Scrapbook Steals Blog Hop: Fun with Ribbons

The Hop

Welcome to Scrapbook Steal's July Blog Hop! I'm so excited to be a part of this hop, since I love viewing and love even more purchasing their daily offering of scrapbooking supplies. If you've just arrived from Mary's blog, then you've come to the right place. If you want to start from the beginning, please go to Scrapbook Steal's site. If you are lost, here is the blog hop order:

1. ScrapbookSteals 
2. Julie Koets 
3. Sherri Thompson 
4. Corrina Colquhoun 
5. Mary Pat O'brien-Siehl 
6. Michelle McClure (← you are here)
7. Savannah O'Gwynn (← next stop) 
8. Melissa Dehne 

The Product

All the designers were given a different card of trim to work with from the Fancy Pants Designs Ribbon Bundle. I was so happy to receive the Lilac House trim card. When I saw the colors and the lace design, I knew I was going to make something wedding themed. My cousin got married about a month ago and her wedding colors were Tiffany blue and orange. These ribbons were the perfect centerpiece in making a wedding card and gift for her. 

Fancy Pants Lilac House Trim

The Reveal #1: Wedding Card
First off, I made a card for her wedding present which were his and hers gift cards. Since I had separate gift cards for couple, I wanted the card to feature both the bride and groom. I bought this cut file from the Silhouette store and cut out the clothes, hat and bouquet.

Die Cut Wedding Card

At this point, the card looked very boring and flat and really needed some finishing touches. To make it more 3-D, I popped up the wedding dress and added the Fancy Pants lace trim. That really helped. I didn't want to leave out the groom, so I fold a piece of the blue and cream ribbon in half and tightly wrapped the center with some thread to create a bow tie. 

Dress Trim and Bow Tie Elements

I placed the finished card inside a cellophane envelope and tied a bow around the outside. Voilà!

Card & Envelope

The Reveal #2: Post - Wedding Gift

Secondly, after the wedding I wanted to frame one of her wedding photos to give as a post-wedding gift. I thought ribbon roses would make a perfect embellishment as she had a lot of beautiful orange roses in the banquet centerpieces. 

Framed Wedding Photo

I usually get my frames at my local thirft store where I never know what I'll find. On this trip, I found some circular frames which I've never worked with, but ended up really liking the shape. It had a dark finish and since I wanted a more pastel look, I ended up altering it. I painted a layer of crackling medium over the frame and then a layer of antique white on top of that. The result looked like birch bark.

Original Frame

To make the ribbon roses, I searched for ribbon tutorials and ended up using this tutorial. I cut an 8" length of ribbon and just rolled and twisted and glued the ending section to the bottom of the rose. It was really quite easy to make. I adhered some of the roses inside the frame and some on top of the frame using Fabric-tac. As a finishing touch, I brushed on some glitter paint to make the roses sparkle. 

Ribbon Roses Accent

The Giveaway
As a way to say thank you for participating in today's hop, one winner will be randomly chosen from one of the 8 blogs in today's hop. To increase your chances of winning, leave a comment at each stop. You have until 11:59 PM MST on Sunday, July 8th to complete the hop. The winner will receive a $20.00 gift certificate to ScrapbookSteals.com.

Good luck to all! Your next stop is my friend Sav's Blog.

Thanks so much for hoppin' by,

Engagement Album Part II

Engagement Album Part II

These are the last 11 pages in a 20 page engagement album I made for my cousin, Mina. If you would like to see the first 9 pages, please go here for part I. 

The wedding colors were Tiffany blue and salmon, so she wanted the album to utilize those colors. Luckily I found a plain album in that shade of blue. I decorated the cover a bit with ribbon, flowers, a pearl brad and chipboard letters of their first initial. 

The album has two sections, with photos from a professional photographer and candid ones from their dates. 

The Professional Photos

Mina and her fiancé, John, took some gorgeous engagement photos using a professional photographer, Anna May Lam. These photos were easy to scrap as they were from the same day and I could easily group the photos from the same setting together so they have the same color scheme. 

This is the final page in the album. I wanted to tie it in with the first page of the album so there would be closure, even though they wouldn't be displayed side by side. I used a similar layout and just changed the orientation to accommodate the picture's orientation. I used the same strips of ribbon in the background instead of patterned paper for a softer effect. 

Here are the title and final pages together, although they aren't displayed side by side in the album. 

These are two pages I grouped together to make a double paged layout. I thought the background were similar enough to be combined onto one layout.

 I brought a smaller photo from the first page's setting onto the second page to help tie it together. I used a circle punch to punch out the circular photo and adhered that onto a large paper clip. I then put Glossy Accent over the top to give it an epoxy look.

For most of the album I used a cream colored cardstock for the background to balance out all the bold blues and oranges, and the busy patterns in the papers. For this next layout, I used Kraft cardstock because the patterned papers already had a cream base and I wanted some contrast. I was wary to use the Kraft since I didn't think it would be formal enough, but it actually turned out to be my favorite layout from the professional photo section. 

I used Sketch Support sketches, Bazzill cardstock, Authentique patterned papers, May Arts and Prima ribbon and Prima flowers. I bought some alterable paper clips from Pick Your Plum. I used the small ones on this layout so Mina and John each had their own paper clips in this one. 

The Candid Photos

My cousin also emailed me an assortment of candid photos. These were much more difficult to scrap as they were from various occasions and the colors and backgrounds were totally different from each other. Also I didn't know where they were or what was the story behind some of the photos. So this is what I learned from the process. 

Tips to Scrapping a Random Assortment of Photos:

• Find a way to group them. After looking at the different batches of emails, I created my own themes which I hope was okay with my cousin. I grouped them by occasion (the actual engagement day, vacation photos) and cartoony photos. 
• Put like colors together. After grouping together the vacation photos, I placed all the ones with a blue sky or blue water background on one page, and the others with a more pink or orange tint on the other page. Then at least within one layout each page looked more cohesive even though they were of various events. 
• If the colors don't match, colorize the photos yourself. The cartoon page just had too much going on with colorful photos, dark night time ones, a studio shot...so I used an antique filter and toned down the colorful ones and boosted the colors on the dark ones so the set looked more cohesive. 

The Engagement Layout

Since they got engaged at Disneyland, I used my Disney font cartridge to create the layout. I cut out the letters onto a ticket shape and used the negative space matted on another piece of paper to create the title. 

I cut a large Micky head in silhouette and solid mode to create the background. I also cut a series of tiny Micky heads to made a border strip. 

The Travel Layout
These are the travel photos where I grouped like colored backgrounds together on one page. I didn't know what she wanted for the title or journaling and I didn't want to bother her since I figured she had enough to worry about the week before the wedding, so I eliminated the journaling and made up my own title.

I created a large cluster of flowers on each page that looked like they were in a strip to connect the two pages. 

The Cartoon Layout

I thought a lot of their pictures were really cute, where they kind of looked like comic book characters so that became a page. Since there were 7 separate occasions on this double page spread, I colorized the photos so they would look more balanced. The comic cups were on one page. 

Their cartoon drawings were the focal point of the second page, with their real life photos in supporting roles. 

I did feel overwhelmed by my assignment at first, but I managed to finish all 20 pages in three weeks, just in time for the wedding. So if you have a big pile of photos or a giant file on your computer, just group a couple photos together, print them out, work on a section at a time and you can conquer that pile in no time. It is totally possible to accomplish. 

Thanks so much for stoppin' by,

Engagement Album

The Beginning

I can't believe my lil' cousin is getting married in just a week and a half! At Christmas I received this save the date magnet from her. 

Save the Date magnet

Since it was so cute, I had to feature it on a layout using some of her engagement photos I downloaded from Facebook. I wrote about this in a former post here. 

Save the Date layout

After seeing my layout, she asked me to make a whole album of her photos which will be displayed at the wedding. Kevin, my hysband, will be playing the guitar and Vic, my sister, will be singing, so I guess I'll contribue where my talents lie. I just realized scrappy skills can be of use to others.

The Prep

I finished 19 of the 20 pages in three weeks without too much stress. Completing an entire album is usually a major ordeal for me. When completing a large project within a short period of time, organization and planning is key. Here are some of the things I did beforehand that really helped. 

• Choose a theme and stick to it. I looked at the photos and they had a soft, romantic feel to them so I wanted that to reflect in the pages. I didn't know her style so I chose a clean and simple style with straight lines that seemed neutral.
• Get some layout designs ready. I didn't want to spend time designing 20 layouts and wondering where to place photos and what size to print them. So I used sketches from one artist so they would be streamlined. I used some Allison Davis designs from Sketch Support and her books. 
• Make a kit of materials. My cousin wanted her wedding colors used, which were Tiffany blue and orange. I couldn't find one collection in those colors that matched my theme, so I assembled the papers in those colors using 4 different collections and chose matching embellishments in yet another collection. I placed all the materials on my desk and tried to mainly use those, so I wouldn't be spending time searching my stash for an elusive embellishment that would be perfect. This is what it looked like in the middle of a layout. 

Mid-process

The Results

I have 9 of the pages out to show you today, and I'll share the second half in another post. 

This is the title page, aren't they a cute couple? 

I placed their names using alpha stickers on punched circles, popped them up and used some Glossy Accent on top. I placed some twine behind the names to simulate a banner look. 

I went with a circular banner to mimic the one they had in one of the engagement photos. 

The other pages are featured below.

Three of the photos were in black in white (above), so I altered the colored photos below to match, since these two pages would be opposite each other in the album. I hope the photographer won't mind me playing with her photos. 

Since I didn't have titles or journaling for each page, I used some pre-made tags and stickers.

To make the album seem cohesive, I repeated several elements. I utilized the same color scheme, used a lot of straight lines in the design and used the similar embellishments like ribbons and flowers. But I also wanted each page to be unique so I placed at least one element that was different from the other pages. In this one I used a negative spaced heart with a dangling tag next to the title. 

I wanted to have sunflowers on these pages to match what she is holding in the picture, but I didn't have any nor wanted to go out and try to find some. My sister, Jenn, suggested making some so I did. I colored some Prima flowers with an orange ink pad and filled the center with a black Pearl Pen. 

The two layouts above actually go together as a double paged layout. 

It was really easy to scrap as the photos themselves were so lovely. If you need a photographer in the Los Angeles area, these were taken by Anna May Lam. If you want to look at just the photos of Marrina and John, you can go here. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at my cousin's engagement album. Please come back soon to see the rest after I finish the final page and photograph the layouts. I even have some of their candid photos, like the actual engagement at Disneyland.

Thanks so much for stoppin' by, 

Pages from the Heart: Trio of Cards

The Reveal
The April assignment for the design team at Pages from the Heart is to make three cards with the themes of birthday, masculine and free choice. I decided to make one type of card in three different ways, to show variations on a theme, and to channel my creative energies into the design rather than the construction.

Trio of Square Cards

The Cards

I chose a square card since I find the look to be very elegant. I used one 12 x 12" cardstock as the base. I cut out 3 x 3" squares from each of the four corners and rounded the vertices that were left. 

Inside view of card

The four flaps can interlock to seal the card so it doesn't need an envelope. 

Back view of card

The basic construction is quite fast and easy, then you can just decorate the square into any design or object  of your choice. 

Supplies:

Featured Collection: Canvas Corp’s 

Green & White Collection

Cardstock: Bazzill

Patterned Papers: Canvas Corp

Stickers: S.R.M. Press

Twine: The Twinery

Ribbon: May Arts

Punches: EK Success

Other: buttons

Card 1: Shirt
Starting with the same base, I decided to transform each square into a different object. With Father's Day coming up, I thought a shirt design might be fun to give dear ol' dad. The pocket can hold a tag with a secret message, and the bow tie is 3-D. I was thinking a child could make this too for their dad. 

Card 2: Present
For my second card, I turned the square into a present with a giant 3-D bow. This would be good for any type of invitation or to go along with a birthday or wedding gift. You can modify it to any occasion that has a present involved. The bow is on a wrapper that slides off. 

Card 3: Mortar Board
For my third card, I changed the square into a mortar board as graduation season is almost upon us. I made a tassel from twine, plus a diploma from a scrap piece of paper. I also made an envelope from a piece of 12 x 12" cardstock to match the card in case you want it to look more formal when presenting it to the graduate. 

I made one in black to make it more realistic and presented it to my friend for her daughter's graduation, and both really liked it. The metal Congrats was a keychain I wrapped around the button. The tassel was made from fringe trim from the fabric section. 

The cards turned out very differently even though the started out with the same square base. Just have fun and experiment with your own creations. 

Thanks for stoppin' by,