My Heart Album Project

Good morning everyone - I am glad to be back to sharing with you all today. As some of you may have read, last week was a difficult one for my family as we dealt with two deaths, on top of that we were experiencing an emotionally draining situation at our church and I also discovered someone plagarizing my photos and text from this blog. But I do have to give glory and praise to our faithful God who saw us through it all, provided perspective and resolved the tough situations. I am truly blessed!
Thanks to all of you (you know who you are!) who prayed, e-mailed and called - God knows what we need right when we need it most!

Now, let's get back to CREATIVITY! :)
The project I'm sharing with you all today is a Mini-Album that I designed for a special class last month. It's the "My Heart" Mini-Album and was designed especially for holding cherished photos, quotes and memorabilia. I haven't yet added to mine as this is meant to be a deeply personal book and I wanted the class attendees to be led by what meant the most to them.

Here is the front cover with the pages all stacked up:

For this project, we used the On-Board Heart Chipboard albums from the Occasions Mini Catalog and the Welcome Neighbor DSP pack that is FREE in the Sale-A-Bration brochure. That paper has some great neutral patterns that were perfect for this project!
My cover design is done with the Sticky Cuts Letters - "r" for Robin, and covered with the Chunky Glitter. I used the Sweet Pea Felt Pieces for an accent. The ribbon tie is a piece of Old Olive Wide Striped Grosgrain trimmed at the ends in a flag. I knotted it twice around the bead chain connector.

Here is a photo of the pages all fanned out from front side:

and the flip side:

The only stamping in the entire project is the Dot, Dot, Dot stamp on the chipboard butterfly!
The pages were done by spreading Tombow Multi Adhesive (the green one!) on the blank chipboard, then placing the 6" x 6" squares of dsp overtop, smoothing them out with our hands and a Bone Folder. Then we used Paper Snips to trim around the shape and smoothed out the cut edges with a Sanding Block. That gave it a pretty edge and a little vintage look at the same time.

These next photos are of the pages, two by two:
this set uses Crushed Curry Polka-Dot Ribbon and Old Olive Satin Ribbon. The satin ribbon was attached with a length of Sticky Strip and just pleated along the exposed adhesive.

On these two pages, I used a heart shape from the Sticky Cuts Letters and coated it with the Galaxy Fine Cosmo Glitter. The two little hearts are actually from some retired chipboard that I had a ton of in my stash! We covered them with scraps of the Welcome Neighbor dsp and added them with Mini-Glue Dots. You could substitute any chipboard shape here or even a punched shape.

Next, comes more ribbon scrunching with the Pretty in Pink Satin ribbon and Sticky Strip, then the facing page used more scrap dsp from this pack punched out with the Five Petal Flower Punch. I added a Rhinestone Ice Circle Brad to the center then curled the petals with my Bone Folder before attaching it with Stampin' Dimensionals.

To make the Butterfly here, I used the chipboard packaging that came with the Mini-Album and cut a piece to use with the Beautiful Butterflies die and my Big-Shot. Yes, it cuts through chipboard like buttah! It was then stamped on with Melon Mambo ink, sponged around the edges and I added a small piece of Chocolate Chip Taffeta Ribbon for the antennae. It's attached with Mini-Glue Dots. A double Chocolate Chip Ribbon bow was added to the bottom of the opposite page to connect the two.

For these two pages, I used my Floral Fusion Felt Flowers (say THAT 5 times fast!) along with Silver Brads. Everyone had different flower shapes and combinations but they were all equally lovely! These were attached with more Mini-Glue Dots.

Here I used a piece of Bermuda Bay Polka-Dot Ribbon for the bow and made some paper lace with Whisper White cardstock for the opposite page. The paper lace has Bermuda Bay ink brushed lightly over it after I attached it using more Sticky Strip. How Fancy!

The last two pages utilized more Sweet Pea Felt accents on one side, and the other had more ruffled ribbon, this time with Old Olive Wide Grosgrain. I added a corduroy brad and button accent made with Chocolate Chip and Pretty in Pink pieces and this was attached with more Mini-Glue Dots.

Now, for the final touch!
I added Clear Rhinestone brads to the edge of each chipboard page in a graduated fashion. The brad acts as a page turner of sorts, but adds some special interest to the edges too!
To do this, I first used my Paper Piercer to start a hole in the page edge. Then, I inserted the brads into the hole with the flat side horizontal with the edge. Once I had made the space for the brad to rest, I removed the brad, dipped the end in Crystal Effects and re-inserted it into the hole. After letting it dry for several hours, they were there to stay!

So, that's it! The project was time consuming - about 3 hours start to finish, but really worth the end result, don't you think? I am excited to now get my personal thoughts and photos in it to finish mine up. I was so happy to be able to share it with you all today - let me know what you think by leaving me some comment love, ok? I really enjoy hearing from you all!

Stamped Blessings,
~~Robin