Giant Paper Bag Scrapbook Album

Last year our city banned plastic grocery bags.  It has been kind of a throw-back to the seventies before stores used plastic grocery bags and now stores give paper bags, unless you bring your own reusable bags.  At first the stores tried to charge extra for the paper bags, but they eventually realized customers balked and for the most part they do not charge for the paper bags.  We do bring our own reusable bags for the most part, but once in a great while we forget so we are given paper bags.  Well, these were really starting to pile up!  So I started saving a stack of them in my studio.  And finally I couldn't stand it any longer, I just had to make a paper bag book!

I took the handles off of each bag and then folded it in half.  I couldn't find my bone folder, but I remembered seeing that you could use the handles of your scissors in a pinch, so that is what I did to get a nice crisp edge on each bag.  I decorated each bag first with papers such as wallpaper samples, sheet music and paper scraps, and then with various clip-art images and journal spots.  The covers are made from an old Cheerios box covered in some handmade paper from my local scrapbook store.

 Since this book is super tall, I printed images at the largest size I could.  It also allows for big old journaling spots.

I added just one small lunch size bag inside one of the signatures.  That is the one with the orange polka-dots above.

Each bag has a small flap on the inside that I also included a tall, narrow journaling card on.  I adhered the pages back to back very carefully and bound it together with a sewn tapes binding.

And I made large pull-outs for the pockets for each bag.  Because of how big the bags are, I was able to make super big journaling spots.  And there is one on each side of each pull-out.

Free Printable Collage Sheet

We have a new free printable collage sheet on our website.  It's a sheet of three couches and one chair. 

I love to cut these out and use them in my planners, scrapbooks, journals, etc.  I tried to find images that are easy to cut and not too fine of details that make them too difficult to cut.  I then like to take images of either children or people sitting and place them on the couch.  Here is one from my journal that was kind of fun.

You can get a full sized PDF printable from our website here.
 

Desktop Calendar Tutorial

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.  It was pretty special for us to have our precious Samuel who is only two months old to share it with.

Several years ago I did a tutorial on creating a desktop calendar with my Bind-It-All.  In the tutorial I use the Teresa Collins calendar pages.  I realize these are getting harder and harder to get (I did hoard my pack for just such an occasion).  But I want you guys to be able to make one of these calendars if you want to, so I made up some free 2016 printable calendars that will fit this calendar perfectly.  You can get the free tutorial and the printables on my website at Desktop Calendar Tutorial.  The printable calendars are in PDF format and there are four to a page with three pages.  

Free Printable Doll Tag Collage Sheet

Work is still slamming busy (after a very slight slow-down), but I am managing to find little moments here and there to create.  It makes my workday so much more fun!  This past week I created these doll tags.  You can pick up a free PDF printable at the website here.  These are fun to use in your scrapbooks, journals, etc.  I tried to leave lots of room for journaling.  I used templates and papers from Pixel Scrapper.  I hope you enjoy them!

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!

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.

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!

Heat Embossing

I created a new tutorial on our main website on heat embossing - but it's really 3 tutorials!  Three different ways to heat emboss.  I started with the basic heat embossing technique, but I also shared using an erasable pen and glue dots for other unique ways to emboss with heat!