Camping in the Gower Mini book

Here is my mini album made from the beautiful kit at Handmade Hannah.  For the album I decided to use some photos from our May holiday to the Gower Peninsular in Wales.  For the basis of the album I used the A4 kraft paper and cut it in half..which made for a bit more fiddling to get the 6 by 6 paper to to cover, as I had to trim it down to 14cm :)  For the front cover I watered down some white acrylic paint and gave a wash, and then flicked some.  I used one of the tags for the title, and then mounted it on some of the paper, which i inked and stitched around, then I added a pleated border using my doily edge punch (I cut some strips of white paper/card and inked with tea dye distress ink and then pleated it around the card).  I added a button and pin...and that was my 1st page.

So I'll let you flick through the album now without too many more words - I love all the envelopes in the kit, as it has encouraged me to journal lots of bits that would have been forgotten otherwise.

I like the window in the kraft envelope as it makes it become a mini-page.  I made a patchwork of paper for the 2nd page (note I am fairly thrifty with my paper, and where it isn't seen have been known to cut it out... so the patchwork isn't across the whole of that page, there are 4 full sized rectangles, then 2 small oddments down the side of the 1st picture)

I stuck the flower on one of the acetate tags...you could colour in the other side or ink it too.  These photos are off some of the geo-caching we did on holiday.  On the first page I also had a go at a resist technique....I stamped my woodgrain image  across the background in some white stazon, and then coloured over the top with the tea dye distress ink which gives a subtle bark effect to the page.

 I got some shimmer mists, and for my treasure shot I misted the background using a prima mask and some brown mist.

I doodled a border around the plate spinning photo to match the tag - this was our circus skills day at the heritage centre.

I used up quite a few odds and ends of paper on the glassine envelope and folded the top over and stapled a loop of string to catch the button.

Another day....another cache ....and a little bit of paint.

For the last page I used one of the acetate photo frames over my picture - I just secured it in the corners with some clear drying glue.

Just a small decoration on the back - I used my big bite to punch the holes through (did draw them on in pencil before :)) and then threaded them with string....and that was my half term holiday :)  Hope you enjoyed having a look.

September Kit Pages - Son Shine

This LO is a shot of my DS on the beach on holiday - complete in all his sun gear and new hat....so I called it Son Shine made from the goodies in the Scrap Rat September Kit... it's packed with goodies ( my favourite kit yet) - My Minds Eye, Pink Paislee, Echo Park, Authentique and those vintage bits.  If you need some inspiration then check out the Design Team Gallery, I am going to post my pages over the next few days so that I can give you a bit more detail about what I did with all those goodies (and so it isn't the most mammoth post!)

For the LO I used some of the Sunshine MME paper as the base, and layered up a couple of the echo park pieces of paper...they were white and grey so to warm them up I coloured them all over in tea dye distress ink (this is what I also used to colour the title - just rub it over and the white resist on all the letters shows up).  I used my Martha Stewart doily edge lace punch down the edge of these 2 pieces of paper and ruffled and stitched them, I also added some of the trim inked with tea dye distress ink behind the punched pieces.  For the photo I used the MME Acetate overlay which I stuck in the corners with 4 dots of clear glue.  I also inked and tore some of the manuscript paper and added this behind the papers and the gold backed playing card.  Next I started to plan my stitched swirls and I lightly drew them on in pencil and then pin pricked the holes, rubbed out the pencil and stitched the swirls.  I made a flower out of the mistables trims and painted on some brown tea dye (just used a paint brush a little tea dye ink on my mat and some water).  I stitched it into a flower and added some watered down stickles and a brad with some punched flowers for the centre.  I added a couple more bits of stitching, one to the manuscript paper and some cross stitches to the trim.  I made a coffee stain using a glass and some distress ink in the top corner of the page, and then some Martha Stewart butterflies which I layered and stitched down the middle.  Hope you enjoyed that :)