Keeping Crafty Busy

I've been busy crafting, keeping busy any way that I can to kill the time until the hubby comes home in a few weeks from his 6 month deployment.  We've all miraculously survived intact even though my munchkins have had a few close calls, mostly due to their own evil behavior.  Here are two projects I created this last week. 

The top blue one, is an album made from cereal boxes, glue stick, cardstock and some brown linen paper.  It's just a base, I have yet to embellish or add pictures but I will get around to it. 

The second book is a journal I made out of yes, what else, cereal boxes, glue stick, card stock, scrapbook paper, linen paper, thread and needle.  Made completely from scratch, hand stitched by me.  This journal is the smaller of the two that I made.  The larger one was made as a gift and I mailed it out and forgot to photograph it, not that my photography is all that great but you may have wanted to see a visual of them side by side.  Hindsight is awesome. 

It has nine signatures made from three sheets that make six pages when folded in half for a total of 54 pages.  The pages were cut at 5x12 and folded in half.  This is actually the second and smaller one I made.  I made two journals from 30 sheets of 12x12, a cereal box, thread and two small sheets of linen paper plus glue stick.

 You can see here on my album blank that the papers all coordinate and that I made sure to make the hinges allow for a pretty thick embellishment if I so choose to use say a 3d flower.  The hinge will expand and the spine will accommodate it all up to a certain thickness.

 My SinL actually gave me the papers for X-Mas. 

 Blank, basic pages waiting for pictures and embellishments.

 My journal.  These are surprising easy, fun and addictive to make and considering the scrapbook papers used and the variety, pretty cheap as well.  I got a huge stack of something like 300 plus papers from Sams for really cheap and have just barely a year later run out.  The paper was labeled as cardstock but it was way lighter than what I think of as cardstock and did not work well in my cutting machine but was awesome for all sorts of other projects I've done this year.

 Inside my journal.  Great little size at 6 1/2x5 1/2.  Small enough to put in my handbag and large enough with enough pages to really get some use out of.

Lots of neat double sided papers in various colors and patterns.  One side is a solid color while the other is patterned.  Fun!

I will definitely be making more of these in the future.  I just need to get some more paper first.  :)

More Cereal Box Recycling

Okay...I saved up quite a few cereal boxes because my kid's preschool asked for them and when I asked if they would like them, was told they didn't need them anymore.  Well, I am a lazy recycler....sorry....but true.  I do not have a designated bin but have a certain day to recycle on...however if my can has trash, which is almost always does, the recycling piles up in the garage.  So in an attempt to be more earth friendly and not just give into the urge to chuck all of the cardboard cereal boxes in with the rest of the rubbish I have been turning them into albums and tags in earnest.

Here is the beginning of one such album, saving and reusing not only two cereal boxes but some hard covers to some empty notebooks as well. 

 I choose to recycle them into my crafting as the kids use up the guts of the notebooks.

 Yes, purple covers like the ones pictured did in fact become the covers for my album in progress.  The pictured ones are actually a second set I have yet to use.

Covered with DCVW Taj Mahal paper and some Colorbok (pronounced ColorBook).

Our favorite cereal.

 You can see in the next picture (slighty fuzzy one) that the album can expand a little. 

Sorry, this picture, I took so many times and it just refused to focus.  My only real excuse it it's late and I am too tired to really care.

 I've just begun to cover the inner cereal box pages.  This album will be pretty clean, not a lot of bling.  I really am not a huge bling person, that and my supplies are pretty low.

It has six pages, only counting the ones not attached to the covers.  It is a basic album construction.  with and extra quarter inch built in for expansion due to pictures, tags or whatever that will bulk up the album a bit.

I plan on using only supplies I have on hand.  So my cardstock will be from the DCVW Retro pack, DCVW Taj Mahal pack and from some solid Colorbok cardstock and whatever is in my scrap bin. 

I buy most of my stuff on sale or when it hits Big Lots, TJ Maxx or Ross but my local Big Lots has drastically scaled down the scrapbooking/crafting supplies and I haven't felt like driving out of town to the other places. 

I am probably more creative with my limited stash anyway as I am forced to be. 

Happy crafting everyone....and I will post an update when I finish my album.

Cereal Box Album

I've been busy trying not to lose my mind and so haven't done too much crafting of any kind.  I have managed to finish an album though.  Here is a quick gander at it.  I won't bore you with a page by page and every single pull out mini book but you get the idea.

The cover is made from a cereal box cut down to size and covered with cardstock.  This is a really, really easy album to create when you are strapped for time, supplies and creativity.  It really doesn't take too much of any of the afforementioned things.  One piece of 12x12 creates two pocket pages.  I chose this album style because it is so quick and easy to make, I am in a creative slump, short on supplies and time and because I wanted the o-rings to stick out on the outside of the spine in order to dangle stuff from them.

That's the album folks.

Trying to get into the Holiday Spirit

So, I am just not feeling this holiday cheer.  I realize Thanks Giving is just around the corner and then Christmas and New Year's and I am just not feeling it.  So in an attempt to get some spirit on and as a great excuse to play with paper I decided to make these....

Yep, that's all folks.

Quick Mini Album and some 12x12 pages

 I will start off by saying I never make mini albums for myself, they always end up as gifts.  Last night, however, I decided to create a super quick one for all of my DEPLOYMENT DROP photos.  These were pictures taken on the day the girls and I dropped my husband and another troop off at their squadron to deploy back in July. I just couldn't  seem to decide which ones to scrapbook so they all ended up in this mini instead.

 The base of this mini is actually a cereal box cut down to size. 

 A peak at the inside.  You can see the pocket I created to put all of the photos I chose not to mount on the main pages.  Great way to get them all in there with out the pressure of actually mounting them.

 A quick look inside.

 My journaling. 

 The pocket.

 Top view of the pocket with those pictures in it.

 The album all layed out.  Each page has a picture on both the front and the back and two pages slip into one of the accordian folds that I eyeleted together to create a small pocket.  They fit snug, so there is no worry that they will just fall out.  I have seen this accordian pleat pocket used on many different albums and in many variations.  Accordian pleats are not new nor is it a new idea to use them like pockets. So, I will not give any one person credit as that would be silly considering how often I have seen forms of this one idea. 

Originally I had planned to create some stationary (non removable pages) in with the accordian pleat pockets but I just got lazy and wanted to get this album done.  It all worked out though. 

Okay here are a few 12x12 pages. 

 I like pockets.

 This one is nice and simple. 

That is all for now folks.

Life is Hectic

Life is hectic.  September was a month from hell where everything that could go wrong did and unfortunately there is still a lot of fall out that needs to be dealt with and I just don't seem to have the motivation it takes, nor the energy needed to get it done. 

I have been suffering from fatigue for months now and the problem seems to have grown worse.  Hopefully after my up coming doctor's appointment I can begin to get back on track (because hopefully we will have figured out the issue and addressed it.) and be able deal with the remnants of last month that are still in need of being dealt with. 

I have to admit that this deployment has been by far the worst ever.  I will be so glad when the new year rolls around and my husband can come home.  I don't enjoy being the one solely in charge of EVERYTHING.  Didn't mind it before kids but with kids and being perpetually exhausted lately it is extremely overwhelming. 

Life is just starting to settle back down to the familiar we knew before September and I would just as soon it stays settled, but we all know that isn't how life works.  Hopefully, I will regain my energy and motivation and be up and running with everything back to normal in no time.

5 New 12x12 Layouts Completed

Remi showing off her crocheted earrings that I made her.

I completed some layouts.  Just thought I would share.  This first one of my oldest munchkin is on DCWV Colorful Life card stock. I mix and match my brands for everything and I have no rules but if you are interested in anything in particular feel free to ask. 

 This next one was a family day.  I believe on Easter morning, before we dyed the eggs, we chose to wash the car.  It was a super fun day though a challenging layout to get so many pictures on to it.

 This layout here is mostly me diving into my scrap bin of paper/card stock and pulling out all the different blues until I found a couple that I thought worked well together.  The scrap bin is probably my number one stop when I start a new layout.  I like to pic out papers and then find photos that will go with what I like but I don't always do this.  The first layout I actually had the photos that I wanted to scrapbook and then I hunted for the paper to go with them.  It all comes down to my mood, really, on how and why I do any of it.  But back to this layout.  I used Glossy Accents to trace over the silver written letters on the banner to give them more dimension.  I love playing with that stuff.  It makes for some unique personalized bits for projects.

This layout came out nothing like I first planned.  I had pulled the paper and a couple of piles of pics that I was having a hard time choosing from and voila the pocket idea came about to allow me to use all of the pictures that I had pulled. 

 All of the loose pictures have journaling on the back of them.  Interactive pages are always fun if kind of tricky to put into protectors.

This one was great.  The page did all of the work.  I really only had to add the pictures.  I don't tend to like these types of pages much as I actually find them hard to use and this one in particular I have been trying to use for about six months now.  Well, it is now used.  Thank goodness for that. I really don't know why I find slap and go pages difficult.  It may be that I am just not sure how to add my personality to them to make them my own but hey, give me a blank page and I can run forever on it. 

I will be the first to admit that I don't always love every page I make but I do enjoy making all of them.  I learn something every time I create something new and the process of creating allows me to unwind and just be myself.