Mini Photo Album - Handy Hippo Monday

Hello Everyone ...

... and a Happy Handy Hippo Monday to you all!

And it's a holiday Monday for many of you too - here in the UK folks have been celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. I watched yesterday's Thames flotilla on television ... it was a fantastic site marred only by the rain ... such a shame that it didn't stay bright and dry for such a special event. I was glad to be watching in the comfort of my own home as most of the onlookers, and not a few of the participants, were absolutely drenched!

However, the weather looks better today, perfect for the picnic partying and the Jubilee concert at Buckingham palace later today ... again, I will be watching from the comfort of my sofa :)

Right, on to the project for today, a mini photo album. This is going to be a photo-heavy post from here on as there is a lot to show you.

A perfect gift at any time of the year, depending on the papers and embellishments used, this project is an easy made album containing 4 double-sided photo mats - room for 8 photos altogether.

Using one double-sided 12”x12” sheet of a beautiful floral design paper from the K & Company Flora and Fauna pack to create the base and a further sheet (there are two of each design in the pack) for the mats.

A second sheet of 12"x12" DP is used to make the 4 photo mats, two for inside and one for the front and back pockets.

The photo mats tuck neatly inside the pockets.

A close up of the back showing the decorated pocket and mat.


As usual materials used for this project are available from Handy Hippo and if you would like to make the same project then simply click on the magic button below and it will take you directly to a shopping cart that contains everything you would need to make it. Once there, you can simply and easily remove any of the items that you already have in your craft stash. 

It’s easy to add to your basket any other purchase that you might like and if something is temporarily out of stock you can request to be emailed once it is back in stock.

How the album was made:

Step 1.

Using a scoring board score and taking the first 12"x12" sheet of paper, score at 6" both horizontally and vertically so the the paper can be folded into 6" squares. Next, draw a faint pencil line from the two bottom corners into the central point - now cut out the triangular section formed by inside the pencil lines and retain this - you will need it later. I hope you can see the markings - this was the best shot I could get at the time :(

Step 2.

Here you can see the the base of the card with the triangular section cut out. The cut-out section is then cut in half to form the base of the pockets for front and back of the album.

Step 3.

This photo illustrates how the inside pockets are formed - fold back the triangular shapes left when the inside section is removed. However, before these sections are stuck down the ribbon that will form the closure has to be fixed in place as in the next step.

Step 4.

Use the ultra-sticky tape (the red one) to fix the lengths of ribbon in place. About 12" lengths of ribbon should do it - this will be trimmed down once the bow has been tied. Once the ribbon is in place you can then adhere the pocket pieces in place down the side edges - again using the ultra-sticky tape for maximum adhesion.

Note: the inside edges are not stuck down - they form the pockets ... I know, you're probably thinking that's obvious, but it's an easy mistake to make, believe me!

Step 5.

You can go as fancy or plain as you like when decorating the albums. Here the pocket edges are edged with white cardstock decorated with a Martha Stewart edge punch and ribbon trim in a coordinating colour.

Step 6.

Do the same with the two pieces cut to form the pockets for front and back before adhering them in place, down the side and bottom edge only. All that remains is for you to decorate the front with a selection of flowers and embellishments.

Step 7.

This floral embellishment is made up using a variety of flowers from various sources.

At the base are flittered flower sprays that have been fussy-cut from one of the DPs to be found in the Flora and Fauna paper pack.

The central 'rose' was made by cutting out a circle of coordinating paper, spiral cut and then rolled to form the flower.

The remaining two flowers were made by layering up punched paper shapes, topped off with purchased paper flowers ... these were white to start with but with lots of heat embossing, using a mix of several embossing powders, white, pink, irridescent and clear, the colour has been transformed. (You'll find the EPs used by clicking the Handy Hippo button.)

Even the letter J that has been used to personalise the album is cut from one of the sheets in the Flora and Fauna pack – it has also been embossed using the same mixing technique. Gems and pearls provide the finishing touch.

I did say it was going to be a photo heavy post, but I thought it would be better to illustrate the process of making the album rather than try to explain it all in words. I hope I've succeeded in making it as clear as possible.

Finally, I haven't been around much over the weekend, not because I've been out enjoying the Jubilee jollies and neglecting the craft space, but because my PC has been acting up and proving difficult to simply start up after being closed down overnight. I'm very much afraid that it may need more than my pathetic attempts at troubleshooting ... I might just have to get my techie guru in to take a look at it ... there goes my new stash money for months to come, sigh :(

Anyway, instead of crafting and blogging as I would like, I've been hurriedly ensuring that I've got all my photos and documents sorted out and backed up just in case something dire happens - I'd really hate to lose any of it.

So if my appearance are spasmodic over the next wee while, you will know the reason why :)

After this heavy post, I think a tea break is called for and happily it's lunchtime anyway.

Best wishes to you all, I hope you have a lovely day and happy crafting,

HANDY HIPPO THURSDAY! - WEEK #7

Hello Everyone,

And happy Handy Hippo Thursday to you all too. Apologies for the delay in sharing this card with you - we had a technical hitch this week but normal service is now resumed.

Today's card is a  6” square  card ... very feminine, very pink, lots of roses, pearls and ribbons. Even the Eiffel Tower is pink! I've added a birthday greeting but it could just as easily have made a lovely Mother’s Day card. The pretty papers are from the Wild Rose Studio’s Letters from Paris paper pack and I made the white organza flower by hand using the stunning ribbon from Handy Hippo.

Inside

Back

As usual materials used for this project are available from Handy Hippo and if you would like to make the same project then simply click on the magic button below and it will take you directly to a shopping cart that contains everything you would need to make it. Once there, you can simply and easily remove any of the items that you already have in your craft stash.

It’s easy to add to your basket any other purchase that you might like and if something is temporarily out of stock you can request to be emailed once it is back in stock.

Here's how I made the card:

• Base is a 6" square white card
• The front of the base was inked with Tim Holtz Spun Sugar distress ink and left to dry before being stamped randomly with the Fresh Bloom flower stamp in Memento Angel Pink
• The inside and back are also stamped with the flower stamp
• The Eiffel Tower topper was made by trimming a section from one of the sheets of patterned paper in the paper pack, distressing the edges with the same TH ink used on the base, and matting it on to silver mirri card before attaching it at an angle. 
• The rose embellishments were trimmed from another sheet of patterned paper - I believe this is known as fussy cutting - and the edges were inked with the Memento ink pad. The pieces were shaped by rubbing with a bone folder over the back, just to give a slight curve, then they were adhered as in the photograph using glue gel.
• Make a bow with the pink ribbon and glue it to the top left corner.
• Make an organza ribbon rose and glue it above the bow - see instructions below.
• Add three pearls to the ribbon bow, just below the rose.
• Stamp the greeting in Memento Tuxedo Black on the topper.

How to Make a Ribbon Rose
The ribbon rose was made using the red extra-sticky double-sided tape - stick a 12" length of this down on the craft mat before removing the red topping. Fold the wide organza ribbon in half and adhere it to the tape and, then roll, pleating the ribbon at intervals, until it's all rolled up. This was my first attempt and it was a lot easier to make than it is to describe how to make it!

I hope you are enjoying this series of projects - my aim is to make the projects as varied as possible.  That way you will get a good idea of the range of materials available from Handy Hippo and, hopefully, there will be something to appeal to whatever floats your boat, be it stamping, decoupage, embossing, etc. I'm enjoying the challenge :)

See you next week with something a wee bit different again.

Happy Crafting,

Scrap Our Stash - January NEW Challenge

Evening Folks

Over at Scrap Our Stash this month the challenge theme is for anything to do with the concept of NEW - it could be a new tool, a new product, a new technique, or the project could have something to do with NEW - like New Years Eve - Our New Home, etc!. Anything goes! That being the case, I've gone the whole hog and used some of the new birthday scrapbooking kit to scrap photographs of the kit and new Christmas stash  :)

With a few exceptions, the materials used were in the scrapbook kit from Funky Farm Scrapbook Barn  - you can see a bigger photograph of it here in an earlier post. Of course, the tools used weren't new - I'm staying true to my pledge to Fran at Crafty Me to Use It Up and not to purchase anything but the absolute essentials :))

Apparently, teal and pink are going to be the in colours this year ... however, I'm not that keen on pink so teamed the gold with the teal - actually it's a Core'dinations cardstock called Mediterranean - beautiful colour! I briefly considered scrunching it up and then sanding but changed my mine and instead streaked it with a pale green dabber, stamped flowers and dragonflies, also using the green dabber, then dotted some bees using a gold ink pad. I've only recently discovered metallic ink pads ... where have I been???

The two design papers were cut using two sets of Kiwi Lane templates. I don't think these templates can be bought in the UK, certainly I've not seen anyone else using them, but I'm a fan. They are simple and easy to use and come in various sizes to use either on scrapbook or card layouts, and there is even sets of embellishment shapes - I have the 'Nature' set. As you can see, I have quite a collection.

This flower was made by cutting out 4 different sized circles of fabric ... in this case it was white with a small print. The next step was to spritz the pieces with water and scrunch them up. I left them for a little while to partly dry, spritzed again, this time with a water/gold mica powder mix, and allowed to dry naturally. To complete I glued each layer with a tiny amount of glue gel and added a gold pearl to the centre.

Here's a list of the materials used.

- Core'dinations 12"x12" cardstock, 'Mediterranean'
- Adirondack Dabber, Juniper
- Stamps - Denami Design, Dragonfly; Personal Impressions, 604D Flower -  two pre-loved stamps bought at the local Sunday market so, sadly, may no longer be available; Lavinia Stamps, tiny bee
- My Mind's Eye 12"x12"- So Sophie design papers, 'Happy for You' and 'Sweet Chic'
- Ink pads: Ink It Up Metallic pigment gold; G Studio pigment turquoise
- Crafty Notions Mica Powder Paint - light gold
- Trims and embellishments, with the exception of the camera charm from Meiflower, and the handmade flower, are all from the Funky Farm Scrapbook Barn kit.
- Alphas - Basic Grey, Dasher Letters
- Vellum Writer black pen

In my last post I promised I would make something different and I have. After the rush of the last couple of months it is so nice to have the time to do a bit of scrapbooking again ... I really enjoyed working on this layout too.

I've no idea what I'm going to be working on next ... will give it some thought over dinner.

Before I close, I'd like to welcome my newest followers, Fran, Tony and Lynn. I hope you will enjoy reading my posts ... I'll try not to bore you too much with my doings :))

I hope you are all well and, if in the UK, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather ... some of my wild strawberries are in flower already!!! It's been a funny old winter up to now ... storms and gales one week and warm enough to fool the snowdrops and daffodils the next :)

Happy Crafting,