100 Happy Days - Part 1

Good morning! Today I'm sharing some pages from my 100 Happy Days album. I'm trying to keep the embellishments, and the pages overall pretty simple. It's not "pretty" but I'm okay with that. I'd rather it be done, than me stressing over making all the pages fit into one little 6x8 album. 

My title page is an old book page, with 100 Happy Days cut out of it, I glued it to a piece of chipboard that I painted purple on this side.

I left the back of the chipboard plain, but added the blurb from their website about what 100 Happy Days is. I added a vine that I cut using the silhouette, and painted with watercolours. I believe the file came from iheartstudio, 

On this side, I adhered some patterned paper to a glassine bag and inserted a tag with two PL cards on it. I haven't added any ribbon or twine to the tag yet, but it's on my list. I've slightly been neglecting this album lately, so some things are a little forgotten.

On the back of the tag I put a journaling card and explained why I was doing 100 Happy Days.

The page on the right has a flip pocket. I used the pocket page with the two 3x4s on top and a 4x6 on the bottom. I cut the top portion so that the 3x4 pockets could be folded down over the photo (front and back) and be flipped up to reveal the photo and journaling. I left the entire "spine" of the pocket page on the left, since I'm using a Becky Higgins binder and unlike the Studio Calico Handbook, it only has one set of rings (the handbook has twice as many). The pocket page flopped around too much without being hooked on both rings.

The pocket flips up to reveal the photo and journaling.

I did the same thing on the back side of that page. Make sure to sew your 3x4 pockets closed so your cards don't fall out of the pockets.

This is my favourite page so far. I almost wish I'd used a different photo, but I'm very much satisfied with how this looks. I hid my journaling on the little tag with the ribbon.

That's all for now. I've been using Studio Calico, and a variety of Becky Higgins cards for this album.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment, and I'll answer it the best that I can.

Have a great day!
-Alexandria

Project Life: Week Thirty-Eight

Good morning! Today I'm sharing my spread for week 38. his week was getting pretty close to work being open. I was busy baking everything I possibly could, to the point where I honestly believed that my feet would fall off. However, I'm glad that I did it. Jon's dad has hunters that come up from September - Late October and he likes to be able to offer them something to eat while they're in the blind before the world is awake, so he asked for a few muffins. Needless to say I went from a few, to a TON. There's barely a dent made in the amount of muffins in there, and they are in fact delicious!

This week I used Studio Calico. I've been trying to use up the Studio Calico cards because they're on my desk, and while all my BH kits feel extremely neglected, I'm trying to figure out a system to organize them, that will work for me. I'm also thinking of packing up 1/3 of all the kits I can, and either selling them to fellow crafters, or offering them to people who want to get started doing Project Life. I feel like 1/3 of a kit, is a lot less overwhelming to start with, than a full core kit.

Here's the left side. The top left photo is all the baking I had in my freezer on Sunday of this week. The right side is how full my freezer was a little later in the week. There's more than just baking in there, but it filled up rather quickly, and I was still doing some baking. This week I was working on some Baby Shower stuff, and my niece decided to stick one of the test mustaches to her face and pretend she was a boy (cutest thing ever).

Here's the right side. This one was more of some things I did, or noticed this week. Shopping in a local store, bought books when we went to the city, included a photo of what's in my bag (taken from my 30 Days album), included the first of the fallen leaves, and the progress I made on my 30 Days album. Now that I look at this, I feel like it's just about me, and what I did. But I promise you, I'm trying to get Jon in the habit of sending me his photos for the week, and writing on cards when I ask him to (still have a few places he has to fill in).

How do you get your partner, or children to include their memories in the album? Do you let them fill in their own separate album, or just give them little cards to write on and slip them in? One of my PL goals for next year, is to include more of Jon's perspective in the album, both with photos and journaling. This year it seemed to be more my perspective, and my photos, but it's obvious that he thinks of this as being strictly my hobby, and something I do, for me. But it's not. This is my hobby, that I do for us. In 5 years, I may not want to remember everything I included in here, but it'll be interesting to look back and think "wow, our Project Life style has changed over the years. I can't believe we ever did things like this, or journaled like that".

Have a great day!
-Alexandria

Studio Calico: Sandlot Card Kit

Today I'm sharing the cards I made using the Sandlot Card kit, and the Squints add-on from Studio Calico. This is the August card kit, and just last week I got the add-on. As I was using the kit, and browsing the member gallery for inspiration, it made me want the Squints add-on and luckily they still had some available, so I bought one before they sold out. I'm so glad I did. It helped me make more cards with the kit.

I could have made more cards, but I felt that they would have ended up looking very similar if I did, and so I limited myself to just these. The extra paper and embellishments were added to the rest of the leftover embellishments and papers from other card kits.

This one is my absolute favourite from this kit. Just circles, sequins, little wooden stars, and some gold mist.

This was inspired by a Sunday sketch. I left off the giant embellishment, and made the strips of paper a little wider.

This was inspired by one from the member gallery. I have terrible hand writing so I used the stamp that came in the kit, and now I wish I'd just tried to handwrite it. The thanks is a little larger than I would have liked.

I love this gumball machine! I wish I'd used a different background paper for this so that the "you're so sweet" on the bottom showed up better.

I greatly dislike this card. I made it at work, and in my head it looked awesome, but I realize now that using just the circle paper might not have been the best choice.

I love how this one turned out. So many gumballs.

I added watercolors to the background paper to highlight the words and only put ink onto the "you're so" portion of the "you're so sweet" stamp. I added a few enamel dots from the Squints add-on (should have done it more random).

My style is extremely simple, and that's why I love this one. I have no idea how those two rose stamps are supposed to line up, but I'm fine with how they turned out.

I'm so proud of this one. I wasn't at all sure that my ruffle would turn out, and although you can see the thread in a dew places, it still looks okay. I love that it's a little messy and not perfect. Makes the thread showing seem intentional.

This was real simple. Just cut some 1/2" strips in colours to match the top/bottom paper and put them in a way that no two similar colours were together.

Stamped some flowers, cut them out, arranged them around the card. A couple of them were adhered with foam tape to make them pop, and the roses were just stamped directly onto the card.

I had so much fun making this card. I stamped a bunch of roses, let them dry and then painted a few with watercolours. It was totally random, but Jon tells me there's a slight pattern to it.

This one has a lit less flowers, but I added the paper and the wood veneer anyway. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Thanks for coming by to see these cards! Some of them I finished up just yesterday! Crazy, I know. I'm trying to get through a couple more card kits, and then my goal is to start making some from my stash. I miss doing that!

Have a great day!
-Alexandria