Where has the year gone?

Can you believe we are already at the first weekend of 2013? Where did the first few days of 2013 go? No, seriously, where did it go? It feels like just yesterday I was thinking, "Man, what am I going to do with 4 1/2 days off of work?" I started to make a list of projects that I was going to complete, the first one being....take the tree down. Well it's already the 4th, the holiday is over and the tree is still up and no projects we completed.

To make myself feel better, I am going to say I believe the decor should stay up until Three Kings Day (which is the 6th). Whew! Well that gives me until Sunday evening to take down the tree. Besides, my house seems so bare when I take down the decor. Let's face it, I feel confident in temporary decorating that lasts six weeks but when it comes to making decor decisions that should last for years....I'm paralyzed. So that is part of my resolution....no paralysis by analysis.

Meanwhile, while I work on that, here a video on embossing. I love embossing on pages and cards. It allows you to add texture to a page or card, without adding bulk. I hope you enjoy. Comments are always welcome and subscribe to my channel by clicking the subscribe button.

Baby Album 2.0

My journey into the year of the babies began with a one year baby album. Now, I have made them before but they were mini albums that were based on a template I received in a class years ago. It was a class I took at Scrap-a-faire many moons ago. You can see my post here . I love making that book. Did it take time? Sure. Did like it? Yup. So why mess with changing it? Because I love a challenge. Well to be honest, I love a challenge when it is over. During the challenge, I whine, complain and think it is a mistake.

So for this album I decided to make a full size 12X12 album, two page spread per month and title page. Now this was for a math teacher so let's do the math, shall we? Rozette wants to make an album for her daughter's geometry teacher. She decides to make two pages per month and also a title page. How many layouts will Rozette make?

12 months X 2 layouts = 24 layouts 24 layouts +1 title page = 25 layouts in total

Really Rozette? You are going to do 25 layouts in one month. Are you crazy? Are you insane? Yes, yes I am. I didn't think of it in those terms. I think if I had, I would have never started and just bought a pack of cute boy themed onesies and called it a day.

So I decided to do 25 boy theme pages and use no bling or pink or ribbons (okay maybe just a little ribbon). Now this is hard for me. As you will discover, I love bling. I love sparkly things and all things pink. So I pretty much took on mission impossible with this album.

There were a few things I wanted to stay the same with this book that I used in the mini albums.

1) Make most of the picture spots 4X6 or 5X7. Non-scrappers can easily print pictures those two sizes at any drugstore.

2) Use three or four templates for the whole album

3) Leave journaling spots to mark down milestones

I am not a hoarder but I must admit, I rarely throw anything away from my scrapbook stash and I don't care if I haven't used if for years...it stays. So I had these template creators that I bought from Walmart back in 2007. I was a new scrapbooker and needed guidance. I never used them but I kept them.

Thank goodness I kept them because they came in handy.

Once I had a few basic templates, I was able to repeat them three or four times. They were not all exactly alike but the templates served as a jumping off point for each page.

I used my Cricut for all the titles. I used Cricut Craft Room for the first time and I must say I was quite impressed. My only gripe is that I had to insert each cartridge into my Expression in order to cut. Years ago I bought a Gypsy because I didn't want to switch out cartridges and I didn't like want to be changed to a computer when I craft. I am on a computer all day and I just don't want to spend more time on it than I need to spend. But I must admit, for a computer based program, I was pretty happy.

Yes I will admit I have caved and I am just as crazy about banners as other scrappers. So I put a few in this one. The one over the picture placement is not glued down so that mommy can slip her picture on there. And remember I said I only put a little ribbon in the album? I just could not resist.

You see what I mean? It is too cute! So cute that I went back to Hobby Lobby and bought it in blue, pink and yellow. They also have little teddy bears that I used on the album. I adhered them with my Xyron small sticker maker. If you don't own one, I highly remcommend buying one with a 1/2 coupon from Michaels or Hobby Lobby. (FYI never pay more than 60% for anything at Hobby Lobby or Michaels.) Be patient, what you want will eventually come on sale 40% off or it won't be on sale and you can use your 40% coupon.

The last page I made was the first page, the title page. It was my first attempt at a banner title page. I got the idea from Kathryn from Life on the {Scrap}Beach. She made a baby mini album and she used banners for either the title page or for the card. I can't remember. I saw it on her Ustream channel. If you go to her blog you will see a link to her Ustream. And then you can spend a few days there because she does AMAZING work.

I used my cricut to cut the ltter, the scallops and the baby onesies.. Thanks for stopping by.