Happy National Scrapbook Day! {Glassine Sack Tag Album, 50th Birthday Party Decor}

Pin It Now!

Hi friends, and Happy (inter)National Scrapbook Day to you!  Today I'm sharing with you a good reason to scrapbook - to honor someone you love.  I put together this mini album for my husband's recent HUGE milestone birthday!  It was really easy and the result was worth a million bucks.

 Simply gather a bunch of glassine bags or whatever bags you have on hand.  Need some?  Check here in my Etsy shop.
Staple them together at the bottom.
Wrap the stapled end with a piece of cardstock.  Mine is Marina Mist, embossed, and embellished with an Antique Brad & circle punch of Champagne Glimmer paper.
Wrap each bag with coordinating pattern papers.  Mine is Nautical Expedition (retired SU).  This gives the album a little body and color.
Add a little stamped embellishment to the front.  I used The Open Sea.
Now your base is done, time to fill it with memories!
I used the Two Tags die, measured the usable space, and typed up the replies on the computer. Then I cut them out and die cut each with the Big Shot.

Since it was my hubby's big giant birthday (I happen to be a LOT younger than him LOL, but I'm catching up fast), I wanted to fill it with messages of appreciation from people all throughout his life.  FACEBOOK, here I came!  I sent a group message to everyone that I thought has been touched in some way by his being around.  Childhood best friend, coworkers from 25 years ago, family, neighbors, church friends.  It was really easy once I got started.  Then the messages started rolling in, by Facebook message, text, and phone.  And it was WONDERFUL!   I was so blessed by the memories I received on his behalf.  It was very sweet to read what others had to share, and I was surprised by the heartfelt responses, especially from the guys in our lives.  But the real impact was when he read the messages.  I gave him the book the night before his birthday, and he took it to bed to read.  He laughed.  He got quiet.  And he smiled.

And this is why you have to scrapbook.

I also threw him a surprise party, and I wanted to share some of the decorations with you.  I scoured the web and Pinterest when planning his party and ended up coming up with all the ideas on my own.  First up was the banner for the cake table...

It's made of hand cut banner pieces, and LOTS of squares of Silver Glimmer Paper.  I scanned snapshots of many of the big moments in his life - childhood, grandparents, high school, our wedding, our first son, second son, and our business grand opening were some of the big ones.

Here's the hall, all gussied up!  I didn't want to do all black, I'm just very much not into the over the hill stuff :)

C. is a collector of antique clocks, so I started swiping clocks from the house earlier in the week. I set one as a centerpiece on each table, added confetti & balloons, and glue dotted a "time" quote to the face of each clock.  Lines like, "time flies when you're having fun",  "everything is better with time", etc.  It was so very HIM, and he loved it too.

  

Finally, some quickie decorations for the food table.  Jars of candy with coffee stirrers embellished with banners, pinwheels, and big fat rhinestones.  

I hope you enjoyed my birthday ideas, and hopefully you'll be able to bless somebody's life with a scrapbook, or honor them in some way with your crafty skills.  I'm going to try to pop back in later with a layout for NSD :)  Till then, have a blessed and creative day!  ~ Erika

Vintage Christmas Ornament Mini Album HSS131

Pin It Now! Ahh, finally I'm home and have full access to stampin' supplies!  I have a box load of new goodies from the Holiday Catalog, and had time to just tinker around - my favorite way to unwind :)

The challenge theme at Hand Stamped Sentiments this week is Vintage. So I created a mini album Christmas ornament from an empty Dahlias container; it's a bit slimmer than the normal embellishment containers.

You can see here the plastic container that holds the pages.  The tulle flower was CASEd from pg 13 of the July Stampin' Success magazine.  I have a friend that wants to make these, so I set out to figure out the DIY.

The tulle flower is layered on loops of Very Vanilla Seam Binding Ribbon, and then on layers of Fancy Flower punches from the new Candlelight Christmas DSP.

Inside the case is a very tiny mini album of our memorable moments from last Christmas.  They are 2-1/2" punched circles of 4 different patterns, including the flocked window sheet (luscious!).  They're adhered with Sticky Strip to make a micro accordion album. 

The album cover is a pic from one of our many trips to Panera...I'm sure this was a Peppermint Mocha or something equally delish.  Anyway, I converted all of the photos to black & white so they didn't compete with the DSP, and sized them to punch with the 1-3/8" circle punch.  I made tiny ornament hangers by punching the new Champagne Glimmer Paper with the Scallop Ribbon Punch and cutting one scallop for each ornament top.  The cover is rimmed with Champagne Glitter Glass (love that stuff - very vintage!). BTW, I realized after the fact that the album should be dated "2011". Ah, well.  Fifty years from now who will know?!

 Here are the pages.  I kept the journal strips to one or two words each, but I know the inside story to each one.

 The hanger loop is the 7/8" cotton ribbon, stamped with the Good Cheer wheel stamp.  (Wheel stamps are my all time fave :)

 There are a few leaves punched with the Bird Builder Punch from Champagne Glimmer paper.

 The backside, covered with more DSP.

Vintage Christmas is my favorite Christmas style.  What does Vintage mean to you?  Join us at HSS and go all out this week with the vintage / retro / shabby chic, whatever you envision!