Better Late than Never

Jason and I decided when Riley was still cooking in my belly that we were not going to throw a Birthday party for our kids every year. We decided it was expensive and we were only going to throw a big party on significant ages. What we came up with was 1 ... 5 ... 10 ... 13 ... 16 ... 18 ... 21 ... achievable. In between we would still celebrate but just a cake, and perhaps do what my Mum & Dad did which was let us have one friend around for dinner or to do something special.

Anyway I am kinda procrastinating from the point of this blog post ...

The last BIG Birthday was Riley's 5th and since we don't do parties every year when we do we go ALL out. You may remember the blog post about his Robot Birthday HERE. Well in March this year Riley turned 6, so I have been 'making' a Birthday album for Riley for the last year! Today I pulled it out, dusted it off and FINALLY finished it!

I used THIS Kasiercraft wooden album and lots of Gloss Mod Podge and it turned out a little like this ....







I used cardstock, corrugated card, sequins, bling, Tim Holtz Sprockets and some little tool embellishments. I like how it turned out and so does Riley so YAY! Thank goodness it is finally finished!

Mini Christmas Album - Tutorial of sorts!!

Well Finally after much procrastinating and avoiding I finished my mini Christmas album!! And I am actually really happy with it!!



and this is how I made it ....

First I got the Bo Bunny BELIEVE Album from Crafty Tart (and it was and still is on special!!) And I also bought my papers from Crafty Tart. They are Echo Park's 'Everybody Loves Christmas' range which I just LOVED! (also all on special!!)
So first thing I did was decide which papers I wanted to use, because the papers are all double sided it made it sooo much easier to use less and have more patterns! And the cool thing I discovered as I was making this album was the longest letter E was a perfect fit across a 12"x12" paper! Brilliant!

STEP #1
Trace your letter shapes. I traced the opposite side of the album onto the back of the paper I wanted, clear as mud?? I do it this way because I'm lazy and don't like erasing pencil lines!!



Don't forget to trace your little holes!!



STEP #2
Then you cut out your shapes.
Pretty easy so far right!



STEP #3
Cut out your holes, I used my Crop-a-Dile, but you can use a hole punch or a craft knife or a fork even!!



STEP #4
Glue your paper to the chipboard. I glued the back of the paper with Modge Podge and then carefully flattened it out on the chipboard, using a ice block stick I flattened all the bubbles and creases and made it all flat and nice!



STEP #5
Trim the excess paper. There always seems to be some! I used my Fiskars Fingertip Craft knife



STEP #6
Sand all the edges. This makes the edges smooth and also takes off any more excess paper that the knife couldn't get. I used some emery boards for this, but you can get lots of different things to do this, sandpaper, file ... there is a really cool Tim Holtz Sanding Block too!



STEP #7
Ink all your edges. I used a cotton bud for all the fiddly in between bits the ink pad wouldn't reach.



Step #8
Embellish!!! This is the fun bit!! I used Stickers and papers from the same Echo Park Range, as well as a few Kaiser Christmas Rubons, one of my new Heidi Swapp word Stamps and the odd ribbon, button and other random embellishment!
Put it all together with Binding Rings and tie some fibres/ribbon onto the rings and you are done!!

Cupcakes

Who doesn't love them? Well I know Duff from Charm City Cakes doesn't but I LOVE Cupcakes!! So when KaiserCraft bought a wooden cupcake album out I HAD to have it!! The album has been sitting on the shelf for a looong time! So I finally put it together the last few days. And here it is .....









I have left a couple pages blank to add more cupcake pics later! And I'm sure more pages will also be added at a later date!
Next on the list is to turn this Kaiser Gingerbread Album into a Robot Album for all Riley's Birthday pics! Just like I did the Butterfly Album for Abbey's 1st Birthday HERE
Wish me luck!!