Travel Journal

I love to make Travel Journals!! I found some really great notebooks at Target that have pockets and dividers and an elastic band around the outside. My favorite thing on a trip is picking up things to save and stuffing them into the notebook. I love to make lists before the trip and write down quotes, restaurants and memorable things from the trip as we go along. I have travel journals from Italy, Australia/New Zealand, Sweden, Jamaica, and much closer places like St. Louis, Chicago, Washington D.C. and New Orleans.

I like to go back and read my memories and laugh about things that happened.

COSMO CRICKET MR.CAMPY PAPER CRAFT KIT paper pack. Now, this is still a work in progress as it will not be finished until after the trip, but I worked on it Saturday in between working on the baby shower gift and surfing the internet.

Baby Shower Gift

I've been working on a baby shower gift all weekend! This gift is for a teacher at school, she is expecting her first baby. This is a set of 12 thank you cards with envelopes, seals and a gift box. I got the box template here.

This paper is from Close to My Heart, it is the Aspen paper pack. I used mostly Twilight ink and the stamp set is 'Into the Wild'. I really wanted to stamp the little lion to match the outfit and shoes that I got for her, but the lion is missing!! I searched all over the house, but he is totally lost. I decided to use the elephant and the monkey instead. I stamped the leaves, monkey's head, and elephant head, cut it out and used pop dots to raise it up.

Color Inspiration Challenge #39

Fellow Close to My Heart consultant Vicki designed the most perfect accordion card style card to use with this stamp set. I just got this stamp set in the mail and her 'sketch' helped me come up with a Valentine Card for my little brother and I am showing it off over at this week's Color Inspiration Challenge, KWernerDesignBlog.



Sorry about the annoying picture quality. I am saving up for a new camera....and I usually take the photos during the day. Most of the paper is from my stash. I am trying to use up all of my old 'non-ctmh' products for these challenges. The stamp set is called Rockstar. Be sure to click on the picture to see the card up close. If you want to make a similar accordion card, the measurements are: 4 1/4 x 10 1/2" CS, scored at 1 3/8", 2 1/2", 4 3/8", 6" and 8 1/4", folded accordion style. (Mine is 5" X 10 1/2").

Sketch Challenge, Papercraft planet and Cupcakes

I haven't really done a sketch challenge before, I like to follow sketches, but I prefer color challenges. This was a great sketch, perfect for my new Close to my Heart cupcake stamp set and my new Martha Stewart lace edge punch. Thanks Lisa for giving me the link, this was great for me!! Lisa and I met on Paper Craft Planet, she made a few comments on my cards and then realized that she visits Roaring River every summer even though she lives in Texas she is very familiar with this area. If you haven't checked out Paper Craft Planet yet, it is so awesome!! You can have a page, kind of like Facebook for crafters. It is perfect for viewing cards, doing challenges and you can even link your blog to your profile page. There is a group for Close to My Heart and you can make friends with new people who share your same love for all things paper and craftilicious.

Back to the cards. I had to make 2 cards, and I decided to use this blue and green paper so that the cards could be a birthday card for a guy.

While I was at it, I decided to make a few more cards with this set.

I need a challenge!!!

UGH! I Got some new stamps, a really cool new punch and I need a challenge to fulfill. Nothing is hitting my creative buttons at the moment.

School Memories Book

A lot of funny things happen at school. Kids say funny things, silly stuff happens during class. Also, I find that many inspirational things happen. I decided that I need a place to keep these things sacred, a place to write about the things that happen and a place to include photos and keepsakes. Last Wednesday I was feeling particularly crafty and I made this book.

Actually, I made two of these. This one is more finished so I will show it to you. Making a book like this makes me want a Bind-It-All....the book is 8 1/2 by 8 1/2 and I basically combined lots of scrapbooking papers, stickers and stamps. Most of them are from a vintage school paper pack from Daisy D's called Classroom. I know it isn't totally finished, it will always be a work in progress whenever I find something cool, I can add it.

The cover has even changed since I took these pictures, I added a school picture and a sub title on the front. The other book I created (that I haven't photographed yet) uses more recycled things like catalog fronts, school papers, etc. Anyway, I included used manila envelopes to store keepsakes and I used real writing paper on some pages for journaling. I have already used the book to write down funny quotes from kids that I have been keeping a list of on my desk on a piece of scratch paper.

One funny story was from a couple of weeks ago. I announced to a class that they needed to work faster, some students were working very slow and they needed to push on the gas pedal. A girl looked up and said, "Mrs. Mitchell, we don't have gas." My response, "Yes, some of you do....I smelled it...." Hehe...

I love this book because it doesn't have to be perfect. I was able to put it together pretty quickly and it is literally made from scraps of paper. I can make some pages more fancy by adding things, or I can keep them simple. The focus will be on journaling and I can add pictures if I want, but they aren't required to tell most of the stories that I want to tell with this book.

In case you are wondering about the plain white pages in the book, those are watercolor paper and I want to get some vintage school stamps and stamp on those with StazOn and then color them to look like pages from an old children's book with captions that are quotes from something my kids say...Like when a boy fell out of his chair a few weeks ago and said, "That hurt the top of my buttcrack." The really cute thing about it was that he said: 'that huwt the top of my 'butt qu-wack'" because he couldn't say his 'r's' quite right....so cute!!!

While I am at it, I thought I would share this book with you that I have been working on for several months. I actually took these pictures last summer. I got really into book altering for a while. This is a children's board book that I covered in the same papers and stickers. I didn't really leave spots for journaling and pictures though....it is more of a fancy collage, but I love it.