Happy Birthday - You Spice Up My Life

My husband loves spicy food with Mexican being his favorite. The hotter the better. We started growing habanero peppers a few years ago and I can still remember the day he decided to eat one right off the plant. I could literally see the red rising up his neck, over his face and to the top of his bald head. As the color hit the top of his head, beads of sweat began pouring out his forehead. With a smile on my face, I asked him if the pepper was hot. Holding back the tears from his eyes he said, "No, not at all!''  We still laugh about it. For his birthday on July 24th, I made a card only he could love.

I picked up the pepper as a freebie from PPPR. I am entering this card in PPPR's Monthly Challenge: Hot  http://prettypaperprettyribbons.blogspot.com/p/pppr-monthy-challenge.html

Summer Fun Mini Album

I have been bitten by the bug. The first mini album (paper bag) I made for a friend. It was hard to let it go but fortunately she is a good friend and I would have felt guilty keeping it for myself. Well this inspired me to make an album for our family to document the summer. I have already started another, my third, for our family.  Here is the cute mini album I made.

There are so many places to add pictures on the inside. I have been inspired to take even more photos this summer to fill the album.

I am entering my project in: 2 Creative Chicks Challenge #16: Mini Album Book or Organizer: http://www.2creativechicks.com/2014/07/challenge-16-mini-album-book-or_8.html

Paper Bag Mini Album

Well, I finally did it!  I have been watching video after video of how to make your own mini album on You Tube and last weekend I took the plunge. I started with a tutorial from My Sisters Scrapper here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0FwlAPwmqA for the pages. The rest was a mixture of several different videos which I took bits and pieces from.

For the pages: I used party bags from the craft store. These ones were white and measured 4 5/8x2 7/8x8 5/8. There were twelve bags in the pages (enough for two books). I only used six bags for this book. I trimmed each bag down to 8 1/4" (cutting off the extra at the open end of the bag). I scored each bag at 6 1/4" and then cut fold (gusset) on each side of the bag and very carefully folded the end out and creased it with the bone folder. I taped the gussets closed on both sides and it was ready for decorating.


Once all the bags were cut, scored, folded and creased. I used a 6x6 paper pad to decorate my pages.  For this album I used the Simple Stories Awesome pack. It had 36 pages of which I used 34. Not too much waste here. You can go wild with antiquing the edges of the paper, foam tape, buttons, just about anything.  The inside photo mat was cut at 4.75x4.75 and the photo mats that slide out of the end of the bag were 5x5. Just measure and do what you like. There were 12- 4.75x4.75 photo mats and 12-5x5 photo mats. This is enough to cover her vacation.


For the binding or hidden hinge, I cut a strip of paper the same height as my pages (5.5"). and made my first score mark at 1.5", 2" and then 2.25". You do this pattern six times in a row so you would next score at 2.75, 3.25 and 3.5". The pattern is 1/2", 1/2" and 1/4". On your last set, do not score the 1/4 line. Measure out 1.5" from the last score and cut. Fold on score lines and then add tape to first 1/2" score, skip the next 1/2" and 1/4" and then add to the next 1/2" score, etc. through the end.


The cover was cut from kraft board. Two pieces of 6.5"x 5.5" and for the spine 1.75" x 5.5". I used two colors of 12x12 patterned paper from CTMH with colors that coordinated with my Awesome pack and cut one at 8" x 7.5" and one at 6" x 7.5". I placed them out on the table and put my kraft board where I thought it should go. They should not be right up next to each other. In fact, I used two widths of kraft stock to measure out the distance between each board so that I could fold the board without the paper tearing.  I gave each side an extra 1" to fold over and taped them down.


Once the cover was down, I added tape to each side of the six hinges, beveled the end of each hinge, added tape to the back along the spine and on the side of the book and adhered it down. Now I was able to add each page and finish decorating. Another You Tube video collection I referred to was Dawns Inspirations. She has some amazing tutorials. I am even going to try her cereal box cover next time for a quick easy cover.


So to finish it up, I was able to get some of my girlfriends vacation photos without her knowing and added them in. What a surprise it was when she opened the book to look at it and saw her children in the photos.


I truly had so much fun making this and as hard as it was to write down it really was easy to make. Just do your homework on You Tube. There are so many tutorials on paper bag mini albums. I just loved how this one had a pocket and pull outs on the side.

I am entering this in 2 Creative Chicks Challenge #16: Mini Album Book or Organizer: http://www.2creativechicks.com/ Little Scrap Pieces Show it off Saturday Linky Party: http://littlescrappieces.blogspot.com/