More mini's....

 Yep more mini's! When I told you all that I had been busy I wasn't just whistling Dixie! Good thing is with me feeling as bad as I have over the past 6 months or so I figured I could sit and work 15 mins, stand and work 15 mins...walk that off around the house and then sleep while I was laying flat. Actually, doing these crafts has kind of helped me forget about how bad that I've been feeling but I'm going into all of that cause that is just being a "negative Nellie" and who wants to hear that mess all the time. So anyway back to the mini's at hand. These are mini that I've made before as well. They are the ones that I told you about that Elsa from Just a Few Designs taught me how to make. You can find her blog on the right side of my page and if you haven't yet please check her blog out. She is such a good teacher and has really inspired me to get in my craft room and create!

 Here is another one...

and another one.
Thank you Elsa for doing a tutorial on how to make the little pages in these mini's. It is quickly becoming one of my favorites.....if it isn't already!
More posts to come....YES tonight! Can you believe it?

Here a mini there a mini....

 Remember several posts back I told you all that I had been busy busy and was trying to stay ahead so I'd have something to share with you all more often rather than sporadically? Well the problem with that is...I wasn't stopping to take time every day to post what I done the day before and such. The reason I wanted to stay ahead is because when I get sick or go down (like what happened to me this winter) then I don't have anything to share with everyone and I feel that my blog and followers (the few I have) have given up on me. So I'm going to try my best to do better. Anyway, here are 3 more mini's that I did recently.

 They are all 3 the same kind that I believe I called my file folder mini's and I showed months ago with you all the insides and I think that I did the tutorial on how to make.

As far as a tip that I learned along the way with these mini's...well it's not really with just this mini album it's for any paper crafting. I know that a ton of you all love butterflies and love to incorporate them in your projects as much as I do and that about as many of you all have the same Martha Stewart punch like I've made the butterflies in the above mini's with. Well here's the tip...now when I'm cleaning off my craft table getting ready to start another one and I have just snippings of paper. You know the kind that aren't really large enough to do anything with for another project but you still hate to throw it away....just keep your butterfly punch out and use up those scraps. I simply keep mine on the table and as I digging thru the piles of stuff putting things away and I run across a scrap piece to small to put in the scrap drawer I punch it right the butterfly right then and put it in my butterfly jar. You can see in the above pictures how I layered 3 punched butterflies and made them 3 dimensional. So don't feel guilty anymore and by all means try not to waste that expensive paper. Oh I might should note...I kept saying in the above pictures...what I meant to say was the middle picture is the one I layered and the one that I punched myself. The butterflies in the top and last picture came from a paper collection that I had and all that I did was add stickles and glossy accents to those. Sorry I didn't mean to confuse anyone. I just have used a lot of the punched butterflies lately that I've layered and put on projects.
Geeeesh! That shopping trip today took more out of me than I realized I think.
More posts to come in just a little bit. Hopefully I can stay focused enough to type something that sounds remotely knowledgeable.

It wasn't me! (so she says)

 Ok this is for all those ladies and gents out there that have pets that seem the darndest things happen to them and get blamed for it. Here is one of those instances. See while I was busy as a bee in my craft room, Zoe was in the living playing and minding her own business when all of the sudden it started raining little shreds of paper everywhere. Of course since she was the only other living creature in the house besides myself at the time and the ONLY one in the living room she was instantly blamed for it.

When I walked in and asked Zoe what had happened, this is the look that I got from her. That is the look as if to say "what it wasn't me! I don't know what happened!" I'm sure she was totally innocent in the whole ordeal too. I mean seriously could anything this sweet EVER do anything like this? Uhhh huh that's what I thought! So now I'm on high alert for the invisible paper shredder person that is sneaking in our house. BEWARE you all might have one as well.
More craft posts in a little bit...stay tuned.

Zoe's mini albums...

 Hi everyone! Thought that since I can't do anything else but lay on the heating pad and rest after my day out shopping at Michael's HUGE sale today I would try to catch you all up on what all I've been doing lately. Oh by the way, if you haven't heard about the sale.....you need to go see for yourself. It was amazing and I believe I have given new meaning to shop til you drop. Thank goodness that there is a bench at the front of the store because that's where my mom had to go sit and wait on me to find all the things that were on my list. I'm wondering had I went and joined her on the bench for at least a 15 min break if I would of been able to shopped another couple of hours or even another hour. I'm afraid that she would of given me a switchin' (that means spanking in hillbilly terms) had I been any longer than I was. She wasn't real happy with me as it was because I had taken longer than she thought I'd be. Sorry mom...those deals were just too good to pass up but I had fun getting to spend time with her.
Ok so now back to what I've been doing. Remember I was blessed with my little dog Zoe back in December. Well with all of the pictures I have been taking of her I wanted to make her a mini album to put all those in. I wound up making two for her though. The first one I made and then enjoyed making it so much that I decided to do another knowing full well that I'd fill them up.

 I haven't taken any pictures of the insides of them. The pages inside aren't anything new from what I've done before so I want bore you all to death with pictures but I did want to point something out that I made on the outside for my closure for the second album I made for her. You all know how much I love butterflies. Well I had found at the Dollar store the cutest little bobby pins that had a pearl flower at the end of them and had no idea what I was going to do with them when I bought them last summer. But I figured it out...they make PERFECT bodies for butterflies! Look at the picture below. Super simple and I hadn't seen that done anywhere else and didn't know if anyone had even thought of it so thought I'd share that. I've always loved to look in unusual places for things to use in a different kind of way and the bobby pins weren't an exception. I think that these were intended for little girls for sure but don't walk past the little girl stuff. You wouldn't believe what all I've found and use from the little girls section not only in hair accessories but in the little girl or boy for that matter toy section. El Cheapo Toys not fittin' for kids works great sometimes in mini's or on other craft projects. I don't know if they still sell them now but years ago before the rhinestone bling stuff became so popular I used to buy bling from the toy section that was intended for little girls to peel and stick on their fingernails. You never know what you might find.

Stick around....there's more posts to come TODAY!

Homemade notepads....

 Hi all! I thought I had figured out how you all have something to share every single day. (you stay one step ahead????) Well if you do then I had it figured out now my problem is....I have to sit down and actually blog. I'm ahead but if I don't share then what good is it to be ahead? Ok so anyway, here's a couple of little notepads that I've been making. The ones in the picture above work as little easels and can be very easy replenished.

 Then there are these bingo notepads. There is something about these that just make me smile!

B-15 anyone??? Wouldn't these be great for family game night?
Well that is my share for the weekend with you all. Hope that it's a beautiful one for each and every one of you. Happy Sunday!

Brag books....

 Hi everyone! I know! Can you believe it? I'm back 2 days in a row with something to share with you all. Hopefully this is a good sign of things to come right? Ok so today I wanted to show you the little "brag books" or Brag mini albums that I made. I've shown you all this a couple of years ago but it was actually put within a mini album that I had sent to Suzie over at Our Happy Shack. But I wanted to show you that you don't have to just put them in a mini you can you use them all by themselves.

 They hold 16 pictures inside so that's a lot of real estate for such a small little thing but the best thing of all is that they are super simple to make. I has seen years ago a gal on youtube make these and so help me right now I can not for the life of me remember who it was but the concept has stuck with me all this time. If I can remember who it was or find the video I will add it later at the bottom of this post for you or if you would like for me to do a tutorial on it I'll be glad to. All of the belly bands are held together with a little bit of velcro but you can use whatever you like. On this particular day it was all about the flowers and butterflies for me. Oh wait....who am I kidding? Everyday in crafting is all about flowers and butterflies for me.

 But I did have one exception. It was this little brag book that I plan on keeping for myself. I went ahead and added the pictures to it so that you could see just how many pictures you can fit inside and how well they come together.

 As you open it up. Each flap or square has room for a picture.

 It makes it fun for people to be able to keep opening and revealing more cherished photos.

 Keep flipping....

Here is mine all opened up. Sorry about some of the flash spots on some of the pictures. I tried my best for that not to happen but nothing seemed to work. Nonetheless you can still get the jest of how it works and all.
Hope you all have a great day. Let me know by leaving a comment below if you'd like a tutorial. I'll be looking to see if I can find the video as well from where I saw this originally for you as well.

***UPDATE: I found the orginal video. I'm so sorry Bona I can't believe I couldn't remember that it was you that did this video. You can find it here. Please note that I did a few things different. For example my belly bands don't come all the way off they are glued on the back and also I didn't to the distressing on these, rather I just cut out about an 1/8" so it would fold easier and lay flatter.

Not a boring ole fireplace anymore...

Ok so here is what I had been trying my best to post for you all ever since I took down my Christmas decorations back around the first week or so of January and for some reason blogspot was having issues. (Nope this time is was not me!)
I loved using the candles in the fireplace so much during the holidays that I just couldn't bare not having anything pretty in it after all the Christmas decor was taken down and packed away. And since we don't burn firewood because of our allergies then it just sits there as a boring old black box. Well not anymore! Yippee! Just add a few sea shells a little fish net and waa laa there you have it. Hey it may not seem like a big deal to you all but if you had to look at something boring and ho hum all the time then you would see where I'm coming from here. Its a huge improvement I say.
Have a great day everyone...there's more to come but I'm not sure if I should overload you all right now with a ton of posts or try to spread them out a little.