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31/10/2014

Traditional Scrapbook - Hunting Season

Good morning! Today I'm sharing some traditional scrapbook pages I made, which was a rare thing, until recently. I would have probably just thrown these into a photo album, or a 6x8 Project Life album, and added in a few labels with the dates the photos were taken, but Jon's dad wanted to be able to display them, so people could see him doing the only other thing he does besides work.

These first four pages I made a couple years ago, as a birthday gift for Jon's dad. I made them before I got a little more into traditional spreads, plus we only had four frames and one entire year to cover, and I wanted to include as many photos as I could. You can see an obvious change from these four to the ones that come after it. The ones that come after it were made using sketches mostly, for inspiration.
For the second batch, I waned to do something that would tie them all together, so I used green paper as my base for all the spreads. I feel that it worked really well, and later on when I put them into an album, they'll be different enough, but still fit together. The leaves I used are from the Silhouette Online Store. They come as a printable, so I just print & cut them on my Cameo. The titles "Big Game", "Duck Blind", etc. were cut on my Cricut using the Wildlife cartridge. The I Heart Hunting title was cut on the silhouette, and the letters weren't quite the right color, so I used the negative as a stencil, some white ink and a little sponge to stencil the words onto the page.
Any questions about these pages can be left in the comments, or e-mailed to me! I haven't figured out how to get replies enabled on my comment, so if you want an immediate response, e-mail me, or leave it in the comments and I'll e-mail you! creationsbycoal@gmail.com















Thanks for coming by to check out these pages. I feel like the internet is seriously lacking in inspiration for photos of hunting season. Perhaps it's because of all the controversy around hunting, and some people killing and wasting everything. For the record, all of the geese, ducks, and big game that was killed in these photos was for food. Jon's family butchers their own meat (his mom's a professional chef) and anything that they don't eat, but is still edible (everything but the breast of the geese & ducks) is turned into food for their dogs. They waste as little as possible, not because they're environmentally conscious, but because this is where the majority of their meat comes from.

Have a great day! Happy Hunting!
-Alexandria

30/10/2014

Project Life: Week Thirty-Four

Good morning! Today I'm sharing Week 34. This is week was rather emotionally stressful for my family, and I won't worry or bother any of you with the details. This week also had some rather great moments for me as well, so they more than make up for everything else that happened.


This week I used up some more of my Studio Calico cards. I went through them and found some with similar colors and threw them all into a page together.


The left side features two photos of Gracie. She got a new chair, and she was sleeping extra cute. Normally when she sees I have my phone out, she stops being cute, and ruins the photo. Of course Emmett takes super adorable photos as well, especially when he's sleeping!


Here's the right side. The "make more" card had a line at the bottom, and a picture of scissors. I covered it with a label and added a list of things I've been making lately. The bottom photos are from my Great Grandmother's house.

We went to her old house and looked through some boxes and I saw parts of her house I'd never seen growing up. Found old photo albums in the attic, and told myself that one day I would scan and scrapbook all of them (hopefully). Even if I don't have her memories to go with them, I'd at least like to get them into better albums. Most of those are the ones with the adhesive pages, that destroys your photos.

Thanks for coming by! I'll see you tomorrow!
-Alexandria

29/10/2014

Studio Calico: 30 Days of Me - Part 3

Good morning! Thanks for coming back to see the third part of my 30 Days of Me album. I don't generally like to talk about myself, but I need to start, and this album is a pretty good start to that. It focuses solely on me, and my feelings, and my memories, and my perspective on so many things. It'll be fun to look back in a year or two and see how much things have changed.
You can find Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE



First up, my page for the prompt "Makes me laugh". I had a couple of photos from our trip to my Aunt & Uncle's for their anniversary at the start of the month. I thought they were absolutely perfect for this because both of them made me laugh so unbelievably hard. I didn't have another photo so I just adhered a chipboard sticker to a scrap of pocket page and slipped it in for a see-through element.



On the back side of the "Makes me laugh" page, I put my photos for the "little joys" prompt. For this one, I just included a few photos of things that make me happy, and another chipboard sticker the same size as the other one, adhered the same way.

 

The journaling for my "little joys" page was written on this little tag from the Marcy Penner minibook class. I covered the front of the glassine bag with some printables from Maggie Holmes. I feel like this tag is perfect for this!



This next page was inspired by one Maggie Holmes did in her minibook class. I loved it so much, that I made a smaller 4x4 version with the same idea. I trimmed down a piece of chipboard to the size of a page protector (I cut it 4.5x4) and painted both sides with Martha Stewart acrylic paint. Then I wrapped crochet cotton around it, loose enough that it didn't bend the chipboard, but tight enough that it wouldn't slip off. On  the back I tied it in a little bow. I slipped my photo for the "My happy place" prompt under a few pieces of the crochet cotton, added the little printable card and paperclip, a butterfly to the bottom corner and did a little journaling about my happy place.



On the backside of the purple chipboard I did the "looking down" prompt. Same idea, but instead of a printable, I journaled about my feet being bare, and my great dislike of wearing shoes, or socks because my feet get sweaty, except in the winter, then I wear slippers. I added green twine to the tag, and a green paperclip.


Next up is the "makes me smile" prompt. This one was pretty easy, though there were so many extra things I wanted to add to this, I chose a few that make me smile no matter how I feel. I didn't include any journaling for this one because I felt the pictures were pretty self explanatory. My niece, nephew and flowers make me smile in case they weren't. I added a little smiley wood veneer from Freckled Fawn to the bottom right pocket in the same way I added the chipboard stickers.



I did this page on a day that wasn't all happy and fun for a reason. I didn't want this album to just be about the good things this month, but also about things that made me frustrated, and stressed. For the "today was" prompt I journaled about a day that Jon and I had a bunch of work errands to run, and a mile long list of things to pick up, and I had a million things to get done and the photo in the bottom right is of a card from a Studio Calico kit. I also included a sad face wood veneer from Freckled Fawn to display a little more emotion on this one.


For the "Today I saw..." prompt I included a photo of my niece on the front (and my nephew on the back). We were baking this day, so I got one of her in an apron that was beyond too big for her (it's Jon's). I journaled on a tag about spending the afternoon with her.



The back side of the "Today I saw..." prompt. I included the happy printable because seeing them both makes me happy.


I believe this was for the "Reading" prompt. I generally read one book at a time, and when I did this prompt, I had just started An Abundance of Katherines by Jon Green. I didn't do the prompts in order, so by the time I did this one, my album was already getting pretty full, so I tried to keep the page more on the simple side.



For the "My view today..." prompt I included the view out my livingroom window. The leaves had just started to fall off the trees out front, and I wanted to document that, instead of another photo of my messy desk in the craftroom.


Here's the divider for the next section. It says "Fall in love with your life".

Thanks for coming by today to see part 3 of my 30 Days of Me album! Only two more parts to go, and I'm so excited to share both of them with you!

Have a great day!
-Alexandria

28/10/2014

Project Life: Week Thirty-Three

Good morning! Today I'm sharing week 33.

 

This week I used cards from Dear Lizzy, and printable labels.


Here's the left side, I'm waiting for Jon to journal about this fishing trip he went on with his dad, and his sisters. They invited me, but ginger skin greatly dislikes the sun. He had a blast, and I'm glad I convinced him to go.


Here's the right side. On this side I used a lot of labels to journal on my photos. This was when they were making some noticeably great progress in the restaurant. I wanted to get a picture that showed off the booths and the beautiful carpet!

Thanks for coming by! Have a great day!
-Alexandria

27/10/2014

Thanksgiving Decor

Good morning! Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone, but luckily my decor was centered around fall (I did that on purpose) and not too specific to Thanksgiving. I can leave it up until I put out my Christmas decorations if I want, even though it snows way before then (or I'll have to make some winter-y decorations for that in-between period).



These I obviously did not make. I bought these and my niece helped me put them on the window. She was so excited about them, and told me "Auntie, the witch has hair like you!" (I was having a particularly bad hair day). She ripped the one pumpkin a little bit, and had a mini panic attack, but I'm surprised that they all survived coming off the protective sheet. When her mom came to pic her up later that afternoon, she insisted on showing her, and when everyone came for dinner the weekend after, she showed them all what her and auntie did.


I shared this sneak peek on my Instagram.


I then later shared this photo of a little crate full of pumpkins. They're so tiny and adorable! You can find the tutorial for these adorable pumpkins HERE. That link leads you to Craftaholics Anonymous. They have tons of great tutorials and projects over there! The stem/leaf on top, I made using a modified cutfile. I just took a simple leaf shape and welded it onto a rectangle, then folded 1/4"
of the bottom of the rectangle and hot glued it to the top of the pumpkin.


When I started making them, my niece was helping me, and I had set aside pumpkins for her because she asked if she could make "pumpkin, snowmen". I knew what she meant so I made this little pumpkin-man family for her. After this photo was taken I added a mustache to two of them, hair bows to two of them, and one with a mustache got a little bowtie. They're adorable.

I wrapped them up in a Christmas gift bag with a snowman on it, and wrote in an adorable little card I made a few years ago for Valentine's Day (it says I [heart] U on the front). She loved it, and was almost in tears when she came to thank me. It made my heart extremely happy.


Some people do a fancy table set up, but because my family puts all the food on the table, I did a fancy set up on the cabinet beside the TV that has all of our movies in it. I cleaned everything off of it and put the silver candle holders and the blue bottles back up. Then I pulled out and added my fall arrangements (the one on the right is damaged from water getting in the basement). I also made some larger pumpkins and put them onto some candle holders I've had for 3 years, but have yet to find candles I like to put on them. I bought the owl, and the candle at Michael's, in their halloween section.


Here's those pumpkins. What I did was just figured out a pattern, and ran the string between the paper strips (just straight through the center of the pumpkin). I had to adjust a few of them as they smushed together more than I wanted, when I put them up over the window.

I hope this inspires some of you to save some money and make your own fall decorations! I see a lot more garlands in my future. Especially now that I have a sewing machine. For winter, I think I want to make a snowflake one. I'm getting pretty excited for Christmas, I already have a list of things I want to try, not just for the blog, but because we have very few Christmas decorations, and now that work is new and pretty, I'd love to make some pretty things for there as well!

Have a great day!
-Alexandria

24/10/2014

Studio Calico: 30 Days of Me - Part 2

Good morning! Today I'm sharing all the pages inside my first divided section of my 30 Days of Me album. You can see the first part HERE.



Here's the first page. The prompt was "I am..." I took this opportunity to write some things about myself, my age, the color of my hair, my relationship status, and a few other things that might change in the future. I added a photo of myself now, since looks do in fact change over time. I added a verse that that I'd like to put into effect more, and a photo of my favorite cup!


Next up, I did a two page spread for the "My Family" prompt, and a little 2x4 insert with their names.


The first page, is the family living in my house. That includes another photo of me (there are very few these days), a photo of my cat socks, Jon's cat Gracie, and a photo of Jon from a fishing trip he went on this summer. Looking at it now, I want to add little names to at least the photos of Socks & Gracie, just so that in the future, whoever looks at this will know.


On the little insert I included who lives in our house, and the rest of my family. I cut "my family" out of a scrap of vellum and stitched it onto the green cardstock.



On the back of the Family title I included a little pocket with a tag about family. I feel like it fits my family, because we all live in the same town, but I hardly ever see my brothers. I attached a little printable from the printables for the class.


On the right side, I included some good, somewhat recent photos of all of them, except my brothers family expanded, so I turned it into a flip pocket. I trimmed page with the four small pockets in half, then removed the front piece of the left pocket to make it a pocket on one side, and just a single layer on the other side. I inserted my photos into the right side, and slipped the left piece in between my photos in the left pocket. The photos are both mounted on white cardstock, so the pocket it tight and the extra piece doesn't slide out unless tugged on really hard.


On the right side (top right) I made a flip pocket. I need to put a tab on it so I remember that it's there. On the front is my brother's family picture, but it was taken before their son was born, so on the inside of the flip pocket, I included a photo of my niece holding her baby brother, and also a photo of just him. Aren't they just the cutest kids ever?!

 

Next up I took the "Favorite..." prompt and did a page about my favorite books, and my current bookcase full of books.


The left page has 4 books I've read this year, that have stayed with me, or had some impact on my life. I adhered a vellum ampersand over the four pockets (they open from the other side).


I added a tag (but the letters are kind of upside down for how it went in. I punched the hole by the f with the intention of sticking the tag on the rings, but it didn't work so I ran some twine through and made it look intentional. I tried peeling the letters off, but they were stuck down too well.



On the back of the tag I put "read more" because one of my goals for this year.


Of course a photo of my bookcase. I hope this will change. As it is, I've moved a few books downstairs, to make room for new books. We need a second bookcase, but we also need the space to put a second bookcase.


To end this section, I just slipped a gold doily with a chipboard camera sticker into a pocket. I didn't have any other prompts that I wanted to include in this section, and I love that it just ends on a simple note. The divider for the next section says "Collect beautiful moments".

Thanks for stopping by to see the second part of this album! It's just about to get into some of my favorite parts so be sure to come back and check it out!
Have a great day!
-Alexandria