23 Paper Bag Journals

My youngest daughter, Rachel, and I got a bit ambitious this December!  We decided to make paper bag journals for a local drug rehab center's residents.  These are mostly young women who are working at getting their lives back from the horrible disease of addiction.  They are the happiest, sweetest, and most grateful people!  It is amazing how the smallest thing just means so much to them.  When we started this project I don't think either of us knew how much work it was going to be.  I started by doing a couple while my daughter finished up her college classes for the semester.  By the time she joined me, we realized we had a lot of work ahead of us, but I had already committed us and we take that pretty seriously.  So we worked and worked and worked and delivered them just in time for Christmas!  It was a lot of fun, but if we do it for next year we need to start now and just do one each every month.  Then we won't have any stress at the end on if we are going to finish in time or not.  It was well worth the effort though and we are sure we're going to do it again! 

Journal for a Friend

I have been busy working on some gifts lately.  So much to do, so little time!  The page here is from a book for a friend's upcoming birthday.  The background papers are just random scrapbook papers and a couple of bits from some painted pattern pages I made in one of Mary Ann Moss's classes.  The image is one of the fun freebie ones that Land of Nod gives away.  And then I just included a journal card from a Project Life set.  I am decorating half the pages pretty much in the same way, some background papers, a quirky image, and a journaling spot.  I am leaving the other half of the pages blank (except for whatever the background happens to be) in order for my friend to fill them in as she likes.  I am just hoping to get her creative juices going with what I've included and see what she comes up with on the other pages. 

Free Printable Mini Album - Thanksgiving Theme

I just posted the first of many printable mini albums to come over at our website.  This is a free printable mini album in PDF format that you can print at home and then decorate.  It includes 6 different pages, a collage sheet, a page of tags and tabs and a page of large tabs.  You can add any embellishments you like to your completed book and you can bind it in any way that is pleasing to you.  Rings, Bind-It-All, eyelets, etc.  Anything could work! 

Here is the link to the printable mini albums.  Thanksgiving Printable Mini Album.  The album is for personal use, but I would LOVE it if you shared the link with your scrapbooking friends and/or Pin It on Pinterest. 

I hope you enjoy it!

Paper Bag Scrapbook Tutorial

I created a new tutorial for the main website the other day.  It's a variation of a paper bag scrapbook.  This one has a hard cover, both front and back and the bags are sewn together using the sewn tapes binding that I am still so hooked on.  I seem to be using it on a lot of my stuff these days.

I used 12 bags for this one and I think that's about right.  Many more and it would not lay properly when the book was closed.  But I do like the thickness of it like this.  Nice and fat! 

You can find the free tutorial on my Making-Mini-Scrapbooks website here:  Paper Bag Book.

Collage Sheets Addiction

I have been addicted to collage sheets for quite some time now.  I love buying them on Etsy and downloading the freebies offered all over the internet.  I use them mostly in my journals and sometimes in my scrapbooks.  I have been trying to teach myself to use The Gimp, which is a free photo editing software very similar to PhotoShop.  I've been offering quite a few of my attempts on my website as free collage sheets. 

I still have a lot to learn, but it sure is fun learning!  I am creating a travel journal now for a trip my husband and I are taking in November to Cabo.  This prompted me to put together some travel collage sheets, which I just listed in my Etsy shop.

Our Daughter's Wedding Was Beautiful

Our daughter's wedding was August 2nd!  It was so beautiful!  They had the ceremony at their new house.  Her husband just bought it a few months ago and he has been living there since then.  It was charming and sweet, just like our girl Andrea.  You can read more about the ceremony at our photographer, Lydia Photography blog

She did an amazing job of capturing the feel of the wedding and the perfectness of the day.

Here is a photo of my husband, Dave, walking Andrea down the aisle.  I think this is among my top 3 photos from the wedding.

For the reception we rented a hall a couple of miles away called The Horsemen's Lodge in Grass Valley.  We had some amazing help from family and friends on setting everything up and bringing food, etc.  Andrea's maid of honor's mother did all of the decorations for the hall, including the table decorations.

Here are a couple of photos of the hall.

It was a lot of work, but it was so fun and a day to be remembered forever.  Congratulations and best wishes Andrea and Roland!

Daughter's Wedding Takes Over Mom's Life

Wow, are we getting close.  Two weeks from tomorrow is the big day of my oldest daughter's wedding.  Last Saturday her bridesmaids threw her a bridal shower here at our home.  Here is a photo of the beautiful table they did.

Of course a ton of yummy finger foods were added to the table as well.  Tomorrow is another bridal shower being put on by the ladies of their church.  Did I mention that her fiance is a pastor?  They will be the pastoral couple for a small First Baptist Church in Nevada City and will be living 10 minutes from me.  Yeah!!

These next two weeks are going to be incredibly busy.  This is where all the little tiny details have to come together.  Who is going to pick up what when and bring it where?  The ceremony will be in their soon-to-be backyard and the reception across town at The Horsemen's Lodge.  Her maid of honor's mother has been amazing in helping with the decorations for that and the arch at the ceremony.  It is all so much work, but also so much fun.  What a very special time in our daughter's life!  Loving it!!!

Wedding Guest Book Finally Finished!

My daughter's wedding is fast approaching - August 2nd to be exact!  It is getting pretty exciting, if not a little bit stressful.  So I finished the wedding guest book that she asked me to make for her the other day.  Here is a photo of the front of it.

Her theme is country shabby chic, so this should be perfect.  Here are a few pages from the inside.

I got the Keys to a Happy Marriage printables on Etsy.  I also saw a cute Sign Our Guestbook on Etsy that I am going to buy and put it in a shabby chic white picture frame where the paint is kind of chipping off.

This Saturday we are taking a trip to Hobby Lobby and/or Michaels for table decorations and other decorations.  For us, this is an event, because the closest of these is a one-hour drive.  But we make a day of it - going to lunch, etc.

Crafty Superstar Spotlight

This week I have the honor of being a Crafty Superstar at the Cut Out + Keep website.  Each day one of my projects will be featured.  There are already five projects posted, which include a triple pocket mini album, an origami mini album, an altered journal, a collage book, and a heart shaped corner book mark.  These are complete little tutorials.  There are still two projects to be unveiled this weekend, which include a magazine wrapper coaster (upcycled projects are a passion of mine) and a shirt mini album or card.  I was thinking Father's Day when I added that project, but it is getting published a week late for that.  That is okay though - it is always a good project for a male birthday, etc.

Making Mini Scrapbooks Newsletter

In the past it has been very laborious to put out a newsletter because of the software/web hosting I was using.  It is a great web hosting company because it is great for people like me who do not know how to build a website by themselves.  But it used to be very clunky.  They made some upgrades a year or so ago with a simple drag and drop way of doing things, which has helped me create pages faster and better!  But they hadn't upgraded the newsletter publishing feature until recently.  Well, in fact, it is still in Beta, but I went ahead and gave it a try yesterday and found it works pretty well.  So I published a quick little newsletter that you can read by subscribing here.  The GREAT news is that with this easier, more efficient, much less clunky way of doing things, I will be able to improve the newsletter and start sending out more frequent editions.  I am thrilled!

Duct Tape Binding Tutorial

I have been wanting to create a tutorial for this duct tape binding mini scrapbook album for quite a while.  I finally finished it this morning.  What is nice about this binding is that it allows you to have a lot of bulky pages.

Calendar Journaling

For the month of May I wanted to try the calendar journaling that I had seen online.  It was easy enough to just jot something down each day of the month.  It's kind of cool, but at the end of the month I missed three days and today I couldn't remember a single thing from last Thursday.  Ha ha

Scrapbooking is Where My Heart Is

I have been running a transcription service out of my home for close to 25 years.  I started when my oldest daughter was a baby and it has been an amazing blessing to our family that allowed me to stay home with my children.  Now both of my daughters work for us and my husband is my business partner.  We also have about 25 subcontractors that work for us around the United States.  It still keeps me pretty busy, but I really have had my heart on my scrapbooking website for the last 7 years.  It is just that I never have any time to really work on it.  I have finally committed to getting up an hour early every single weekday to get at least a little bit of time in on it every day.  It is helping me make some progress.  This morning I posted a new tutorial for creating a little ATC mini album.  The tutorial can be found on my website Making Mini Scrapbooks.

Hopefully this is the start of me getting more and more done. 

Wedding Bells

I have been working on a variety of things lately.  My oldest daughter is getting married in early August.  It is a short engagement and a simple backyard wedding with a potluck afterwards.  I know it sounds funny, but she is marrying a Baptist pastor.  Isn't that what they do?  LOL  Anyway, we started doing a lot of Pinterest in getting ideas for the wedding.  One that she found is an altered guest book, which she tasked me with creating.  Of course I had to make a trip to my local scrapbook store!  And then I found these really cool cards on Etsy.  They're a digital download and I am printing them on cardstock and including them throughout the book.  There are also little bags with tags inside that the guests can sign.  So it's sort of an either/or/both, whatever the guests want to do.  Hopefully the guests "get it."  We'll give instructions, but you never know.  Tell me what you think, please.

Simple Collage and Journaling

I have been needing to clear my mind a little bit and sometimes just creating a simple collage with some journaling background is just what I need. 

I chose a couple of my favorite papers.  I love the lavender and yellow patterned paper.  It's a handmade paper from my local craft shop and I have used that one sheet in so many projects.  I just love the colors and the feel of it. 

Japanese Stab Binding

I have been playing around with some different bookbinding techniques.  I know the Japanese Stab Binding technique already, but I liked the duct tape on the tutorial I saw over at Cocoa Daisy.  I tried my hand at a little painting and stamping too from a Cloth, Paper, Scissors video.  I love online learning.  Always so fun!