Confessions and Obsessions of a Paper Crafter

Monday, March 28, 2011

No Photo, just an Excuse

The last few days I have not been doing anything creative. But my daughter has. She is repainting her room, in the colours of PURPLE (and I mean purple, not white with a purple tint) and SPRING GREEN. It is very intense, but she really likes it, and that is what is important. (I should probably add here that the colours prior to these were blue, green, pink and orange, arranged in an interesting strip pattern. This girl is not afraid of colour.) As a result, all of her stuff had to find a place to go, and that place is my scrapbooking room. So there is only a little room to squeeze around the perimeter of the room, and I am unable to get at my papers and inks. And this is my EXCUSE for not getting any work done on my gatefold album. I bought another stamp last week, but I haven't tried it out yet. Well, maybe next week... Until then...

Monday, March 21, 2011

Another Birthday Card - I'm on a Roll!

I went out shopping for some plain paper for my Caribbean project (more on that in a minute,) and came home with this cute stamp from Magenta. It's coloured with Copics (yup, still learning) and cut out and matted using Spellbinders dies. The light blue paper has been in my stash for YEARS. I added spots of Glossy Accents on some of the bubble trails.

Now about that Caribbean gatefold album. I've been PROCRASTINATING AGAIN, looking at my paper, and hemming and hawing about actually putting the pages together. Finally yesterday I said to myself, "Get on with it!" So I covered the front and back chipboard covers with my turquoise pindot paper, forgetting one little detail. The magnetic closure. (The one I spent so much time with, trying to decide just how and where to place it).

Now I must rethink the closure thing. And the next time that little voice in my head tries to hurry me along, I'm going to tell it to take a chill pill!

Until next time...

Sunday, March 20, 2011

My Husband's Birthday Card

I've had this card made for a few days, but couldn't post it until today, as it is for my darling husband.

It is made with Graphic 45's "A Proper Gentleman" paper, with a swirl stamp from Stampington and Company. The little "Let's Celebrate" tag is a Tim Holtz grunge paper label, that I painted and then stamped.

Happy Birthday, my dear!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

I Survived the Cutting of the Paper!


After a week of cutting, micro-deciding and one or trips to the scrapbooking store to get yet ANOTHER COLOUR or two of Bo Bunny paper, here are the papers that are going to be in the Caribbean gatefold album.




This is what the front of the album will look like. Well, not exactly this colour. It's going to be a turquois microdot, and the paper will be mounted on thin chipboard. Also, I hope to actually have the flowers and other embellishments glued on.



The next picture gives you an idea of how the book will open. The two 6"x9" microdot pages will open each side, revealing the large (9x12") main page of Webster's pages. The journalling will be attached to the back of the micodot. When you turn the large page, there is going to be a microdot page attached to the back to give it stability, and tone down some of the Webster's pages. Love the fronts, but I gotta tell you, some of the back pages are kind of LOUD. I thought about having the large pages glued onto chipboard, but I think that will make the album too thick. The large pages will open alternating from the right and left sides of the book.


I am sure this is going to take some tweaking. I may need to trim some of the pages, so they close properly once I bind it. My next task is going to be to glue the Bo Bunny microdot to the backs of the big pages. But first, I think I may need to go out and buy some more glue sticks....

Until next time....

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Caribbean, Here I Come!




I am very happy to report that my Revelstoke album is now COMPLETE, and I am ready to move on to my NEXT PROJECT, which is going to be a travel journal for an upcoming trip to the Caribbean.
Above are the papers and embelishments I have SO FAR, no doubt I will feel a need to go shopping and add to my collection. I neglected to add my container of extremely brightly coloured flowers, my vintage side shudders each time I look at them, perhaps that's the side of me that was in charge when I took the photo.

Anyway, the plan for this album is for it to be a GATEFOLD journal. I'm going to take my journalling blocks on the trip with me, and then add them when I get home. You can see I have already cut, inked and stamped them. That took quite a long time, as I couldn't make up my mind about the ink colours. Who knew there could be so many ink colours?!?

The paper is Bo Bunny and Webster's Pages. I have quite a bit of Webster's Pages, but have yet to actually make anything. Mostly I just like to take it out and look at it. The Glimmer Glass (which I have never used before, and there is a shocking lack of info about things you can do with it, so I may actually have to use my imagination, rather than that of the creative folks I find on YouTube) and stamp are by Tattered Angels. The closures I plan to use are by Basic Grey, and the little button things are something I found in a fabric store about a year ago.

My next step is going to be cutting the pretty paper up. That will be hard. I'll let you know how it goes.

Until then.....

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

My Dad




It has been some time since I posted on this blog, and I wish I could say that I have been hard at work creating some really beautiful things, but unfortunately the truth is I've just been hard at work. And I mean real work, the stuff where I actually get paid to perform tasks I'd rather not.


Anyway, this is the last portrait page in my Revelstoke book, meaning I am ALMOST FINISHED. The photo is of my father, Ken, in his army uniform. I don't know the date, but he looks pretty young, so I'm guessing he's about 19 years old here. He joined up in 1939, not long after the war started. He never did go overseas, for which I know my mother was thankful for.


I have to confess that this page is not quite finished, I realized as I was uploading the pictures that I had forgotten to add the rub-on letters for his name. Guess I'll be doing that when I finish this post. Think I'll add a little swirl stamp as well.


Well my NEXT PROJECT is looming on the horizon (actually, it's sitting out on the bed in my scrapbooking room). I'm going to make another travel journal for an upcoming trip. The colours are going to be tropical (I'll have to control myself not to distress them down!), and the style is going to be gatefold. I'm quite excited to start on it.
Until next time....