December Mini Album

Remember all of those pictures I took in December? I tried to do something Christmas-y or fun as a family every day of the month, and I put them together in an interactive mini album.

I really like it. It's a great keepsake to remember these years when Christmas is SO exciting!

I made all of the pages different sizes, used envelopes, pockets, tags, accordian fold mini albums within pages, etc. to make it interactive and capture some of the fun we had (also, I took too many pictures, so I had to fit them all in).

This gives you a sense of the layers.

 Christmas parties

Decorating Gingerbread Houses and Men

 Tree selection and decorating

Christmas light displays

winter traditions and comforts and putting up the lights on our house

New experiences (tasting hot chocolate) and favourite recipes

 more traditions ( a new advent calendar house)

 spending time together

and another light display

I'll share the rest in another post..... 

Supplies: 

Echo park paper company - paper, stickers, journaling tags, and alphas

Simple Stories- number stickers

Bind it all- coils and machine to bind this book together

Prima-crystals, rub-ons

Shabby Green Door - twine

Bazzill- paper flowers, kraft cardstock

Martha Stewart - punches

My Mind's Eye- twin

EK Success - corner rounder

Maya Road - die cuts, stick pins, ribbon, and buttons

7 Gypsies - tags

Bo Bunny - rub ons, brads

K and Company- rhinestones

Pebbles - felt trees

Deja View - ribbons

Making Memories- alphas

Jillibean Soup - alphas

unkown - tissue paper from old patterns, buttons, envelopes, burlap

Things to do in Edmonton

I've been getting out and experiencing some of the perks of living in a city, this year, and thought I'd share some of the things I've been up to.

-My mom and I went to see Jann Arden play at the Jubilee a few weeks ago, and I haven't shared the pictures or even mentioned it, yet. I'm behind....

Here are some pictures of Miss Arden:

 And her with her opening act, Keith and Renee, which was also pretty awesome.

They sang together and it gave me goosebumps!

Her band was pretty amazing, too. They each did a little solo to showcase their skills and any one of them would have been good to see alone, they were so talented.

It was a great show! She has such a voice and she's funny, too. It was like going to a concert and a comedian, all in one night. I'd highly recommend seeing her live, if you ever get the chance.

-Yesterday, I went with my friend to see Artist's Emerge, which is a Hip Hop competition. It was very cool, and I was impressed with the kids that danced in it. Kind of made me feel like I didn't really learn to dance when I was younger, even though I took about 8 years of lessons....

There was a 10 year old wonder who danced with the 18 year olds and was a hard-hitting, super street dance phenom, plus most of the kids danced in numerous routines, with different groups and remembered all of the routines (which I think would be the hardest part, now that I'm getting older...).

The best part were the Pro Dance Crews. They blew me out of the water. A few had been on So You Think You Can Dance, and Canada's Choreographer of the Year was there with some kids and he danced. Whoa! He looked like an alien half the time because no body should be able to do that!

-Last weekend, I went with another friend and checked out a bakery downtown called Duchess. It was very elegant, with white everywhere, except for a gold, tin ceiling ( I don't know what you call it, but it was pretty) and gold chandeliers. Classy joint. They even made a little heart on the top of our lattes with milk.

-I also went to see Beauty and the Beast, Wicked and Romeo and Juliet at the Jubilee, in the last six months or so. They were all great. I'd highly recommend them.

Phone Pictures

These are the blurry gems that I capture when something happens and my camera isn't handy. 

Trying on dad's hat.

Is that a salute?

Remember when Brad made her wear that horrible Flames jersey, while I wasn't at home?? We surprised him with her new jersey.

That's right! A pink Oilers jersey! Every little girl needs one.

Berlyn playing guitar at our house. 

And walking our dog

of course, Gracie can do it, too. 

for some reason, she was calling herself Rob with this basket on her head.... not sure why.

And a skill that both her dad and I hope she uses for good and not evil. 

She can hang on our bannister for a very long time. She's tough!

Some new layouts

Guess who's in all of them?? No surprise here. 

Supplies: papre, stickers-Fancy Pants Designs, flowers-Prima, title sticker-Creative Imaginations, pen-Zig writer, transparency-unknown

Supplies: patterned paper-Simple Stories, cardstock-Core'dinations, stickers-Martha Stewart, Simple Stories, and Glitz Designs, felt stickers-unkown, journal tag-Echo Park 

Supplies: patterned paper- Creative Imaginations, and Making Memories, stickers - Creative Memories, and Simple Stories,  cardstock-Tim Holtz, buttons - Maya Road, brads- Basic Gray, and GCD, alphas- Jillibean Soup and Cosmo Cricket

Supplies- alphas-Jillibean Soup, Simple Stories, Fancy Pants, brad- Bo Bunny, paper- Webster's Pages, film strip- Tim Holtz, stickers- Echo Park

Hope you enjoyed!!!

Another Mini Album

Here's another mini album that I made to document Gracie's second Halloween. 

I decorated a simple 6x6 album from American Crafts,

made a few title pages (Sorry about the glare on this one), 

and then made a bunch of simple page layouts to showcase the photos, because they're so Stinkin' cute!

Then, I created a 4x6 photo block on each page, bordered on both sides by patterned paper, one thicker than the other. 

 The photo blocks either contained 1 -  4x6 photo, 2 - 3x4 photos, or in the case of the title pages, the title. 

 I either kept the photo blocks running horizontal or vertical to suit the photos and just rotated my sketch to suit. 

 This kept the pages looking fairly uniform. 

 I used a bunch of leaf die-cuts (some of you may recognize these from our wedding invitations), some twine, stamped some black ink on kraft paper and added some glitter. 

 The elements were clustered differently on each page to add interest. 

And, that's how you make a quick, cute album to showcase some of your favourite photos!

 I used a Lilybee Designs 6x6 paper pad form this album.