Sisterchick.....Must Reads for the summer!

Sisterchick n. : a friend who shares the deepest wonders of the heart, loves you like a sister, and provides a reality check when you're being a brat.

Hi all! I just had to share with you what I received in the mail this week. I think I still have one more on its way but couldn't stand to wait any longer to show you. Several years ago my best friend Suzie and fellow sisterchick, mailed me a box of books and inside I found a book that was titled Sisterchicks do the Hula. Just the cover and title itself was enough to intrigue me and so I jumped right in and started reading it. I honestly do not know of another book that has ever made me laugh out loud like that before. I would stay up til wee hours of the morning reading cause I just couldn't bare the thoughts of laying it down. Well, that book stuck with me all these years and I never forgot about it and so Suzie and I started calling one another sisterchicks....cause we truly are! I had loaned my book to a friend and never got it back so I just had to replace it...it's one of those books that you want to keep forever so you can pick it back up and read again to refresh your memory of all the funny things. Well as I was looking for it I ran across alllllll these other Sisterchick books as well. I had no idea that there were so many of them. I think I ordered all of them except 2 and even bought Sisterchicks do the Hula on CD so I can listen to it while I work on my crafts and have a good ole chuckle. Believe it or not, in between going to National Scrapbook Day and preparing for that the week prior then running here and there I have still managed to get in a couple of chapters of one of these books already and let me tell you it seems like it's going to be just as good as the first one that I read. This has now become one of my favorite authors. So I'm going to read just as fast as I can possibly read so I can return the favor to MY sisterchick Suzie and let her read them as well...she was so precious to send me books when I had my surgeries and if I'm not mistaken I believe that the Hula book was one of them that she sent then and I'll never be able to thank her enough for all the joy that I received from it....so Suzie....I'm returning the favor girly and will personally hand deliver some of these books to you in June. I can't hardly wait to get to see your beautiful house on the lake and spend some good girl time with you....it will be my own little adventure in traveling since I've never been to Oklahoma before.
So if you all haven't picked up your summer reading yet, I strongly suggest that you get these books or at least a couple of them. I found mine on Amazon at a really good price.
If I come up missing for a bit it's only because I have started my spring cleaning and shhhhh while I rest I'll be reading my heart out.
Hope that everyone has a wonderful day!

Shabby chic pocket album...

HI! Welcome back! Well today what I have to show you is a shabby chic album that I've just completed. I learned how to make this album from Laura Dennison. I didn't do a tutorial on this one so if you want me to do one then just let me know. But anyway, with this one I got to use my new binding system! YAHHH! The Bind-it-All! It's soooo much better than using the D rings and I just love it. But anyway on the front cover of this one I used several Prima flowers, cut out a birdcage using the Cricut, added a big pretty butterfly and some ribbon on the rings of the wire binding. Oh yes and I'm not sure that you can see it very well in the picture or not but I also used some white feathers! and of course some rhinestone centers for the flowers...a girl has to have her bling right???

This is what the inside looks like. There are 10 pockets on the inside and each one of them has a flower (with rhinestone centers of course) for the pull out tag.

This album was so fun and easy to do. You can get 2 pockets out of a 12x12 piece of cardstock, then I covered the fronts and backs with regular weight scrapbook paper.

Hope that this has inspired you to work on a scrapbook of your own and again if you need me to do a short tutorial on how I made this one then just let me know.

Hope that everyone has a wonderful Tuesday and comes back to visit me real soon. Ta Ta for now.....

Handmade purse album cont......

Hey there and welcome back! Ok so this is a picture of how I did the binding for this album.

Just cut strips of cardstock that are 9"x 2" and score in the center. Then use the terrifically tacky tape and as your cardstock is folded place the tape about 1/8" of an inch from the edge. This way it will give you some room for expansion in your album when you start embellishing it and filling it with pictures and such and it want pop open so bad on you. Now like I said I haven't made my tags for the album yet or all the pull out tabs either so mine is pretty naked right now but it want be for long cause this is when I'll be able to put my Cricut to good use with all the embellishments that I plan on using.

Also another note. If you don't want an album this size and would prefer one smaller then by all means you could use the smaller manila envelopes and make a smaller one you would just have to do a bit of adjusting on your measurements for the cover. I wanted my cover much larger than the pages so that the embellishments that I plan on putting in the album didn't show.

If you have any questions whatsoever about this album and how I put it together then by all means please send me a comment and I'll help you in any way that I possibly can. If you don't ask then I can't help you. So give me some feedback if I wasn't clear enough on how this all came together. But most importantly I hope that each and every one of you have a wonderful day and don't forget to stop back by sometime and see what else I have cooking.

(psssst I already have an idea for another mini album)

Handmade purse album...

Hi everyone! Thought that I'd show you what I had been working on. This is not what you would exactly call a scrapbook mini cause it's so large! I had picked up some of the larger manila envelopes at Walmart and wanted to try them out using the same method as I did in the previous post and that's exactly what I did. I had found some in white so here is what I came up with.

First off I took a 12x12 piece of cardstock to make a template for my purse front and back. If you blow this picture up you can probably see the measurements but just in case you can't here they are. From the top right edge over and from the top left edge over I measured 3/4" and made a tick mark that will give me my angle for the bag on either side. Then I measured 1 1/2" from the top down on either side and made a tick mark that that will give me the right height for the bag. Now the fun begins....

Get your chipboard or in my case I've been using the cardboard packaging that comes in the 12x12 page protectors and refill pages from Creative Memories but if you don't have any of that on hand then use chipboard and trace your pattern on the cardboard or chipboard....

Then let your imagination run wild. I was just itching to use my new Cricut so this is the front and back covers for my album. I haven't put the ribbon on the back of my album yet cause I have to wait til it's all completed on the inside so I'll know how long to make my "clasp closure". I used paper that's folded in half and then attached with eyelets for the handles to make them stronger. As you can see I don't have the back handle on at this point either.

now for the inside. I used the exact same technique for the inside of this album as I did for the z fold album in the previous post. the only difference is I used a little different way of binding them all together. The 3" flap in the front and the back are glued to the front and back covers and please use a glue that is really strong. I prefer using the terrifically tacky red tape that you can get at Walmart or any craft store cause it's extremely strong and holds really well. I pulled out one of the inserts to the right side of the picture so you can see how I made a flap for my picture to go under and then my journaling will go just below it. I'm still working on finishing all the pull out tabs. So if you'll meet me right back here I'll show you how I did the binding for the rest of the pages.

Cricut or cricket?

Well which is it? Of course it's a CRICUT! but it's made me want to jump up and down like the other cricket. I've been waiting for this to get here on the Fedex truck for a week and it finally arrived today and I'm just thrilled to pieces with it. I had to jump right in and start cutting something...as you can see by the little purse bags that I cut out and the pretty accent piece. Oh my mind is flooding with ideas and scrapbooking is going to be so much more fun now. Plus on top of everything this cricut is pretty...it just love the design that's on the front of it. I also have something else to show you that showed up on the truck today but I'll wait and do that a little later. But for now I'm off to read more about my new purchase and fill my head full of ideas.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

I'm a newbie at tole painting....

SURPRISE! Ok so this is the back cover to the sisters chick chipboard album. Now you ask, what does this have to do with Suzie? Well it has everything to do with her actually. Even though it's my painting she's the one that took the time last summer and taught me how to paint. It was a quick lesson and lord knows I need more practice but I saved it so that I could do something with it some day and waa laa I found the perfect spot for it. I love to paint and now that the weather is warming up I think I'll pull my brushes back out and head out to the front deck and do some painting. It's so relaxing to me to be out there painting and listening to boats on the lake. I still have some more projects in the works inside right now though so it will be a while before I can whip out the paint. I'll try to finish up my other projects that I have going soon so I can share those with you as well. Until then feel free to scroll back through some of my other previous posts and I hope that you find something that sparks your interest. Have a great day everyone!

Sisterchicks Chipboard album...

Ok so here's a little something that I've been up to. I found this plain chipboard album at Michaels in the dollar bin that was in the shape of a crown and thought oh how cute that is but I couldn't think of a thing to make a theme with it for. Well that was until I also ran across the SISTERS bling letters that very same day and it hit me! I have to make a sisters chick album and that is exactly what I did. As you can see I used the bling on the front cover.

The first 2 pages are pictures of me and my sis! Well she's my "adopted sis" anyway since I wasn't blessed with a blood related sister. But let me tell you I couldn't have a blood sister that I could be any closer to than I am her and I feel very blessed to have her in my life.

As you can see we spend 97% of our time on the lake while she's here and the other 3% we spend cooking, eating and sleeping. We both live on lakes so that's where we love to be.

Here we are with me giving her a ride on my husbands 4 wheeler and the other one where we are showing our hands?.... well that's where we were showing off our nails that were painted with polka dots that yes we did ourselves....well sis taught me how to do it. She had painted mine that first time...thanks sis!

Ok then here are the sister chicks again. I used some glittery chipboard letters in this little album and thought it was just perfect for some added bling.

Now for the last page.....I'll have to show you that in the next post. It actually isn't a picture of me and Suzie aka sis but is of something totally different and is probably a little surprising....so come on back and take a peek.

Easter Scrapbooking Haul....

Shhhhh I have a secret.......I was talking to my friend Brenda about 4 days ago and she was telling me about this great place online to get scrapbooking supplies. Well I was impressed with the site and just had to order a "few" things. Here's the website so you can check it out yourself..... www.scrapbuck.com I honestly didn't realize that I had ordered so much stuff but am soooo glad that I did....go ahead scroll down and take a look at what all I found.

such sweet flowers and butterflies and gorgeous tags....

more paper flowers and the paper stacks that I bought are all really pretty as well...

clear stamps, even more paper and felt flowers, butterflies and look at those chipboard tags....just to die for huh? in my favorite shade too...robins egg blue (even though lavender is my favorite color, I'm finding that I buy anything that's robins egg blue anymore) go ahead scroll on down you know your wanting too....

Now these flowers are just toooo pretty! They have glitter on them and I think I bought them in every color they offered and yes I did manage to find more paper flowers and some more butterflies. I just can't hardly wait to get started on something so that I can use all my pretty things.

Ok so I wanted to wish each and every one of you a Very Happy Easter!

Now shoooo go, run on over to Scrapbuck.com and see what all you can find yourself that you just can't live without! See ya back here real soon! p.s. thank you Brenda for telling me about this great place!

Black and White Manilla Envelope Album

I'm back! I went on a scrapbooking retreat a couple weeks ago and am really having a hard time getting back into the swing of things but I did make a couple more mini albums using the manila envelopes, except this time I found some white ones and thought hmmm what better way to use them as to make a black and white album with black and white and sepia tone photos. So that's exactly what I did here. I'm really enjoying making these little albums and really want to make another one but I'm afraid that you all are going to get tired of seeing them (which is what I was thinking this time). But I just had to share this one with you anyway. The paper that I used is from DCWV and is the Bella Boutique stack. I found it at Michael's and it has a raised feel to it that is like velvet...it's so yummy and I just loved it

On the inside I added some paper flowers from Creative Memories and rhinestone centers. I had found sheets of self stick rhinestones in the dollar bin at Michael's and I'm loving them, only wish that I had picked up more of them.

As you can see, I've taken some of my favorite pictures of all times and turned them into black and white and sepia tones and added them to the album. I just love the way that it's turning out and the little slide pocket is so perfect. You just can't believe how many photos you can put in one of these albums. Matter of fact I ran out of pictures and am scrounging around trying to find more of my favs to add in it.

Here is the back side to the previous page and you can see how the little flap coin pocket opens up to where you can add even more pictures or journaling. Like I said I'm still trying to locate enough pictures to finish it up and actually found some but wouldn't you know it my scanner is wanting to give me a fit and not behave so I'll have to wait til my husband gets home so he can remedy that problem.

The Retreat? Ohhhhh let me tell you it was wonderful. We didn't have any classes on anything special it was more just a gathering of ladies doing what we love best (or one of the things I love best) and that's scrapbooking. It lasted from Thursday through Sunday and my only regret was that it didn't last longer. The food was out of this world! We had a professional chef whipping up the vittles for us and he was a nutritionist as well so he knew his stuff....let me tell you what I wouldn't give to be cooked for like that all the time cause I could get used to it in a hurry. It was located in the most serene place.....right on the tip top of a mountain and there were little cabins scattered here and there all over it. But the other ladies and myself had the big conference center all to ourselves and bunked downstairs. It was like summer camp! Since I never had the opportunity to go to summer camp something like this was actually on my "bucket list" and I was able to check it off. However, in November I'm planning on doing it all over again if my health will hold out for me. Ohhhh and we also had a massage therapist that came in and gave us the best massages ever was. You know sitting around scrapbooking, crafting, sewing and such how tight your muscles can get? Well she took care of that for us. It was just really an excellent weekend.

Well I'm off to see what else I can find to share with you. I need to go to the craft room and get to crackin' on something different.....I'm sorry but I'm just hung up on making these little mini albums right now though. Have a great day everyone and a very Blessed Easter if I don't see you beforehand.....