"D" is for Daughter

Happy New Year! everyone. How was your holiday? Are you ready for my first post of the year?


For those of you have a daughter, what does your daughter mean to your? Is she a joy bringer? a heart warmer? a memory maker? I am sure she is all that, plus she is your love, right?

Today's page layout is for "D" in an ABC baby girl album.

A couple of things I want to mention:
1. For the phrase, "A daughter is .. a joy bringer, a heart warmer, a memory maker. A daughter is ... love.", I printed it on the back side of vellum paper so the ink will not get smeared easily. Also when you print on vellum paper, make sure you change print option for transparency so less ink will come out. Do not touch the printed vellum paper for a few minutes after print. Otherwise, you will smear the prints.

2. For the lower right hand corner, I took Heidi Swapp's clear extras and painted with red, green and white acrylic paint on the back side. I mixed white with red and green paint separately to make different shades of pink and green. One thing I like about these clear extras is if I mess up the paint, I can wash it off with water and try it again. I hope you will give this a try.


Items used in this layout include:

1. Chatterbox's Villa Memory Building Kit
2. Chatterbox's red and pink ribbons
3. Chatterbox's Olive fuzz stickers
4. Heidi Swapp's Pink Chipboard Alphabet Box
5. Heidi Swapp's clear extras from Runway Collection.

"C" is for Cherished

This is the third page of an ABC album for a cherished baby girl.

In this layout, you can place a 4" x 6" photo at the top.

At the bottom, I first sewed bottom and 2 outer sides and also a straight line between each circle. That way, you can insert 3 smaller photos into the slots.

At the bottom, there is supposed to have a cute phrase of "Your are a treasure to cherish always." But I messed it up by typing "is cherish" instead. But I didn't realize that until now. So if you are going to make this page layout, please don't make the same mistake as me. Have fun!!!!

Items used in this layout include:

1. Chatterbox's Villa Memory Building Kit
2. Chatterbox's Olive fuzz stickers
3. Chatterbox's Olive 3-D stickers
4. Heidi Swapp's Pink Chipboard Alphabet Box
5. Heidi Swapp's red, pink and lemonade felt flowers.

Organizing Spellbinders Dies

Today I want to share a great solution I found for Spellbinder Dies.

I have been using CD cases to store my Spellbinders for a while but I didn't quite like the solution. The first problem was that I couldn't fit long rectangles dies into a CD case. Also with the number of CD cases I had, a lot of times they would fall off when I transported them from the house to a crop.

Then I found Tim Holtz's stamp binder. The dimension of the pocket is 7" w x 8.5" h, I can definitely fit the long rectangle dies and curved rectangle dies in there without any problem.

To keep them from shifting, I then found some avery inkjet printable magnetic sheets sold at Sam's Club's website for $7.88 with shipping fee included. That saved me a trip to the store... :)

Each package of magnetic sheets comes with 5 sheets. I cut each sheet in half and trim off the long side to be 8" long and they fit perfectly in the pockets. So I can store 10 sets of Spellbinder Dies. I then printed out their item number and name of dies on address labels and stock them on the magnetic sheets. See how neatly they stored in this cute binder.

Inside of the binder also has a front pocket and that's where I keep my tan embossing mat and white spacer plate and instruction sheet.

Here is great thing about this binder. It comes with a zipper so when I am done with these dies, I just close the zipper. Voila...they are safely kept inside the binder.

Not only I can keep Spellbinders Dies in this binder, I can also keep my clear stamps, stickers sheets, stencils,..., etc. I just love it.

Here is another tip for organizing Spellbinders Dies. I don't know about you but when I scrapbook, I love to take out all my tools and accessories. But when I am done, it's difficult to separate Spellbinders Dies into their own sets. So when I get a new set of dies, I use marker to label them in the back with the item number and die number with the largest one as 1 and second largest one as 2, and so on. That way, it's easy to sort them.


















For Scalloped Square Dies, because these dies overlapped with each other, you can not nest them together on the magnetic sheet. You have to alter the sizes and keep in 2 separate piles like below.

"B" is for Baby

"Have you ever held a baby, a baby, a baby like this?"

Continue with the baby girl ABC album, this is another cute 12" x 12" page layout I made using Chatterbox's Villa Memory Building Kit, olive ribbons and Heidi Swapp's Pink Chipboard Alphabet Box, large floral and baby chipboard.

"A" is for Angel

I have been wanting to make an ABC baby album and finally I got some time to do so. I will share this ABC album with you as I complete them one page at a time and I hope you will be patient with me.

This is 12x12 album made for a baby girl. I started with Chatterbox's Villa Memory Building Kit, which features pink and olive color with floral, stripes and plaid pattern. For the ABC alphabets, I chose Heidi Swapp's Pink Chipboard Alphabet Box. These Chipboard Alphabet are about 2" tall so they will definitely give my pages a pop.

To make the letter "A" stands out more from the pastel background, I built a layered flower from Heidi Swapp's large floral and felt flowers and jeweled brad and use it as the background.

I also tie an angel chipboard to the letter "A" to emphasize "A" is for angel. Because this angel tag is not glued down, you can add a short message to the back of the tag if you want to.

You can place a 4" x 6" photo and a 4" x 4" photo or journaling block. These 2 mats were first cut with Fiskars's Paper Edgers, then sewed together and added pink ribbons.

To tie the olive chipboard alphabets "ANGEL" with pink, I sanded them down a little before applying Stampin' UP! Rose Romance ink around each alphabet.

At the bottom of page, I added a clear die cut wing from Heidi Swapp with a 3-D angel sticker from Chatterbox to start a cute little phrase "Angel is God's whisper in the wind". This phrase was printed on a piece of cardstock cut and embossed with Spellbinder's small rectangle die with a background cardstock cut and embossed with large rectangle die. The clear die cut wing is also inked with the same Stampin' UP! Rose Romance ink in the back. I hope you like this cute baby girl layout. I am sure that it can be easier converted to a baby boy layout by simply changing the color.

Create 20 Chrismtas Cards in One Night

Can you believe that I made all 20 of these Christmas Cards in one night? Yep, I did. How cool is it to have all your friends and family received different cards from you this Christmas. And I didn't use any stamps, other embellishments or fancy tools for these cards. All the stickers, alphabets, flowers and ribbons are from this Page Kit. The only thing that is not included in this kit is the 8.5" x 11" cream cardstock.


List of supplies and tools for this project:

Cardstock and Paper
- Gazebo Memory Building Page Kit by Chatterbox
- 20 8.5" x 11" cream cardstock

Tools:
- Paper trimmer
- Scissor
- Tapes
































































































































































































Instruction:

1. First, follow the dimensions below and cut 4 of 12" x 12" paper each. So you will have

• 20 of A with 3.5" x 8.5" dimension
  
• 24 of B with 1.75" x 8.5" dimension
  
• 16 of C with 0.75" x 8.5" dimension
• 8 of D with 3.5" x 3.5" dimension

2. Then cut 2 pieces of B with dimension of 0.75" x 8.5" dimension. Now you should have 20 of A and 22 of B and 20 of C.

3. Now you can take 20 of A, B and C to assemble 20 cards. Each card will need one each of A, B and C. Make sure you lay out all 20 combination first before tape it down to the card. It's much easier to switch them now than with tape in the back. Also, remember that these paper are double-sided, so you can flip them over if you think the pattern is too busy. You see, there are just so many different possibilities with these. You will start tape B at the bottom of the card, A at the top of the card and then C to cover the gap between A and B.

4. Cut the ribbons came with the kit to 5" long. Tie a knot and tape them to the bottom of the cards.

5. Use the alphabet stickers came with the kit, make 2 cards with title "joy", 2 cards with "noel" and 1 card with "peace".




































6. Download (right click on the image and select "Save Image As...") the 2 images above, and print them on the D (3.5" x 3.5") paper. Make sure you adjust the print size to 3.5" x 3.5". If you have problem print them out on 3.5" x 3.5", you can tape them to a larger piece of paper and them peel them off after printing. Trim them down and use them as titles for the rest of 15 cards. Use brads that came with the kit to attached to the titles.

7. Use stickers and flowers that came with the kit to embellish the cards. Voila, here are 20 homemade Christmas Cards!

Red, White, Blue Christmas Card

Today, I want to a share a card with you that was made specially for our brave soldiers who can not spend time with their family during holiday season.










Here is the list of supplies and tools you will need to make this card:

Die Set(s):
- Star 5 Die Set by Spellbinders

Stamp(s):
- A Rhonna Christmas Card Stamps by Autumn Leaves

Cardstock and Paper
- 8.5" x 11" white cardstock
- 4.5" x 4.5" blue cardstock
- 4 1/8" x 4 1/8" light blue cardstock
- Enough red, white, blue cardstock to cut 4 red stars, 4 blue stars and 5 white stars.

Embellishment:
- Scarlet Decorative Ribbon by Chatterbox
- Denim Decorative Ribbon by Chatterbox
- Brads by Making Memories

Ink
- Real Red Pigment Ink from Stampin' Up!

Tools:
- Wizard byby Spellbinders or other die cut systems that are compatible with Spellbinders Dies.
- Paper trimmer
- Scissor
- Tapes
- Silver pen


Instruction:
1. I started with the smallest star die from Star 5 Die Set to cut out 4 red stars, 4 blue stars and 5 white stars first. Then assembled them on the light blue card stock to make a star wreath. Tip: I use one of Spellbinders circle dies as a template to draw a circle on the light blue cardstock first so I can make sure that the stars are in a perfect circle. You can use any object that can help you to draw a circle that is about 2.5" in diameter.

2. Attached some Blue Decorative Ribbon and Red Decorative Ribbon to the card with blue brads.

3. I stamped the Happy Holidays on the left side of the card between ribbons. Added some shadow with a silver pen to the stamped image so it stand out more.

4. Attached blue card stock and then the assembled light blue card stock to the card.

5. Added some red brads to the 4 corners of star wreath for finishing touch. Here is a card for our soldiers and wish them a Holiday Holiday!