Journaling Tips 10 - Little Booklets

In addition to the visible journaling block, this page also has hidden journaling.  The three pictures at the bottom of the page are actually the front covers of three little booklets that have journaling in them. 

Here is how I made them:

• Cut sheets 3.5" x 7" and folded in half to form 3.5" x 3.5" pages for the little books - as many pages as I wanted. In this case, I only needed one sheet for each, and I printed the pages before cutting them.  
• I glued the 3.5" x 3.5" pictures to the front (white titles were printed as part of the pictures).
• I laminated them (to protect them from handling) and then re-folded them, creasing them well.
• I took dots of self-adhesive velcro and used them to attach the booklets in place. 
• I slid the page into the page protector and marked along the right-hand edge of each booklet where I would need to cut slits.
• I removed the page and slipped a cutting mat inside before cutting the slits with a craft knife.
• I carefully removed the booklets from the page, leaving one side of the velcro dots in place, and slipped the page back inside the page protector.
• I slipped the booklets in through the slots and re-attached them via the velcro dots.

My Grandma Died Today

I made this scrapbook page about my grandmother a couple of years ago as a part of a scrapbook swap where we were to scrapbook about an important person in our lives. 

Today I got the word that she has died.  She was sent home with hospice last July with multiple myeloma.  I'm glad I was able to spend some time with her, helping out and visiting - 3 weeks in July and 4 weeks recently, but it's been hard to watch her decline.  While I am glad she is no longer dealing with such a devastating disease, I still mourn her passing.  She was a second mother to me much of my life while my parents jobs took them overseas and as this tribute page says, she has been a very important person in my life. 

I haven't had time to get on top of my blog posts again after coming back from my latest visit, and right now I just don't feel like posting much. I'm sure if I miss a few posts now and then over the course of the next few weeks, you'll all understand.  And thank you for that.

Ebony Color Me Toppers!

Hot Off the Press is coming out with some brand new Color Me Card Toppers.  I got a bit of a sneak peak, and they are so much fun!  They have the look of a black embossed design and the black resists ink, so you can color the design in a variety of ways.  It is wonderful to have something like this on hand when you need to make a nice card at the last minute.  I was so glad I got these when I did as there were two occasions I needed quick cards for recently.

This first one was created for a friend who was no longer going to be cuing our Friday night dances.  I colored the pattern in with Smooch inks. The purple matched my background paper so well!  I stamped the word "Remember. . . ", trimmed the bottom of the front of the card to mimic the edge of the card topper, and it was good to go.

 This next card was created for a friend who had been ill.  Once again, I colored it with smooch inks that matched my background paper (red this time). These are so pretty that you can use them without any color, or color them as much or as little as you want.  I started out just coloring the scalloped border, but decided to add a bit more color as you see in this next picture.

The greeting was cut out of black sticky-back vinyl using my Silhouette and a pattern I created.  I liked using the little heart in place of an "o" and decided to highlight that use by coloring it in.

Tiny Tidbits

Today I'll show a few gift enclosure mini-cards I've made with scraps.  I hate throwing stuff away that might be useful, but I don't want a bunch of junk sitting around either.  I want to USE it.  Scraps of cardstock make great bases for mini-cards. Scraps of colorful paper make great additions. In the past, I've talked about using your scraps with your die cuts & Big Shot machine (or similar) to create ready to use embellishments. These cards make use of some of those, as well as "innies" scraps from some of the more complicated dies. Today I'll show 9 examples of little cards I've made with leftovers - starting with the 5 shown above and shown in greater detail below (approx 2" x 3 1/4"):

Scraps from Die Cuts

Mini Heart Die Cut Scraps

Layered Die Cut Scraps

Small Die Cut Heart

Layered Die Cut Rectangles

I have some small stamps from Hot Off the Press ("Tiny Words & Images" and "Matching Borders & Focals") that work great for mini cards like these.  All the cards I'm showing today were created to go in a card box set I created for a raffle for an organization I support. Here are a few more examples - these ones are a bit larger (2 5/8" x 4 3/4"):

Lots of Layers

3-d sticker & ribbon with die cut

Here's one with a star window

Another one with a star window

 I like having a bunch of these little cards available.  You never know when you want a quick mini-card to go with a gift, or just to give someone as a "pick me up". And they're a great way to use up scraps.