The China Album

Congratulations to our friends, Andy and Amy Jo, who adopted a little girl in March! While they were in China to get Anna, they wrote an incredible blog of their experiences and posted lots of fabulous pictures. I decided to create an album for them after reading their first few posts and worked feverishly those couple of weeks while there were there to try to get it all done by the time they got home. Yah...that didn't happen...ha! I can certainly be crazy sometimes and have been known to occasionally pull an all-nighter to get a project done....but this turned out to be a very detailed project that eventually took me six months to complete, including two weekend scrapbooking retreats. I was so incredibly happy to finally be able to present it to them at the end of September.

Scrapbooking a blog was alot of fun because all of the journaling had already been done and the pictures were ready to go. I copied the text from the website and pasted it into one large MSWord file. For each page, I tried to figure out the best layout for the pictures and then formatted the journaling into text boxes in MSWord to fit around the pictures. Some posts there was ALOT of text so it was a real challenge to get it all to fit...had to tweak line spacing, font size, and/or margins. And then there were some posts that were short and with no pictures....so I combined those with other postings in a layout. I really like using wallet sized prints so that I can fit more pictures into a layout, especially for an 8x8 album. The size I get when I have them printed at Sam's Club is 2.5 x 3.5 inches. The other perk to wallets (printed at Sam's) is that you get two pictures for the price of one! I made most of the embellishments with my Cricut and punches. That was not my intention when I first started, but I like the nice, clean style of die cuts so I went with it. I am really happy with the final result. So without further ado...


There's a shadow on the front window because I took all of these pictures outside...so here's a closeup.

The black frame is dry embossed using one of the Cuttlebug Oriental Weave folders.


I wanted to find a way to incorporate some of Andy and Amy Jo's facebook postings as well. Surprisingly, it took alot of internet image searching to find a nice, pretty map of China that showed all three cities they visited, which I used Stickles glitter glue to highlight. The photo is from our church directory.

This is the page that really got me going with the Cricut. I love the picture of them in the rickshaw!

This 3 page layout is one of my favorites. Incredible picture of them in front of the Great Wall!






This is one of my favorite layouts!! I love love love these pictures!



This one was alot of fun to make!



This is my favorite layout. It's a continuation of the "We left as a family of 3..." layout in the beginning. The picture is one they posted on Facebook.

I love this picture of the two kids!



Supplies:
Martha Stewart Arch Lattice border punch
Martha Stewart 3 dot punch around the page
Martha Stewart lattice punch around the page
Cuttlebug Oriental Weave and Moroccan Screen embossing folders
EK Success border punches: scrolls and dots, diamond lace, American Girl stars
Stickles yellow, fruit punch, and stardust
Cricut cartridges used: Pagoda, Stone Script, Superman, Elegant Cakes, Holiday Cakes, Cake Basics, Home Accents, Spongebob, Designer's Calendar, Stand and Salute and some I don't remember

Whew! I am so happy to have it finally finished and given to such a wonderful family. Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Talk to you again soon!

If you would like to see the original blog, here is the address: http://www.youbelong.net/theadams

Ladybug mini album

I LOVE this album that I finished last week! Isn't the ladybug soooo cute??? All the girls on my husband's side of the family are really into ladybugs...so of course my daughter and I are too. This book was made for my MIL and all of the pictures are of my daughter in her various ladybug outfits since she was born.

I had been thinking of doing this album for quite some time but hadn't yet because my original plan was to design my own cut pattern by tracing a ladybug image in KNK Studio Element. I was having trouble finding an image I liked...the cutest I could find was the cover of one of my daughter's books and I thought maybe I could use it as a guide. But then I came across myscrapchick.com and considering the time/cost ratio, I went ahead and bought the pattern. Modifying it only by adding the rectangle on the side for the binding, I cut it out using my Klic-n-Kut. I also cut cereal boxes and sandwiched them in between cardstock to make the covers more sturdy. In retrospect, I needed to have done that for the face too and will probably end up switching it out. The antenna and bottom of the face hang over the body slightly and are already getting bent. I used pop dots to make the face stand out from the body. I almost always try to get as many pictures as I can on a page so I used an Exacto knife to trim them to the shape of the body where needed. I chose to use daisies, ladybugs, and paisleys for embellishments because they are my MIL's favorites.









Details:
- cereal boxes sandwiched between cardstock for covers
- 2 pieces of cardstock glued together per page
- all cardstock is from The Paper Studio
- ladybug ladybug - Cricut Nursery Rhymes cartridge
- daisies - Marvy punches 1" and 1/2" (punch two and then glue together offset)
- paisleys - Cricut Holiday Cakes cartridge
- daisy border - EK Success Daisy Chain (cut apart for individual ones)
- ladybug punch - Miss Elizabeth's (punch one red and one black; cut the head off and a V in the back of the red one; then glue together and use pen to make dots)
- ladybug flight path - Cricut Holiday Cakes cartridge
- Bind-it-all with 5/8" red comb (used Crop-a-dile to punch holes - see video here)
- red and black satin ribbon and red grosgrain ribbon with black dots (used a lighter to burn the ends to prevent fraying)
- pink chalk for blush on cheeks and black chalk around edges of red and face on covers