Author Archives: Crystal G

Theme Albums – Cousins’ Book – Part 5: Miriam’s Pages

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Miriam is my oldest and this layout really describes her well. She is very elegant, simple and gorgeous. I chose a green pin-stripe pattern for the base of her layout. I knew that her very favorite color is pink so I chose to accent her page with pink and only pink. Part of what makes Miriam’s layout so beautiful is the simplicity of it. I used three chipboard hearts from Heidi Swapp’s new line, which I totally love! I distressed the hearts using Ranger’s Distressing Ink. Distressing has quickly becoming one of my favorite techniques to use in my scrapbooking … Continue reading →

Theme Albums – Cousins’ Book – Part 6: Bryce’s Pages

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I love to see how unique each of these pages turned out even though we used a lot of the same products, especially our foundation pieces like the Making Memories Kids series of patterned paper. Bryce’s pages show in yet another way how fun a project like this has been. His mom really wanted to capture this very creative, fun-loving, adventurous little boy’s spirit and soul. She had a difficult time selecting a photo of him because in each photo she saw him as a grown adult instead of the 5 year old boy he is. I was able to … Continue reading →

Theme Album – Cousins’ Book – Part 4: Brenden’s Pages

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Brenden, the third oldest cousin, is very precocious and creative so his mom chose a fun green and blue plaid pattern for the base of her layout. She really liked the look of Michael’s white square with the folded corner (see Cousins’ Book – Michael’s Pages) so she repeated it with some variations. She chose not to paint the edges instead she used a ½ inch strip of green and white polka dot along the entire right side of the square. She painted the brads using the same technique as Michael’s book. Instead of having the name and journaling on … Continue reading →

Theme Albums – Cousins Book – Part 2: Michael’s Pages

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My three sister-in-laws came to my house last Wednesday to have a girl’s scrapbook day, while our husbands took our kids to a dairy farm. (I sent my camera with my hubby and he did a great job of capturing the fun on film!) I had gathered all the necessary supplies (see blog post part 1) and had arranged all our products on our full-extended kitchen table. After a little discussion, we determined we had 4 boy pages and 6 girl pages to create. We also determined that it would be easiest to mass produce each page since we were … Continue reading →

Theme Albums – Cousins Book – Part 3: Danny’s Pages

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The second cousin in our family is Danny. He is the second child of three and is very sensitive to things being fair. So his mom took great lengths to create a very special page for his part of the cousins’ book. She chose a cool blue and white checked pattern for the base of her layout. Danny loves Nintendo and Pokemon so she decided to accent the base with a lime green color as well as the green from the Making Memories (MM) kit. She cut two bold 3 x 6 inch strips of the lime green Bazzill Basics … Continue reading →

Theme Albums – Cousins Book – Part 1: Preparation

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My husband’s family got together from all over the United States for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. He has two sisters and one sister-in-law. All three of them love to scrapbook, so we asked our husbands to watch the kids for a day so we could have a girls’ scrapbook day. We had been planning this for several months and knew what we wanted to do – a cousins’ book. It had been two years since we were all together. So many changes occur in the life of a child in a two year period therefore we wanted … Continue reading →

Scrapbook Kits – MAMBI So Girly

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Christmas is over and the New Year has arrived. All the guests are gone and the house is a mess. Sounds like the perfect time to scrapbook and rejuvenate before digging in to restore everything to its proper place. I’m not usually like that, although this year somehow everything is a bit different. The project I’m going to do today is a fun one for sure! My little five year old daughter loves to scrapbook with me, along with so many other things. Her grandma (my mother) knew how much she loved scrapbooking therefore gave her an adorable kit from … Continue reading →

Crystal’s Christmas Card Idea for 2005

I love Christmas time! I’ve been working on my Christmas cards (home-made, of course) for the past several months, doing a little bit at a time. I want to share some of the techniques I used for this card. The front of the card is made using a technique called “paper tearing” and is very versatile and fun to use. I cut 2” x 12” strips of Bazzill Basics textured 12 x 12 paper (aloe vera), using my Fiskars Ultimate 12” paper trimmer. While watching the kids play outside, I tore triangle pieces from the strips of paper to make … Continue reading →

SEI Box Kit – Aunt Gerti

Even though I am crazy about scrapbooking, I’m sad to admit I don’t have a lot of albums completed for my family. The excuses are all valid and real, nevertheless it has left my girls and husband without a good way to remember all our wonderful memories. I found a wonderful solution in the SEI album kits in a box. The one I want to discuss is the Aunt Gerti box kit. Each kit includes: pre-cut cardstock, 1 sheet of alphabet stickers, brads, 1 sheet of cardstock frame/label stickers, 8 x 8 post-bound album, buttons, 1 sheet of die-cut tags, … Continue reading →

Sewing on Paper

Who would have thought it was possible? I’m not sure who it was, nevertheless I’m very grateful she did because it is so much fun! And it is quite simple too! Put two pieces of paper together where you want them to be stitched together. Then run them through the sewing machine. I recently did a huge project that involved sewing paper. A dear friend and I embarked on teaching a class making altered notebooks that involved sewing ribbons and paper. We had over 275 notebook kits to put together, so we had a chance to practice sewing paper A … Continue reading →