ scroll down the post.

So I thought I would have a go as part of the scrapbooking 'ME' theme.

I have used Stampin' Up Kraft card for the base of the project.

Cut two 4x4" paper squares and four 4x5" paper strips, I used brown card stock, you can also use patterned paper. Fold 1" so that you have a 4x4 square, and 1" flap, do this to all four paper strips.

Use glue dots on the back of the paper flaps, and glue each paper strip flap to each of the four sides of one of the squares.

Glue the second 4x4 paper square in the center to cover up the paper strips.

Now you can decorate with pictures, or just cute little notes and text, I am going to use this one as the centrepiece for a layout.

I still cant believe my baby is 14 today

Fourteen years ago today I was a very busy lady, I still cannot believe my baby is 14 today, instead of a card I made her this 6 x 6 album celebrating some of the hilights of her year so far. I started it at the crop yesterday & finished it last night.

Scrapbooking ~ A learning curve

I have recently been inspired By the very talented Jane to do more scrapbooking, its something that I have wanted to do more of for a long time but have never been so inspired. Going to Janes house is lovely as she has scrap pages hanging in all of the rooms & they are so cool not to mention inspiring.

I did start a scrapbook two years ago of a family holiday in Brittany, but a couple of months after the holiday my father in law died and it was painful to have all of the holiday pictures out as it was the last family holiday he came on.





Well today I have completed a whole page, but as I say it was a learning curve & today I learnt a very important lesson, I started this layout last night & left it on the desk in my Stamping studio, which is the same place I dry my hair.
Well you can imagine the rest ........... I managed to blow my whole layout away before I had stuck it all together.

The petals are Stampin up Pick a Petal stamped on Yoyo Yellow card with Pink Passion ink. The Chipboard flower is also stampin up & is triple embossed adding a layer of colour each time, the two colours used are Yoyo Yellow & Only Orange.
The paper is by Sassy Frass lass and really lends itself to one of my favourite photo's.

1st Mini book

After looking at one of Janes Mini books on Friday night I was determind to have a go, I bought all the bits a couple of weeks back after all of the new Bo bunny stock arrived at work so I had no excuses. I was very pleased with the way it all turned out. All of the photo's were taken on location in Corfu.
















Well I am totally hooked, sorry I should say inspired to make more Mini boks on different subjects.
When Abi saw this she didn't want me to give it away, as it was my first one I wish I could have kept it too, but I didn't have time to make another one to send to my Mum as a mothers day card.