Stampin' Creative Blog Hop - Love & Hearts

Welcome to this month's Stampin' Creative Blog Hop and whether you're starting the hop here or have hopped over from Eimear, then welcome. The theme this month is all that encompasses Love and Hearts. 

With Valentines just around the corner, I couldn't help but think of the love in my life … my husband. I'm a very lucky girl, as he is an incredibly supportive man who I feel honoured to call my husband, so with him in mind, I came up with this ensemble.

  

I turned to the Memories in the making Project Life by Stampin' Up! Bundle, that includes the Stamp Set, an array of Cards and embellishments to make these projects. I was also fortunate enough to earn some FREE Memories in the Making Speciality Cards from the Sale-a-Bration offering. This promotion runs until the end of March and rewards you with a FREE Gift for every £45 spend (excluding p&p). 

It was the colours within this set, that lead me to using Pool Party, Watermelon Wonder and Basic Grey. The embellishment pack offers so much variety, from watercolour paper shapes, acetate layers, cards, adhesive shapes and letters and some wonderful wooden accents.

Firstly a simple card that says I Love You without actually having to say it …. A real collage of shapes, textures and colour. It was my intention to avoid Real Red for this theme and to use something quite different …. and quite fresh.

Hubby doesn't have a sweet tooth at all, but he still enjoys the odd special chocolate from time to time, so I'm filling a Baker's Box with a selection of this favourites. 

It was tempting at first to use the large wooden heart on the Bakers Box, but it was what it left behind that lead me to this final piece.

From time to time, hubby has to travel for business and stay away. Having done the traveling that I have in my former career, I know that having photo's of your loved ones back home, by your bedside, is a welcome sight, when you wake on foreign lands, so I created this mini photo book for him.

The wooden embellishment surround forms the front of the book and the protective cardboard from the embellishment pack covered with cardstock, forms the back. In between it's just cardstock, scored and folded concertina style to form the pages.

I so love the acetate overlay that seemed so fitting to frame the photo of us on our wedding day.

With us both loving Black and White photo's, I decided to use these within the album. It allowed the flashes of colour to really pop. 

Here I show how the weight of the wooden front and stiff cardboard backing, allow this book to stand up like a photo frame.

Well there you have it …. Love and Hearts and hopefully something here will have captured your heart and inspired you to creating something for someone special in your life.

Be sure to hop on over to see what delights the lovely Lesley has in store for you this month, I'm sure she won't disappoint. 

Happy Hopping

Mikaela x

Stampin' Creative Blog Hop List

• Kim at Simply Fairies
• Pip at Queen Pip Cards
• Emma at Coastal Crafter
• Eimear at StampinColour
• Mikaela at The Crafty Oink Pen
• Lesley at Lelly Jelly's Stamp N' Scrap
• Caroline at Craft with Caro
• Louise at Stampin' Delight

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Mini Album Tutorial

Yesterday was the Stampin' Creative Blog Hop, where the theme was Summer Lovin' and I produced a mini album made with the Envelope Punch Board.

I have received many requests as to how I made the base for this album, so here I detail, as best I can, a mini tutorial on how to assemble the base for this project. 

First of all you will need an Envelope Punch board to create 4 envelopes. Following the instructions on the EPB, I used card stock cut to size and the instructions for cards of 6" x 6" in size. The sizes and score lines can be found on the front of your Envelope Punch Board for this. This is the size that I made, but you could size up or down using the instructions on the board and following these steps. I originally used Cardstock, but here have chosen to explain using Envelope paper.

Once you have your four Envelopes, you need to take two to start with and with them sat side by side, interlock the adjacent flaps as shown here.

You can either adhere flat the outside flaps and the overlapping points in the middle of each envelope now or return to this later when you are sure you are happy with it's assembly.

Close these first two envelopes together like a book and you will see that you have a loose flap to the back.

Fold this back on itself. Below you are now looking at the front of the left envelope (as if the front of the book), with the outside flap folded from the back forwards. 

This will reveal an opening down the spine, where you need to slot in the next envelope as shown here. 

You will be adhering down the left flap flat within and the bottom flap over the top at the central overlapping point, but again, this can all be done at the end.

Slot in your final envelope in a similar fashion, slotting it into the spine, so that you have a flat front and back and all envelope flaps are internal. You will then need to find these loose internal flaps to adhere down NOTE: the top and bottom flaps of each page should only be adhered together at the centre overlapping point if you want the page to have a pocket.

Cut cardstock to 6 1/4" square to overlay the exposed envelope flaps and deciding if you want to keep the side open to create a pocket, apply adhesive sticky strip to three for four sides and adhere. Keep the outside edge open for storing extra photographs, tickets and suchlike by only applying adhesive to the centre, top and bottom sides. Repeat for each page.

You now need to make the spine binding. 

Cut your chosen cardstock to 6 1/4" x 2 1/2". Scoring down the length of the card stock at 3/4", 1", 1 1/2", 1 3/4". Burnish the creases into your book binder and adhere the front and back flaps to the front and back of the album. 

You are now ready to embellish your album as you choose to store your cherished memories.

I hope this makes sense and you enjoy making yours as much as I did mine. If you don't have an Envelope Punch Board, then you could make one simply using large square envelopes as a base for your pages. 

Happy Crafting

Mikaela x

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Stampin' Creative Blog Hop - Summer Lovin'

Welcome to the monthly blog hop of the Stampin' Creative girls and this month the theme is Summer Lovin'

School holidays have started and it's the time when holiday fun begins … Having recently returned home from a fun family holiday to Portugal, I thought I'd make something different for you this month to capture just a snippet of that holiday. 

Scrapbooking and journaling our photographs has become a big craze and although Stampin' Up! have Project Life by Stampin' Up!, I thought I'd make something of my own, using some Cardstock and the Envelope Punch Board.

Can you believe that just four envelopes and some matting card stock helped to create this mini album.

It really is just a snippet of our holiday, but a few memories all the same.

All too often now a days, our photographs remain on our digital devices and barely get looked at, which is why so many now tend to print them off and keep them in Memory albums.

Project Life by Stampin' Up! is a fantastically quick way to scrapbook your memories. No big pages to create, just smaller, more manageable elements, that make it perfect for those lacking in time. Well this may not be an official album, but it's my Mini Album and it only took an afternoon to create.

Believe me, we didn't take this many suitcases … in fact, we thankfully still manage with just two between the three of us, although I'm beginning to wonder if things will change next year, with a rapidly growing son. These are from the stamp set PL Lets Get Away, which I've used throughout.

Can I just say … I have NEVER scrapbooked in my life, but found this incredibly easy and most enjoyable to make and decorate. Perhaps because the 6" x 6" pages aren't particularly big to decorate and the various elements from the Hello Life Project Kit are so usable for this kind of project. You'll see more of this set used throughout. 

Awww this was sleeping beauty upon our arrival at the Villa. He was insistent on wearing his new holiday sun hat and sunglasses for the entire 1 hour journey from the airport to Carvoeiro.

To help avoid bulk with the matting of the pages, I have used the plain side of the new Envelope Paper here, which is much thinner. I so love Mint Macaron!

This is a child, who until last year's holiday, didn't like Ice Cream or Ice Lollies … Well, he couldn't get enough of them this year.

I love how the colour of the plant in the background, coordinated so beautifully with the Crushed Curry colour of the photo frame. 

The only thing the stamp set was missing was Fish and our memory of the beach was just that … oh, along with a black crab, the first that Bertie had ever seen. This photograph was taken from the open window of the restaurant that we were eating in. They served the most fabulous fresh fish.

Other than the word 'Happy' on the front page, which I die cut using the Hello You Thinlits, the lettering throughout this album, was creating using the ever so versatile Alphabet Rotary Stamp. It meant that I could literally choose whatever wording I wanted and really personalise it. Great for using up scraps too! 

The various banners were again, taken from the Hello Life Project Kit. There are so many elements in that kit that you could create a multitude of things using it … and I just love the photo frames that I've used throughout.

For those of you who know me well, you'll know that my family mean the world to me, so to be surrounded by hearts was a must for this page. Enjoying the evening sun after an enjoyable meal in our favourite restaurant and day trips out exploring …. and that random, one off family photo of us all together. That seldom happens with hubby usually being behind the camera.

I wanted to leave this final page as plain as possible, leaving space for some journaling from the holiday. I loved the bird stamp … it reminded me of the birds to the top of my blog here. 

Well there you are … a snapshot of our holiday, all wrapped up in an enjoyable afternoon's worth of mini album making … and with pockets created behind each overlay, there's still plenty of space to add more memories … Tickets, more photo's, Postcards etc.

Now, lets see what wonderful project Louise has created for her Summer Lovin' post.

Enjoy the rest of your hopping and the rest of the holidays … and remember to cherish those moments and don't let them get forgotten on your digital devices.

Mikaela x

Running order:

Lesley - http://lellyjellys.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/stampin-creative-blog-hop-summer-lovin.html
Emma - http://www.coastalcrafter.com

Kim - http://kimfeecrafter.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/stampin-creative-blog-hop-july.html

Eimear - http://stampincolour.com/stampin-creative-july-blog-hop-summer-lovin

Mikaela - http://thecraftyoinkpen.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/stampin-creative-blog-hop-summer-lovin.html

Louise - stampindelight.co.uk/stampin-creative-blog-hop-summer-lovin/

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