Vintage Christmas mini album

Hello friends and welcome! This is my second post on this busy first of December. So many new challenges starting on this day, and this particular one is for the Mini Album Makers December challenge.

Eileen Hull is our wonderful sponsor this month and so I created a Christmas themed album using one of her fantastic dies, the Mini Album one.

Below a quick tutorial of how I put this together:

I cut the cover for the album from matboard and then cut the angel with the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapes Cherub die. I embossed the bottom half with a little embossing folder, first the front and then the back cover  and finally coloured and stamped the outside with Distress inks in Stormy Sky and Chipped Sapphire.

Next I added some pearl glimmer mist for a bit of sparkle (sorry, hard to see on the photo)

My next step was to make a little panel to glue behind the Cherub cut out. I took a bit of scrapbook paper in dark blue and brown tones, added Decorart Crackle glaze, let it dry naturally and when the cracks appeared and the piece was dry rubbed white Decoart Antiquing cream into the cracks and then adhered it behind the angel.

Here is a close up, where you can see the cracks a little better.

Next I started work on the inside pages. I used scraps of two different collections for my inside pages, 7 Dots Studio North Country collection and the newest Maja Design Christmas Collection, Joyous Wintertimes, as it has similar blue tones and I thought they would work together. I used the die to cut the inside pages.  Eileen shows exactly how to do this in a video HERE

I used elastic cord to slip in my pages, below a couple of photos:

What I love about this method is that you can add more and more pages as you need them. I have created 5 pages so far. For those of you who would like to see them, I have added a video slideshow at the end of this post.

I added some charms to the spine and the album closes with a simple sheer ribbon.

There are many pockets and tuckspot on my pages and I created little tags to fit inside, but of course you can also add photos or whatever you like. Below a quick flip though video:

Well, that's it for now, thank you so much for staying with me. I do hope you will check out the wonderful albums my teamies have created, all you need to do is click HERE, and of course we would love it if you play along with us and create an album yourself to share with us there.

Happy creating!

xxxxx

Mini Album Makers November challenge (plus some freebies)

Hello friends, can you believe it is actually November already? Where has the year gone....?
Well, it's the first of the month and that means there is a new challenge starting over at the Mini Album Makers challengge blog.
So here is my contribution for this month's challenge:

Whether we like it or not,  Christmas is only a few weeks away. We all know what a busy time of year lies ahead, and so I thought I would make myself a littlle Christmas planner. I am including some freebie pages in this post, so if you want to, you can download those to make your own. But first let me tell you how I made mine.

I'll start with the cover: I used the Eileen Hull Mini Album Die and cut the cover from white mount board to which I had added some scrapbook paper. Next I coloured both sides using a mix of Archival and Distress inks, did some spritzing and flicking and finally added a little gold foiling, using a gluestick and some Ranger foil.

On the back I added a little angel left over from another project. It was cut with a Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers die. The nodges you see on the top and bottom were cut by me. Eileen's Passport die has nodges like that, which I like because it makes adding inserts easier, so if I want I can print more of the inside pages and add them later.

I added some Tim Holtz charms to the spine and my inside pages are attached using an elasticated ribbon glued and twisted around some black elastic. I'll show you more in a minute, but first the embellishments:

I made the poinsettia using the Tim Holtz Poinsettia die cut from some Wendy Vecchi Clearly for Art and coloured it with alcohol ink. I glued a brad in the centre and added some little berries around (making a bit of a mess). Next I added some cheesecloth with gel medium, having coloured it with Distress sprays to match the rest of my cover first. I then arranged some metal branches, berries and leaves round about my poinsettia and glued everything to the cover with hot glue. A light coat of gesso was added to it all to give it a bit of a frosty look.

Finally I added the title with little stickers, but as I had no numbers left I had no choice but to add the year with a black and white pen, not too happy with that, but too late to do anything about it.

The album closes using the tab that comes with the die and a little magnet.
Alright onto the inside: I designed some papers in Photoshop Elements, printed them and then cut them with the die. HERE is a link to a video where Eileen shows exactly how to do that.

And here a few more of the pages:

I darkened the edges with some Vintage Photo DI, and put a little key in the centre attached to the end bit of the ribbon, so it can act like a little bookmark.

Well, that is pretty much it. Below you will find the freebies for the inside pages, for those of you who want to have a go yourself.

If you don't have the die, you can of course still use the papers, just print, cut with a trimmer, round the corners if you want and fold in half. In any case make sure to print them two sided, otherwise you land up with every other page being white once you have folded them, you may want that of course, and add your own notes or whatever you want.

Well, that's it for now, - sorry for this very long post, but please make sure to check out our challenge and see the wonderful books and albums my talented teamies have created. And if you decide to play along again, you could win a $25 voucher from Lindy's Stampgang!!!

    Have a good month of November, - happy crafting and creating and thank you so much for your visit here today!

xxxxx