Stampin' in the Prairies

My little mud magnet

Time got the best of me yesterday and I forgot to post.  Anyways, not too sure how many people even want to see my pages, but  I am still going to post them :)  This layout is of my middle child, Brooke-Lynn.  This picture captures my daughter's personality better than I could tell you...she is a mud magnet.  Always in the mud, not a girly girl.  In the summer when she is no where to be found, gauranteed she is in the mud in the alley!

  Sorry again about the terrible picture taking.  The page is 12x12 and straight but it doesn't look like it here lol

Anyways, there she is playing in the mud....this is around 5 minutes before she became covered from head to toe in it!

Have a good day

Andria

Changin' it up a bit

I am still having issues with my stomach and am hoping to be into the specialist shortly.  As I have not been feeling well and just vegging on the couch I have really missed creating.  I got to thinking about what I love so much about it.  It is therapeutic to sit and make a card for someone, or a gift, etc.  Then I started to think about my first paper crafting love, scrap booking, and how my scrapbooks have sure been collecting dust.  I started out as a scrapbooker.  I love having not only pictures, but journalling my family's history, my children's' childhood, etc.  I have put my scrapbooking on the back burner and it seems I turned exclusively to stamping. 

I have decided to dedicate the next week on my blog to my favorite, most special layouts.  Some layouts I looked at tonight made me laugh, cry and smile.  I want to share them with you. :)  Anyways, enough of the corniness and onto the first layout. :)  Oh, and please be kind, I am horrible at taking pics of layouts.  The pictures always have a glare from the lighting no matter what I do.    

  I created this page last spring. This is one of my favorite moments I have captured.  My grampa and gramma raised me alot of my life.  I look at my grampa as my dad.  Always was there for me for anything.  After I got married and had my kids he was always a phone call away in a crisis and had a way about him that made me feel like everything was going to be okay.

In 2004 my grampa was diagnosed with Lewy Body disease.  It acts just like Alzheimer's and eventually Parkinson's.  This is a terrible disease that makes his brain tell itself that his good brain cells are bad and kills them slowly.  When this picture was taken in 2005 my grampa was in and out of reality.  The bad days were starting to outnumber the good days.  He forgot us all alot more than he remembered us.  On this day he and gramma stopped by and he didn't recognize anyone...until my little boy walked down the stairs after his nap.  My grampa scooped him up and started acting like his funny old self.  We hadn't seen this in so very long.  So this moment being captured on film is so awesome!

Now my grampa doesn't know me, my children or even my gramma.  He just knows we are safe people.  He is slowly losing physical strength and spends most days moving this big chair in the living room back and forth.  It is so sad to see him this way.  Anyways, this is why this layout is my most cherished.

Have a good day and stop by tomorrow

Andria

Blowing away

Man, I feel like Dorothy today....storms are building all around us andthe wind gusts are getting up there.  Perfect time for me to sit and stamp with my SU and CTMH orders that have been building up with no chance to play.  I babysat for three weeks so I had a 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 year old!  Yoi!  So, needless to say NO stamping got done!  I did make one project for my splurge that I will show you, other than that, no creations!  I am gonna sit and watch my Days of our lives and Young and the restless and stamp all afternoon!

Anyways, here is what I made.  I got the instructions for this mini scrapbook from the resources part of SCS.

Can't get into details about the ingredients of it now as I have had to walk away and come back to this post for the last two hours!  I will come back when the munchkins are in bed...and I hope to be done some more creations to show.

Andria

Altered tin wedding book- Tutorial

I made a Wedding book with an empty accents and elements tin today.  Being sick, I have a good excuse to sit and create! And it looks like this is my altered projects week, since I have posted so many!

This is of my wedding.  We got married back in 2000 and I am still working on my actual album, but threw this together today.

I measured the tin and then made the pieces 1/4 inch smaller.  I should have done 1/2 inch smaller as I am finding that it doesn't want to accordian back up as nice as it should, but it still works.

Supplies: all Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted.

Stamps: Pretty Amazing

Paper: bashful blue textured, chocolate chip, whisper white, le jardin designer series paper

Ink: bashful blue, chocolate chip, close to cocoa

Accessories: cherished memories and eastern elegance rubons, pretties kit, satin chocolate chip ribbon, rich regals brads, dollarama letter rubons, subtles eyelets, bashful blue and chocolate chip taffeta ribbon, round tab punch

I am not going to delve into too much detail as alot went into the project and we could be here for hours!

I decided last minute to make this into a mini tutorial.  I hope this all makes sense!

You will have two pieces of cardstock to make the album in a tin.  The first piece should be 9" x 5 1/8".  The second piece will be 9 1/2" x 5 1/8".  This piece will end up having a leftover edge so you can glue it to the first piece to get your four pages side by side.  I hope that makes sense!  So, I drew up this little illustration to make it easier to see.  These are two separate pieces that were glued together. 

First, after you cut your said pieces of cardstock, you are going to score at every 4.5".  You will then glue the extra edge of the second piece to the first piece.  Now you can fold it accordian style to get the idea of what your album is going to look like.

You will need to round the corners of the "album".  In my example I used the round tab punch and rounded the corners with that.   

You are going to end up pasting a piece to the inside bottom of the tin.  Once you have folded your accordian, sit it in the tin and the one that is sitting at the bottom of the tin, write "bottom" on it.  Trust me, I know this from experience, that you might end up decorating that piece to find out it is supposed to be glued to the bottom!

I would decorate the outside of the tin now as it is easier to work with when it is empty.  That is also from experience!

Now, you will have 7 "pages" to work with to decorate in your theme.  Once, you are done scrapping on it, glue (I used two sided tape) the piece you designated as "bottom" down.  You are now done and have a lovely album in a tin to show off! 

Have a great evening and thanks for stopping by!