Tea Time

Actually it's Tea Thyme by Prima but relaxing with a nice cuppa tea would be perfect while looking thru this album. 

It's a 6x6 album and contains 16 cardstock pages with large and small flaps and envelopes for more photos and/or journalling. The front and back covers are made with medium weight chipboard with the binding made of beige felt.
Okay now that the boring stuff is over with it's time for the fun stuff  The front cover is beautifully embellished in lace and ribbon, flowers, leaves, pearls , a resin angel, a tag and a pretty trinket. It was such fun to create this soft, romantic, vintage look.

 

The back cover also contains a pretty co-ordinating rose.

The inside pages have large and small flaps and envelopes to add more photos or journalling. They also contain pearls, rhinestones, flowers and clips. It all ties together with soft green ribbon.

                               

 On one of the pages I used a Prima flower and a pretty handmade butterfly made by Angelica Franssen and available in her Etsy shop (see Inspiring Blogs on the right).

So another album done and available for sale in my Etsy shop.

I am SO GRATEFUL AND THANKFUL FOR ALL SALES but I sometimes feel that stocking my shop is a matter of two steps forward and one step backwards.
For that reason the wonderful and talented Lois Sokolan has offered to make mini's as well.
It will be stated on the Etsy listing as to whether it was made by myself or Lois.
I'm so looking forward to having Lois on board - good for me, good for her and good for our customers!
Lois has created some amazing mini's so watch for them coming soon to a shop near you!

Have a great week!

 

More Than a Ladies Diary

The 'Ladies Diary' line of paper from Graphic 45 is right up there with 'Once Upon a Springtime' and 'Little Darling' as being one of my favourites.
I made a small mini for my daughters friends' wedding shower but thought I needed a little something for my ETSY Shop.
So I bought a little wooden keepsake box from a big box craft store and decided to alter it then add a mini inside.

I started by removing the hardware (closure and hinges) then sanded and painted with a homemade acrylic mixture of turquoise and ivory. I wish I had made the paint a little lighter but I was too excited to get started! As it ended up the darker turquoise made a nice contrast and was perfect! The box was covered in a basic layer of paper both inside and out. I then did some fussy cutting and layered an elegant lady, labels and sayings and clock faces to the top, front and sides. After the hardware was put back in place the whole box was then sealed with a matte medium.
Now let the decorating begin! Strings of pearls, lace, ribbons and flowers all glamorized our elegant lady.

  

On the inside fits a 5x3 mini album. The outside is kept simple with flowers and pearl lace along the felt binding.

 

 Along the spine I stitched a round clip covered with flowers, ribbons and butterflies.

 

 

Seeing how the album is so small I kept the inside pages simple  in order to leave room for photos and journalling. Here`s a peek at a few.

 

 

I really enjoyed making this project - inside and outside of the box.

 

 

 Have a great week!

  

Who Says Halloween Can't Be Elegant?

Sorry it took such a long time for tomorrow to come. Sometimes life gets in the way of doing the things we love to do.
Actually this time was good though. Since last here I had a birthday.  I know - you're likely thinking 'oh she's 29 AGAIN' but I think people are catching on to so let's just say I'm only a few years away from a biggie!  I spent a lovely day with my daughter - lunch and shopping! Perfect.  Then on the weekend I had a great party with my family.

I promised you photos of the Halloween scrapbook album I made with Theresa Collins Haunted Hallows line. I love TC - she always has such distinguished and elegant papers. Lots of damasks, flourishes and classic lines. I was curious to see her halloween paper and she didn't disappoint. It has black crows, spiders, witches and bats but it somehow has a spooky but elegant touch. Think black crows atop chandeliers, witches in a cameo setting and bat candlesticks. Gotta love TC!

So here's a few photos. There's lots of pockets, flaps and envelope pages but I won't show all of them here.

 I had a lot of fun doing the cover. The binding is black embossed felt and then I added a Prima halloween vine, Petaloo flowers, a handmade stickpin, a Tim Holtz grungeboard skull and crossbones, and black feathers. Oh yeah and I put dots of 'crystal' stickles on the chandelier crystals to add glitter and elegance.

 

On the spine I tied some black tulle to a large paperclip then tied on a bottle of 'poison' (black and orange glitter).

 

I used a black covered elastic to fasten it to an antique button on the front.

 

I adhered the black felt webbing to clear acrylic to make a pocket for the inside cover.

I used silver glitter paper on both the front and back inside covers.

 I love the Martha Stewart 'Birds on a Wire' punch and this page gave me the perfect excuse to use it. It sits on top of a pocket which holds a tag for photos or journalling.
The 'webbing' behind the pocket photo is actually a wide ribbon.

 

This is a simple page where I added a black glittery Martha Stewart spider

and a black envelope with a label and black  button.

 

 

 

This is another simple page with a flap to hold a photo or journalling. The cover of the flap has Prima flowers and leaves, hand dyed ribbon and a handmade stickpin.

 

 

 

 For this page I made a pouch out of heavy black glitter cardstock. I made a band on the flap with regular black cardstock and added 2 black pearl brads. A handmade butterfly was added. The flap closes with velcro dots.

 

Isn't this paper cute?! I love the bat candlesticks. I didn't want to cover the paper so just clipped on a journalling card with a Martha Stewart glittery sticker.

 

 

This page was fun to do. I scored black cardstock and rubbed it with white and silver paint to resemble big old wooden doors. The hinges are Tim Holtz grungeboard rubbed with silver ink and drybrushed with black paint. If you peek insde you will see that cheesecloth was added to the inside of the door.

This album is available for sale in my Etsy Shop 'Sapphire Noteables'.

Take care until next time - but in the meantime enjoy the beautiful Indian Summer we've been having!
  

A Bootiful Thing

Now that the little ones are back in school it won't be long until they are knocking at your door looking for treats. Yes, next month those little ghosts and goblins will be everywhere as Halloween somehow creeps up on us. Where did summer go? I'm not ready for fall yet! But wait - bring on the apple and pumpkin pies!!!!!
I have always loved Halloween. Except for Christmas it is the bestest holiday ever!
We always dressed up with the kids, had adult costume parties and decorated the house with cobwebs, skeletons and tombstones.
With our kids grown we no longer celebrate Halloween as much anymore but I did finally finish a couple of Halloween scrapbook albums I've been working on. Creating them  brought back some of those memories for me and these books are perfect for preserving Halloween memories.
The first album uses the Happy Haunting line of papers from Graphic 45.

 

I used an 8x8 cover-all by Zutter for the book itself. I sprayed the kraft cover with charcoal mist then added a light mist of silver and bronze. I added lots of layers starting with a strip of black tulle to the centre which I cinched. On top of that I added some cheesecloth that I also misted to take away the stark white colour. Then the fun began! I added a large purple handmade and dyed paper flower to the centre with Prima halloween vines,  a handmade accordian flower, a hand dyed butterfly and matching ribbon, a G45 chipboard ticket and a beautiful handmade halloween stickpin. (stickpin accordian flower, hand dyed flower, butterfly and ribbon made by Angelica Franssen - see her blog under 'inspiring blogs').

 

For the closure I added metal halloween charms and strips of black tulle to a chain where I attached a black Prima bat to an alligator clip.

It has a total of 12 pages and has lots of pockets, envelopes, flaps and tags to hold a ton of photos and journalling and a ton of embellies.  I will just share a few of my fave pages here.

 

I love this page and G45 makes it so easy with it's awesome paper. I made a large flap with black cardstock and threaded corduroy buttons with black twine to fasten it. It opens to reveal a halloween scene with a pocket and tags on the inside cover. It was all edged with a lattice edge punch. The outside of the flap contains a small envelope also made of black cardstock and fastened with black velcro dots.

 

 

 On this page I used a Tim Holtz Alterations Die to add a bird and branch to the front

of a flap. It opens to reveal a pocket and tag.

 

 

This is one of the envelope pages. It's again made with black cardstock and covered with G45 paper. It fastens with a velcro dot and holds a tag inside for journalling or photos.

This album is for sale in my Etsy shop - www.sapphirenoteables.etsy.com
along with a Theresa Collins Halloween album. Here's a peak but I will share more of  this album with you tomorrow.

In the meantime happy haunting!