Scrapbook Album Alternative to WeR Memory Keepers

How to you shelve your scrapbook albums? Do you make sure they are all the same and labeled by year?  Do you have categorized albums? Do you just buy whatever album you can find on sale?

In the past, I was a super fan of the brown leather-like albums from Hobby Lobby where I organized my layouts by year.  They were sturdy with large rings and I could use a 40% off coupon when I needed a new one.

However, Hobby Lobby is a drive, and once Michael's opened just 10 minutes away, I started purchasing the WeR Memory Keepers albums with my 40% off coupon.  The same albums were also at our Target, which sold for $10 less than Michaels, and I didn't need a coupon for the best deal.

Target has made some changes for their art supply department, and the favorite WeR Memory Keepers albums went away (along with the majority of their other scrapbook supplies).  The picking was slim at Michaels as well and just focuses on the Project Life albums.

My dilemma was that I wanted the black, faux leather, which was hard to find in my area.  Now as a Stampin' Up demonstrator, I found the most perfect solution!  Stampin' Up sells a black, Project Life album that is nearly identical to the WeR albums!

In the top left photo is a WeR Memory Keepers album; in the top right, the Project Life by Stampin' Up.  Both have the large D rings.  The difference is the metal labels on the spine, but since they are both the silver color, it will still look similar on the shelf.

If you are looking for black faux leather albums, may I suggest you check out my Stampin'Up store website?  The best part is that until April 10th, there is FREE SHIPPING on any size order!  So pick up a couple albums for your Spring and Summer scrapbooking and/or Project Life projects!

And if you are strictly a Project Life scrapbooker, Stampin' Up sells exclusive Project Life card and stamp sets that you cannot find anywhere else!  At my website, search "Project Life" to see all the awesome supplies available!

Want to earn some credit for your new albums and Project Life supplies?  If you are local to me, you can have a Craft Camp with your crafting buddies.  I will come and show you some fun projects you can do with your friends where you can enjoy and experiment with Stampin' Up projects.

If you are not local, and you do not have a Stampin' Up Demonstrator, you can have an Online Party!  Simply message me through my website for details on this fun alternative you can have with online friends while earning Hostess Credit!

Have a great week, and thanks for visiting!

Back from Summer -- and a Scrapbook Share!

We have had a busy summer, as I am sure you have too!  We started our homeschooling on August 5th, so we are slowly getting back into the regular routine.

For most of July I scrapped my heart out, working on my oldest son's birthday album with the RSVP collection from Basic Grey.   Some old pages that were done in the past on 8-1/2" x 11" were completely redone (since I had photo duplicates) so that the entire book looks cohesive.  The RSVP kit was purchased from The Memory Nest, and comes with a great collection of papers for a boy or girl, a sticker sheet and three different sets of letter stickers.

Here is the latest video where I do a quick share on what I have accomplished so far for the album.  For the teenage years, I will be transitioning to the new Celebrations collection from Carta Bella:

What have you done this summer for scrapping??

(Inter) National Scrapbooking Day - Help with Themed Scrapbooks

Welcome to my second post for National Scrapbooking Day!  This time I am sharing one of my videos on YouTube.  This video shows how I chronicled my oldest son's school memories scrapbook -- which is really a binder -- while still having cohesiveness throughout. You will see my chapter pages, and how pages done through the years still fit in within the book.



If you follow me on Instagram, it was there today that I posted a sneak peak photo of the "New to Me" kit that I am using for the month of May from The Memory Nest!  Next week on The Memory Nest blog, Leslie will be posting my three heritage layouts that I completed from the Reflections kit from Lori Whitlock by Echo Park paper.

The Memory Nest is also having a great sale today in honor of National Scrapbooking Day!  Spend your break from scrapping by shopping through all the special deals only today!  

December Daily Blog Hop with The Memory Nest! Week #4

Hello Everyone!  Welcome to this stop of the Memory Nest's December Daily Blog Hop.  Now that Christmas is past, it is time to wind up the December Daily and put in the finishing touches.  Here is the update to my album for this past week:

Next on the Blog Hop is the creative Jessica at Finding Sunshine!
If you miss any of the stops, head back to The Memory Nest Blog!
Link up your project at The Memory Nest and WIN PRIZES from us!
See you next Friday for our last day of this December Daily Blog Hop.

Video: December Daily Blog Hop with The Memory Nest! Week #3

Welcome to this stop of  The Memory Nest "December Daily" Blog Hop, Week #3!

Although I have a couple unfinished days in my album, I have been able to do a pretty good job of keeping up!  Journalling will be finished this week.

For you to see all that I have accomplished so far, it was much easier for me to do a video share of the album! Here is a quick, two minute video to give you a view of my completed pages up through yesterday.

(FYI - this is the video for week #3 of the blog hop, but I labeled my videos by what I has been uploaded on YouTube.)



Next on the Blog Hop is the creative Jessica at Finding Sunshine!
If you miss any of the stops, head back to The Memory Nest Blog!
Link up your project at The Memory Nest and WIN PRIZES from us!
See you next Friday!

Video: December Daily Blog Hop with The Memory Nest! Week #2

Thanks for stopping here on The Memory Nest "December Daily" Blog Hop, Week #2!

My December Daily album is underway, and I have been keeping a list of what I will share on each day of the album as well as remembering to take daily photos.

This week, however, I have run out of black photo ink, so I have not been able to print any of my photos to add to this week's pages.

For today's hop, I will share my video that shows how I put together my December Daily kit to use through the month.  More items have been added, but this will give you an idea of what I found to be useful:



Next on the Blog Hop is the creative Jessica at Finding Sunshine!
If you miss any of the stops, head back to The Memory Nest Blog!
Link up your project at The Memory Nest and win prizes from us!
See you next Friday!

December Daily Blog Hop with The Memory Nest! Week #1

Thanks for stopping by on this December Daily Blog Hop, Week #1!   You should be hopping here from Jennifer Reilly's blog.  I hope you will become full of inspiration as you look through the ideas of how The Memory Nest Design Team is creating December Daily albums!

Okay, now time for some truthfulness. This is the first year that I've done a December Daily album -- I have always had the intention, and then Life Happens.  This year I really wanted to complete this project.  I did not really want it as a recordkeeping system as much as I wanted it to be a memory album so that my boys would know what is on MY heart during the holiday season and what is important to me.

My album is simple; I raided my stash for bits and pieces to create a chipboard album with smaller pages so it would be simple to add either journaling or a photo for each day. The paper I chose from The Memory Nest was the We R Memory Keepers "Winter Frost" 6 x 6 paper pad.  The soft colors of blue, green and grey are so lovely, and I already had several other things in my stash to complement the paper.  With two sheets of each design in the pad, I was able to cover each chipboard page back to back.

Here is the cover of my album:  

My plan is to be able to display this album on a book stand.  

The first page is a pocket made from a kraft envelope. Inside this pocket I will keep journaling that may not fit anywhere else in the album.  

Day #1:  My teenager is determined to put up outside decorations this year. 

Day #2:  I spent the evening making Christmas cards to send to friends and family.  

Day #3:  This is another pocket where I will put my youngest son's Christmas list for safe keeping.  

Day #4:  A second envelope pocket on the left hold recipe cards of the favorite holiday goodies that I make every year that my kids and hubby love.

Day #5:  (Yesterday) Texas has such crazy weather sometimes, and this year we have already had two wild weather fronts a couple weeks apart, bringing in unusually cold temperatures that we rarely see in December. 

Your next stop is the incredible Jessica Barnes!

If you want to begin at the start of the Hop, head back to Leslie at The Memory Nest.

So that's my first week of the December Daily.  There is not doubt that I will add journaling and other embellishments to the pages as I go along. (I apologize for the quality of the photos this time - there wasn't enough good light, but I think you can still see the color combination well.)  A video will be up on YouTube with a closer look at the kit I put together and how the album was assembled.  

Are you doing a December Daily?? If so, put your blog link in the comments below so that we can check it out!

See you next Friday for Week #2 of The Memory Nest Blog Hop!

Scrapbook Process: Gratitude Journal

After posting several recipes, I thought it should be time for a paper crafting project!  This weekend I am finishing up a Gratitude Journal that was devised from combining two different online ideas. This will be my own personal gratitude journal; I have been working on it for a couple weeks.

 The idea of using a type of tag book was from this Scrapbook Showgram by Sandy Genovese.  (FYI - watch now if interested in this tutorial; her episodes are only accessible for a short time unless you are a Gold member)  In this episode, Sandy demonstrates how to create a Thanksgiving Tag Book by making your own oversized tags with a simple template and a cute box/cover in which to store it.  For my tag book, I included more pages so that I had one for each day of November.  I haven't decided if I will make the box for it or not.

Instead of filling my tag book with just journaling, I found this great 30 Day Photo Gratitude Challenge on Pinterest.  This idea is originally from PositivelyPresent.com and is a complilation of 30 items, one assigned daily to photograph.  I didn't follow this list exactly, but it was a fantastic starting point for me to take photos of things of which I am grateful and may not have made the effort to photograph otherwise. From my second photo of the tag book, you can see that I embellished the inside cover, but kept the pages simple and uncluttered, ready to put a cropped photo and journaling on each page. There are 15 pages; once you go through the first 15 days, you flip the book for the second 15 days. The paper was from a "grab bag special" from Close to My Heart a couple years ago and it was the perfect subtle fall theme for this book.  Printing photos and journaling is on tap for this weekend!

I hope this gives you an idea of how to make a simple Gratitude journal for yourself, or to make one for each family member or guest to write in their gratitude on this Thanksgiving Day!

Frugal Scrapbooking: Simple-to-Make Albums

This week I finished a couple mini albums that were fast and easy to make, without a mountain of materials!  While some mini albums can be quite elaborate, you can still make something nice and sweet as a special gift without all the fuss.

This Girl Scout album is a coaster album that I designed to make with a troop this week.  I got coasters (square and round) at a Michael's clearance for $.40 a pack (of six), the 12"x12" paper pack from Big Lots for $1.00 (yes, only a $1.00!) and a large packet of jeweled felt flowers for $1.40 in Hobby Lobby's clearance.  I pre-cut the papers (they were all 4" x 4" with rounded edges) and added some unused ribbons that matched from my stash.  All the girls needed to do was coordinate, paste and add the die-cuts and tags that came with the paper pack.  The whole project for a group of four girls was under $4.00.

The second mini album I finished today.  It is a new baby album that will be given as a gift.  It was made from  a $1.00 album that I got in the dollar bin at Joann's and a $1.00 paper pack that I got at Big Lots.  The paper pack was 8-1/2" x 11" and gave me enough paper for the album and 5 additional cards.  I used just a handful of  other supplies (brads, felt flowers, multicolor floss, white buttons, super thin ribbon, and a couple stickers) but the rest was created with the tags and papers from this paper pack:

And this was the finished album.  I don't think it looks like I spent under $5 for the project!

Keep in mind that you can take a unloved (or unused) paper pad and create something wonderful without a lot of extra supplies and embellishments.  And the next step?  Give your love away to someone when you are finished!  

Scrapology Class: Loving Pink Lush!

One of my favorite albums that I did for a class at Scrapology was probably this pink Lush book in January!  It's is more detailed that I usually do; I had a lot of elements on each page.  I loved the change of pace -- I don't get to play with pinks and fuchsias that much (I have boys and they wouldn't appreciate that!)

Scrapology Class: A Crush for Orange Lush!

Now I'm not an orange liking kind of person, but when we were deciding on the next class project for Scrapology this month, I decided to challenge myself with some of the Orange Lush!

I love how it turned out -- it's a more basic book with pr-ecut papers for each page and not as many embellishments.  However, for those who want something fun, easy and yet "Lush", this may be the project for you!

Scrapology Class: Can you "AdLib?"

We will be playing with the new Bo Bunny "AdLib" papers this Saturday at Scrapology!  Your class kit includes materials to make two cards (one with a popup), a gift bag (with giftcard pocket and tag) and mini album/journal.  Check out their website for pricing and details! 

Frugal Scrapbooking: A Unique Paper Album

This challenge was on one of my CafeMom groups, and I couldn't resist!  I haven't done much scrapping for myself in the last two months, and I had all the new Winter Joy papers by Bo Bunny that I was dying to use.

Have you seen this project before?  Can you guess what this is made from?

Toilet paper rolls!  Really!  I had seen tutorials to make gift card holders from TP rolls, but never thought about a mini album!

I used rolls from toilet paper that were mega rolls; they seem to be a bigger tube than regular rolls.  What I like about this project is that you can use this as a gift for someone at Christmas and hide a gift card in one of the pockets.  But I think I will keep this one.  I may even add another page (or two!)

Scrapology Class: Proper Gentleman's Album

The great thing about working at Scrapology (http://www.scrapologytx.com/) is that I get to experiment with different companies and their new papers!

This is a chipboard "DAD" album that I created for a class at the store using the "Proper Gentleman" papers.  I really liked how it turned out, and it will be an awesome gift for an equally awesome dad!

Scrapology Class: Flipping for Spring!

Another fun project for a Scrapology class!  I used some new papers, stickers and chipboard from The Little Yellow Bicycle's Fresh Print Clothesline set, which are so springy, sweet and oh so perfect for doing an Easter or flower album!  I used several photos that I took on Easter Sunday of the bluebonnets and other wildflowers here in Texas.

The "springtime" imprint here is on the paper -- I thought this made a perfect album cover!

Scrapbook Process: Showcase Your Child's Artwork

My youngest son, Josh, is in Kindergarten this year, and you know what that means -- lots of artwork comes home! Unfortunately, I really do not have the space to keep everything he will bring home during the year, so I found another solution. I found an inexpensive spiral scrapbook that is 10" x 7". (It already had the opening for a photo.) I used paper and sticker stripes to decorate the cover from the bland brown it was originally:

I started with a cover page inside:

Dedication page:


then took photos of his large artwork and created pages for each month when they were created. Here are a couple months in his book:


page 2 from November:


When I started the project, I precut the photo mats and the paper for each page. I have the next couple months ready, so all I have to do is choose the paper and start adhering.