A Birthday Book for my parents' 80th!

I made this book to commemorate the family reunion we had in Michigan this summer in honor of both of my parent's 80th birthdays. The cover is pretty simply covered chipboard.


Inner pages are covered chipboard and envelope pockets.

In each of the envelopes is a card with a family photo of each of the individual families who were present at the reunion. Inside the card they each wrote a birthday message to Mom and Dad.

There were so many photos from the weekend to pack into this book that I had to make some small and quite a few overlapping. However, I think it came out OK as far as capturing the weekend.

Here's the birthday couple. Sweet, huh?! Happy 80th Birthday, Mom and Dad!

Thanks for looking.

Jill

Finally - something to post!!

This is an address directory I did for my family. Made one for each family household (18 of them!) on my side of the family. I used all different papers (I think there might have been 1 duplicate) for each book. There are Hambly transparency dividers and the tabs are labeled for each of my siblings.





I know they will almost immediately need updating but it was fun putting them together for everyone. It will be handy when Christmas card time comes too.

This is the back cover.

It's so good to be creating again!!!!

Jill

OK - obviously other things have been in the way of blog posting lately.

Unfortunately I have nothing very interesting to post - no photos, no projects, not even anything terribly riveting to read.

We are here though, back home in the midwest. We're in a rental house for now and are focused on getting the kids in school and developing a routine around the household. I'm unpacking my studio still (Wow! What a lot of stuff I have even after selling and donating before the move!) and my hands are just itching to PLAY with it all. I have a notebook with several pages full of ideas I want to work into real projects soon but must get organized in the work space first.

Hoping to get something up here soon.

Our summer travels produced many photo ops as we'd hoped but I have yet to sort through them for my family album. I think that may be a work-in-progress for some time to come but I'm certain I got at least a few gems this summer to go in it.

Hope you all had a wonderful creative summer.

Jill

An Unlikely product pairing - the perfect Family Album

When I first saw Teresa Collins "Documented" and "Family Matters" product lines, I knew I had to have them. I so firmly believe in journaling the family moments for those generations to come to better know who we, their ancestors, were. Her crisp and clean designs were designed with journalers in mind. AMEN!

When I first saw the 7Gypsies "Gypsy Market" product line, I knew I had to have it. I was so in love with the colors, patterns, Asian prints, and vintage appeal of it.


When I got both of these lines in a new order - together - I
realized how much I liked them mixed in with each other. Each is a very different design style but both have a lovely rich camel color in common. That started the wheels churning for this book.

One of the first ideas I had was to laminate the covers. I used Beacon's Liquid Laminate that you brush on and it gives this almost-instant-dry shine to the paper. LOVE it on the covers (inside and out) as well as the chipboard dividers inside.








I used TC bracket album covers and the Zutter
bind-it-all system for the book. I used some of TC's 8x8 page protectors, die cut file folders, envelopes, tags...











... also used TC's 8x8 transparencies - LOVE these.














Of course, since I'm a distressing fiend, I had to give a distressed look to the TC products to give them a vintage feel similar to the 7Gypsies products.










The book has three sections to it. I separated each section with a chipboard page. The first section will be my immediate family - me, hubby, and our four kids.









Second section will be my hubby's family. We're having a family reunion late this summer so I plan to be frantically snapping photos of everyone.










The final section is for my family. We are also conveniently having a family reunion late this summer so that will be another photo opp. This one will be a bit tougher though since I have about 45 people in my family. Whew!










The plan is to have all photos be in Black/White to better show off the colors of the book but also because I just love how B/W photos look.










I will plan for plenty of journaling spaces,













some family quotes,













and of course some extra embellishments after the photos are in place.

The Gypsy Market line has some super cool vintage tags, brads, and chipboard numbers that I KNOW will land in this book somewhere!












I love how the book came out. It looks beatiful to me now - even though it's empty. But, man, I can't wait to get it full of photos.

Hopefully my photography skills will sharpen a bit for me this summer so I can capture a few good ones.

Unfortunately I'm "blessed" with camera-shy family members. I'll have to get a bit sneaky to snap everyone. There may also be very little "posing" allowed too.

Will also have to keep a notebook handy to make sure everyone is accounted for.

Hope the book is big enough to hold everyone!

Can't wait to fill these cool file folders.

Thanks Teresa Collins and 7Gypsies for coming out with such MARVELOUS products!!

I'll share a few pages when the book is more complete with pics and embellishments. Hopefully that will be before spring. With the move and all it's a lofty goal, believe me.

Thanks for letting me share my stuff.

Jill

Never too late to be Thankful

I always wanted to create a book to house all our favorite Thanksgiving recipes. So last fall when I got in a Kit Club kit these beatiful 7Gypsies Savannah papers, I knew I could do it. So I set about typing up my recipes, decorated my house for Thanksgiving, set a pretty holiday table, made sure to take photos of the food that day, etc. About February, I finally got 'round to putting the book together. It was worth the wait. I love it! and hope it will become a family heirloom some day.

The book itself was part of the kit. It was a mixed shape chipboard album by 7Gypsies.

Covered each chip page with patterned papers, embellishments, rub-ons, stamps, etc.

Some good photos, some autumy embellishments. A great gold Hambly transparency ...

Some mouth-watering recipes with photos of the finished product ...

And the results were a cherished album I can pull out each year to cook from and re-live our family Thanksgiving moments.

This page has my favorite 7Gypsies embellishment - the metal fork on the left. Love it!

Even added a couple photos of the traditional things we do for that Holiday weekend. Lots of family games and a jigsaw puzzle usually is in the works for a few days.

Thanks for looking.

Jill

Wedding Albums

Ok, since we decided to move I haven't been very creative -- just too darn busy! However, before our decision I made a couple of Wedding Albums for two nephews getting married this summer. I've only just gotten 'round to taking photos of them and downloading, blogging, etc. So ... now it's "share" time!

The wedding colors for this one were lavender, pink, green, and silver.


The wedding colors for this one were pale pea green and silver.



For both books I painted the edges of chipboard panels with silver metallic paint, then covered each with patterned paper, added cardstock for photo placement, and embellished with flowers, a cool vine ribbon, metal doo-dads, stamps, rub-ons, and metal letters. Hope they like them. They will look SOOO much better with wedding pics in them.

A bit side-tracked these days!

Hey, everyone and anyone who's checking my blog. Sorry there's been nothing interesting in QUITE some time -- but ... we are a bit preoccupied these days. We're leaving New England and heading back to our roots in the Midwest. Illinois to be precise.

So ... we're knee-deep in selling our Massachusetts house and house hunting in Illinois.

Unfortunately, this all means that I'll have to be packing up my studio very soon so don't look for anything creative on the blog for awhile. Hope to return by the fall.

Thanks for checking in.

Jill

Easter Envelope Book

Here is a little Easter envelope book I made for a special group from Western Massachusetts coming for a class. It's composed of chipboard covers, a couple chipboard pages, and five document envelopes with those string/button closures. It's decorated with pretty pastel papers, ribbons, buttons, and (my favorite part) vintage Easter postcard images.

Hope you like it, girls.

Jill

Annette's Challenge - chipboard

Check out my previous post, ladies. Chipboard covers for the book and chip board frames inside it. Hope it wasn't a cheat to use a book I'd already been designing for a class to teach. I'd already planned the covers but the frames were really my response to the challenge. Having fun with these. Bring on more mojo!!

Jill

Garden Book Class

Here is the Garden Book for the March class coming up. This is the fancy-schmancy cover I teased about last post. It's embossed chipboard (See that Challenge folks!) rubbed with a crayon as a resist then topped with a paint wash. Cool, eh?



The book is 6x12 with chipboard covers and cardstock pages. It's been filled with my neighbor's lovely garden photos.



We'll use lots of colorful papers, ribbon, rubber stamps, transparencies, and lots of other neat doo-dads.

The cool part of this book are the many flaps and flip-outs that allow you to put more photos in it. They're like little hidden treasures as you look through the book.

Here's a chipboard frame (wow - more chipboard, Challenge folks!) we'll use in a couple places.

Doesn't my neighbor have a beautiful garden! I'm giving her this copy of the book after the class is finished. It's sort of payment for having me traipse through her lovely flowers to get these photos last August.

I love having a neighbor with a beautiful garden because I'm really not much of a gardener myself.

I guess I'd rather see a riot of color in my ribbon bin and my array of scrapbook papers. They're a little less maintenance for me.

There's a document envelope on the back cover for journaling, gardening notes, those funky little plant tags that (I've heard) come in the pots when you buy the plants (if you're braver than I am and actually buy them) - or just more photos.

So ... class is Monday, March 23 at 6:30pm at St. John Lutheran Church.

Class Fee: $40

Call or email me to register. Space is limited on this one so register early (especially if you think you might want additional kits).

Supplies on this one are your basic kit with scissors, ruler, pencil, LOTs of adhesive - BOTH glue sticks and tape runners, and mini glue dots.

Thanks for looking. Hope to see you on the 23rd.

- Jill