documenting fall

photo taken by me at the MN Landscape Arboretum

Here in Minnesota we have had a beautiful fall season.   The only complaint might be that's it's been so hot, but no one really wants to say that out loud!  Following 8 straight days in the 80's (in October!) today is cool and rainy and I think our extended summer-like weather has come to an end.

Have you been enjoying the fall weather and fall colors where you live?  If so, I hope you are bringing your camera along and taking lots of pictures.  It's such a beautiful time of year and it's great to capture those memories.

Speaking of documenting fall, just a reminder that this mini album kit is available in my Etsy shop.

It is full of the colors of fall and would be a great way to document a trip to an apple orchard, visits to the pumpkin patch or even the fun costumes you see on Halloween, which is how I used the album.

This mini album kit and includes lots of stickers, die cuts, ribbon, etc. so you can print your photos and have this album ready to display super quick.  Love that.

Attention all bird watchers (you know who you are!)

I'm excited to announce that I just listed a new mini album in my Etsy shop called, The Birds.  It's a mini album made from the pages of a vintage (1964) bird watching book.  The illustrations in the book are awesome and when I saw it I just knew it would make a great mini album.

The cover of the album, shown here, is a page from the book showing one of the great illustrations and featuring a hand stitched bird.  The page has been mounted on a piece of chipboard to make it sturdy enough to be the album cover.

Like my other mini albums this one comes with an embellishment set.  This set includes some tags, playing cards, and button embellishments all featuring birds.  There are also two handmade quote bubbles, a journaling card from October Afternoon and a paper bird from Martha Steward crafts.

I gave one of the albums to a friend of mine for her birthday because she is definitely a bird watcher!  She has started adding photos and embellishments to her album and it's super cute!

There are only two albums available, so if you are interested you should not delay!

Fall Mini Album and a Giveaway!!

Yesterday I listed this sweet new Fall Mini Album in my Etsy shop.  It's mini indeed, just 4" x 6" and so easy to complete with the items included in the kit.  I used the album to scrapbook some (old) Halloween photos that I've had in my "to scrapbook" pile for years!  It felt great to get them into an album and I completed it, start to finish, in a couple of hours.  Love that!  You could probably do it much more quickly if you aren't as indecisive as me!!

Here's one of the completed pages in my album:

The paper, stickers and ribbon are all included in the kit.  This picture is my daughter, who is now 21!!  Told you the photos were old!  Her dog was a cow that year . . .

Here's a look at the items included in the kit:

You can see all of my completed pages by visiting my Flickr - there's a link over on the right hand side of this page.

In celebration of fall, I think it's time for a Giveaway!!  In order to enter, please visit my Etsy shop and take a look around and then come back here and comment on your favorite item listed in my shop.

Comments will be open until Sunday, September 26th at 6 p.m. CST.  I'll draw one winner from the entrants and post the winner's name here shortly after that.  Sound good?  Tell everyone you know!  In fact, if you Twitter, blog or Facebook about the contest you'll get "extra credit"! (you can copy and paste a product image in your post with a link to my shop). Each mention counts as another entry in the contest for you; just post an additional comment for each time you "talk" about the contest; limit of 4 entries per person please.

Busy Beaver

Litterally!  I actually went to college at Bemidji State University (yes, that's BS University . . . I know) way in northern Minnesota, and our school mascot was the Beavers.  I was a Beaver then and I was a busy beaver today.  I was so busy that now I'm just being sappy; sorry about that!  I'll try to focus.

I spent the day making lots of The Garden mini albums, which have been listed in my shop for a while and have been popular both online and in local sales.  I think my album is going to be featured somewhere this week but I don't want to jinx it so I'm not going to say where yet.  Talk about suspense!  Anyway, I wanted to be stocked up in case sales go CRAZY (you never know, right?) so I spent my day cutting, inking, working with fabric, etc.

I've said before that I like things neat and organized so in the middle of all of this work today I thought, "oh, I should take a picture of this mess so I can show how busy and crazy it was here today" and I took a picture.  However, now that I look at it I realize that I had cute little piles of things and it doesn't look that messy!  Trust me, it felt messy at the time.

I was so smart the last time I made a batch of these that I actually wrote down what was included in the kit and what size things were.  That made it so much easier than the old trial and error method of creating!  I could just look at my list of things to cut from my Cricut and know that I needed 2 green leaves and 2 brown leaves and they were 1.5".  Easy!

Another thing that really made my day was realizing that I have all of this paper now (from my Creating Keepsakes win) so matching colors was no problem!  I needed mauve, brown, green and red and I found an exact match for each which saved me a lot of time.

I'm glad to have this project done and now I'm going to relax and watch Design Star.  Oh - have you been seeing all of the Big Brother commercials on tv?  I'm seriously counting down the days until the show begins!

Summer and Fall

I don't consider myself a gardener, yet I have a garden.  It's mostly perennials - those are the ones that come back every year, right?  I always get confused because the other kind of plant is called an annual and that could mean that they come back annually, but I guess that's not the case.  I told you I'm not a gardener, right??

Anyway, if you have a garden, whether you consider yourself a gardener or not, you might want to consider documenting  your garden from year to year so that you can keep track of what works well in a certain spot and what you never, ever want to plant again.  I've done this for a few years in a couple of different formats and for a visual person like me it really helps to have pictures to go by rather than just a list of plants.

The format I used most recently is a mini album that I have for sale in my Etsy shop.  The mini album is called - get this - The Garden.  Very creative.  You can see it here; and here's a picture of the cover:

It's an easy to use mini album kit that comes with everything you need to document your garden and because it's held together with binder rings it is flexible and allows you to add additional pictures, seed packets, etc.

Looking ahead to fall, I recently took this picture of a wood pile behind our house:

When I saw the photo I immediately thought that it would make a great cover for a fall mini album - kind of a sickness I guess.  Anyway, I'm running some ideas through my head and will continue to do so over the summer.  We'll see what I come up with.

In the meantime, I have some custom orders I need to work on and that will keep me busy for a while.  I'll share some photos as I get the projects done.

Man, it seems like Monday, doesn't it??

Oh Boy!

I'm excited to finally have this mini album kit, Oh Boy, listed in my Etsy shop.  I found some super cute paper from Scenic route in blues, greens and oranges and used it to make a fun mini album that would work perfectly to document the little guy in your life.

The album cover is made from recycled denim mounted on chipboard.  Inside are 6 additional pages, each double sided so, using the inside cover, you have 13 pages to use to document a boy's life.  With binder rings holding it all together it would be easy to add more pages, handmade artwork or additional pictures.

The kit comes with a whole bunch of fun embellishments, as shown here:

I made most of the embellishments using my cricut and a fun stamp set that's all about boys.  I've also included a cute silhouette tag from Every Jot & Tittle and some coordinating ribbon.

Priced at just $15, I think it's a real bargain and a quick way to make an adorable mini album.  There are more than enough embellishments in the kit to have something fun on each page!

Next up is a girl themed mini album kit.  I bought some really cute fabric to use for the cover, and I also found some great fabric for a Mother's Day mini album.  Lots of projects to get completed!

Be sure to check out my shop - there are cards for spring and Confirmation, a fun garden mini album and several embellishment sets to dress up any page.

Just one month until Valentine's Day . . .

Here are a few more photos of the Valentine mini album listed in my shop yesterday.  By the way, this album doesn't have to be a tradional Valentine's gift for your spouse.  To show it's versatility, I used it to document photos of my daughter and me through the years.  It would also work well for a wedding album!

Here are two pages from the album.  On the left is patterned paper with a cream colored background and red writing, all about love.  You could leave it plain or add photos or text.  On the right is a pocket page, hand sewn by me!  You have no idea how impressive that is!  This would work well to hold extra photos, love notes, journaling or the little card you will get with your flowers on Valentine's Day.  You know you'll get flowers, right??

This page features one of my favorite pictures of my daughter when she was little and learning to do "soooo big"!  For some reason she thought she had to clasp her hands and then try to fit her head through her arms.  Soooo cute!  This page comes pre-made, so the different types of patterned paper and the word stips are part of the original paper.  I added two embellishments from the kit:  an altered chipboard heart with an attached brad and some words from a vintage piece of sheet music with a red heart attached.  So easy!  I also used a rub-on that I had on hand (not part of the kit).  This is one of my favorite pages in the album.  It helps to have an adorable subject!

If you are thinking about getting one of these albums you might want to do so before it's featured on Ali Edward's blog this weekend.  Or, you may want to enter the giveaway and wait to buy it if you don't win.  There's a limited supply though, so don't wait too long!

New item in shop!

Tonight I listed theValentine Mini Album in my shop.  Finally!  I feel like I've been working on it and talking about it for a long time, so I'm super excited to finally have it available for sale.

The album is 5" x 8" and has a total of 11 pages.  The cover is made from Tim Holtz grungeboard that I painted red.  The title block was made using some of the embellishments included in the kit.  Aren't Valentine's colors fun?!  Here's a close up of the cover:

There are lots of embellishments, fun papers and cute ribbons included in the kit.  Stop by my shop to check it out!  I'll post more photos here over the next few days, and remember that you will have a chance to win this album on Ali Edwards blog this weekend.

Sneak peek

Here's a sneak peak at the Valentine's mini album I've been working on.  Man, editing photos is so time consuming!  I took a million pics of this album and I'm busy editing the photos, trying to find just the right pics and then making them look their very best!

I'll have more photos to post tomorrow.  I want to get this photos all edited not only so I can list the album in my Etsy shop but also because . . . drumroll, please! . . . I'll be hosting a giveaway on Ali Edward's blog this weekend!  Woot woot!  So, a little extra pressure to make these photos as good as I possibly can.

Stop back to see more photos, and be sure to check out Ali's blog (see link on the right) this weekend and enter for a chance to win this album.

The Garden mini album kit, art journal

Just listed in my Etsy shop . . . The Garden. Love this mini album! It was so fun to have a place to document my flowers - they look pretty good considering I have no idea what I'm doing.

The front and back covers are covered in fabric, so inside I used 5" x 7" photos.

I'll post more pictures in the days to come. Better yet, stop by my shop and take a look!

New item in shop!

I just listed a new item in my shop - Oh My Gosh altered circles. I came up with this idea because I have been saving cardboard and trying to think of a use for it. I thought it would be fun to make an embellishment that would be versatile, and after playing around for a while I came up with these circles. I plan to make some additional color combos too. I also took some new pictures because I'm not thrilled with these, so hopefully I'll get them edited and see if they are better.

Tonight I've been working on a garden mini album. I bought supplies a while ago and got all of the pictures printed but kept finding other things to work on. I decided to focus on the garden album and have an order for two of them so I need to get this first one done and work out the kinks. I'm covering the front and back with fabric and this is my first experience with that, so it has been a matter of trial and error. I got them done, so now it's on to the inside pages which involves laying out all of my photos and deciding which ones to use. I'll post some pics when I have the book complete.

Enjoy your evening!

The Office mini album, art journal

I'm a huge fan of The Office and can't wait for the new season to begin. I also love office papers, so I decided to create a mini album/art journal using office supplies.

It would be a great way to document your profession or everyday life - and it's filled with fun papers that you would typically find in an office. I just added it to my shop - you can find more information there.

I have a new embellishment set that I'm working on and hope to get added to my shop this weekend. Off to work I go!

New mini album in the works

I'm so excited! I found some great paper & embellishments that gave me an idea for a fun new mini album that will be great for recording a vacation . . . specifically a road trip! My last mini album, the journey, can be used to document a trip but also has a more generic look and could be used for many other things. This new kit will really be perfect to take with you on a road trip or to work on when you get home from a vacation. If you are behind, like me, you could use it to document a previous trip!

The paper and embellishments are from October Afternoon - I love their paper! The line I'll be using is actually called "Road Trip" and it's super cute.

As soon as I have all of my supplies gathered I'll give you a sneak peek. Until then, happy scrapping!

New kit and tutorial in shop!

As promised, I have finished my "the journey" kit and tutorial and listed it in my shop. It's a fun mini album kit, and with it you get everything you need to complete the album except for adhesive! I used the kit to document a real journey, a cross country road trip to bring my daughter to college in Oregon. It doesn't need to be a journey literally though, you could use it to document any kind of journey like a relationship, a milestone event (like a graduation), etc.

I used some fun papers in this kit from Scenic route and Basic Grey. The kit also includes some embellishments like fun buttons from Fancy Pants, flowers cut out using my Cricut, and mini flowers I made using a paper punch and decorated with shiny rhinestones.

If you haven't checked out my items on Paper n Stitch yet you are almost out of time! My shop there will be open until July 12th, so take a few minutes to check it out - and vote for me if you would!

Pottery

My daughter has always been a crafty little thing -drawing is really her passion but she also does pottery, sewing, etc. She took a pottery class in high school and made some really cool pieces. I was lucky enough to get this piece, although I'm not sure if she gave it to me or if I just kind of took it!

I love the colors and the shape. It sits in my dining room so I see it every time I walk past. It has "feet" on the bottom as shown in this photo:

In other news, I've had a busy few weeks making cards. I've made lots and lots of graduation cards for myself and others - I think I made my last 6 today since graduation is tomorrow in this area. I have enough on hand for online orders, so I'm ready to move on. Last night I started on a custom order for one of my favorite repeat customers (you know who you are!) and got her cards done today.

I was going to start on a mini album kit tonight - one for me and one for my shop, but I'm not getting too far! My daughter has emptied her room into the family room (where my craft area is) and she's sorting through all of her possessions, so I seem to be spending my time reminiscing with her and not getting much crafting done. Maybe tomorrow?

Baby Shower Gift

I went to a baby shower today for a kind-of relative . . . my sister-in-law's niece. Don't try to figure it out, it's confusing! Anyway, the shower was this afternoon. They knew it was going to be a baby girl so I made a mini-album for the mom-to be. Except that on Thursday, a month early, the "to be" part became a reality! Since Mom and Baby were still in the hospital the shower involved a couple of games, eating, and that was it! No gift opening, the Mom will do that when she gets home. I was sad that I didn't get to see her but in this case Baby Nora made the plans! It was fun to visit with everyone there and no one complained about getting outside a little early because it was a beautiful day.

The album I made is shown above along with the litte card I made. I took pictures of the pages in the book - but I took them out of the protective sleeves to avoid glare. Here are the pages, in order (I think!).













This was a really fun album to make. I found an adorable paper pack and the papers were so fun that every page was more fun than the last. It went together really quickly too since the papers were so cute - in many cases I didn't need to add a thing!

I'm excited to meet Baby Nora and I hope that her Mom loves her new album!

Scroll Mini Album

I just completed a really fun project - a mini album that can be used as a journal, art journal, photo album, or anything you can think of! The front and back cover features a fun orange and brown scroll design.


The album has 20 completed pages tucked into protective sleeves for safekeeping. Because the pages are removable you could easily change the order of the pages or add photos, art or journaling and slip them right back into the protective sleeve.

I listed the item in my store tonight, but could only show 4 of the 20 pages, so here are the other 16 pages:



These pages were so fun to make that I might have to make another one for myself!