Scrapbooking/ Mini Albums

Let’s see those mini books!

September 15, 2009 by Jess 8 Comments

Who’s working on the challenge for this month? Just a reminder that they are due in by September 29, and please let me know if I can post pictures of them here. If you just want to enter for the giveaway, you can leave a comment under any post from August 25 until now.

I just wanted to share this awesome mini that Sabrina completed for the challenge:

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I love love love that she did it on the San Diego Zoo/ Wildlife Park!!!! Be sure to hop on over to Sabrina’s blog to see photos of all the other pages of this adorable mini!

October’s challenge will be up in 5 days – check back for it – it’s going to be a fun one and there will be a tutorial to follow along for it if you need it.

School is keeping me very busy as usual and I seriously cannot believe its half way through September already!! I’ve been learning how to do morning areas at the zoo in different parts – so far I’ve done Nutrition (making all the diets for the animals), and Wildlife Theatre/ Show/ Aviary which includes a wide variety of animals such as a few birds, a chinchilla, a beaver, a couple baboons (which I’m in love with), a couple capuchin monkeys, and some other various animals. That is probably my most favorite areas (because of the baboons!). This week I start in Primate Gardens. I still can’t touch or talk to any of the animals which is SO HARD. I did get to hold the bunny and the chinchilla though, and I had to go into the Beaver’s enclosure to get into his pool and clean it – he was asleep the whole time though. Fun times, fun times.

Oh, I did do some baking a couple days ago – yummy Lemon Squares! They are for a speech I have to do in one of my classes – a How -To Speech. So mine is how to make these and then there will be some for everyone in the class to eat.

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Lemon Squares Recipe

Crust:

1.5 cups flour

3/4 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar)

3/4 cup butter

Lemon Filling:

6 large eggs

3 cups sugar

1 1/3 cup lemon juice

grated zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Sift the flour and powdered sugar for the crust and then add the butter. Mix it by hand – it should be a crumbly texture. Press it into the bottom of a 13 x 9 inch pan. Bake the crust for about 20-30 minutes – it will smell SO GOOD – like shortbread!

Filling: Whisk together the eggs and sugar. Add the zest and lemon juice. (I also squeezed the lemon into it after I used the zest). Sift the flour over the mixture and stir it until its mixed in. Pour over the baked crust and pop it back into the oven for another 35 minutes. Let it cool completely before cutting, then store the bars in the fridge. Enjoy!!

One last thing to share today: here are a couple pictures of one of my newest mini’s – this one is in the current issue of Memory Makers Magazine. It’s a great idea to make as a gift for someone (Christmas is coming!!)

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Update on Challenges

August 25, 2009 by Jess 5 Comments

I’ve been getting some emails regarding the mini book challenges and some of you have already completed them – way to go!! But some need a little more time (me included – haha) so since I started them late this month, I’m going to extend this first challenge to the end of September. I will start the next challenge (we’ll just technically skip Sept and call it the October challenge) September 20 – that way you’ll have over a month to get it completed. So please have your current challenge completed by September 29 and I’ll announce the winner on September 30.

Now as far as the prizes go for the challenges, this is how it will work: if you complete the challenge, you automatically get 2 entries into the draw. If you just want to enter for the giveaway, then go ahead and leave a comment here for 1 entry. The winner will be selected by random.org.

This months prize is: 2 packages of the American Crafts Mini Marks Rub On Booklets, and 1 package of Making Memories Word Fetti (Beach) stickers. These products are all some of my favorites to use in mini albums : )

If you don’t mind me posting pictures of your completed mini albums on my blog here, please email me photos when you have completed the challenge. I will post photos of everyone’s albums throughout the month.

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Here is a mini album I made before I moved away – it’s an example of this month’s shape album challenge : )

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My New Life

August 22, 2009 by Jess 3 Comments

I’ve been here almost 5 weeks already, school has officially started and things are insanely busy already. I have a feeling that time is going to just fly by so I want to make sure I take in as much as I can and really enjoy my time in California.

I do really like it here but I’m still getting used to the heat, it has been so hot here and constantly too. I haven’t seen rain since I was back home in Vancouver. (although we did get a few – and I mean a few drops of rain this morning!).

Classes started this week so from here on in, I will be spending most of my time at school/the zoo. The good thing is that I do have some breaks between some classes so I’m able to come home and let the dogs out half way through the day. ( It’s only a 7 minute drive from my house to the college so its quite close. )

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I only had to be at the zoo this morning so the rest of the day I am spending at home, hanging out with my puppies and doing homework (we already have several tests coming up this week!). There is so much information we have been learning this past week it’s a little overwhelming, but I keep thinking how amazing it is to be here and how lucky I am to have this opportunity. The hardest thing is not being able to talk to any of the animals yet, but I did get to go on a couple walks with the Emu, Julietta!

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Zoey and Angus in our backyard today. They are so so happy here : )

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Not sure if these are going to be limes or oranges but we have a tree full of them right in our backyard!

This is a bit of a mixed random post today – now I’m going to switch over into scrapbooking stuff. The newest (and sadly the very last issue) of Memory Makers Magazine is now available! I wrote an article in it, on of course, Mini albums – there are several new ones I made just for the article. I will be back later to post about the monthly mini album challenges : )

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Check these out

August 18, 2009 by Jess 7 Comments

Totally loved looking at everyone’s links to their current projects! Here are a few of my favorites – check them out!

Christine’s mini album on the 5 senses: I love the randomness of the paint/ink on the cover – so cool!!!

Sabrina’s awesome Anniversary card that she made for her hubby: Such a cool design – looks so complicated!

Renne’s newest project is her new blog – I think it looks great! I really love her header

There are more too – I’ve got to get back to school but I will post some more links later : )

The winner for last week’s giveaway is:

Maria S. Says:
August 11th, 2009 at 3:07 pm edit

I have been on many projects lately…mostly cards since they are so much easier to complete. I have a few mini books on my site as well. I love to participate in your mini book challenges. These challenges give some mighty inspiration. Cheers!

Congrats Maria! Please email me your address : )

A Big “Mini” Book

June 10, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

I just finished this mini book tonight, although I hesitate to call it “mini”. It’s an 8 x 8 book but its huge! I put way to many pages in it. I love it though, it is all about the trip we took last summer to Yellowstone National Park. I have been saving things for it all year and been meaning to finish it long before now. Ironically, it was exactly a year ago today that we left for our trip!

I’m only going to post a few pics of it here, but there are more on the mini books page

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I added all kinds of stuff to this. I picked up brochures and newspapers at Yellowstone when we were there so I cut various tid bits out of those that I wanted to use. I also used postcards, decals, and even a little brown paper bag I got from the giftstore there. the pages are all various sizes and the embellishments are totally mixed up. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m all about using up my stash right now. So I hauled everything out that I wanted to use and spread it all over the floor in my scrap room. What a disaster it looks like!

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Yikes.

Here are some photos of what the room looked like before I made it look like a minor explosion happened in there… and to think that in the next few days all of this stuff will be packed up in boxes….I’ll miss this room.

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Did you notice that there are mini books everywhere around the room? And that doesn’t include the bookshelf full of them in the living room and the basket full of them on the floor. What on earth am I going to do with them all? I sure hope my mum won’t mind getting a whole bunch next week!

Anyway, I should get off the computer now and get to work on cleaning up my lovely mess…

Just a couple cute kitty pics I took yesterday:

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Thursday’s Tutorial…another great gift one!

June 4, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

I thought I’d get this tutorial up earlier today, before we start more painting : ) I really just want to be outside today – the weather is gorgeous here once more!

Today’s tutorial is: Flip Style Desk Calendar. It’s small and cute and will sit perfectly on any desk – totally would make a great gift for a teacher, a friend, or even for yourself. I made this one rather small so it won’t take up a lot of room – it measures 3.5 x 3.5″.

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You will need:

– 31 squares of patterned paper (cardstock weight) cut into 3.5 x 3.5″

-2 binder rings

– sheet of chipboard

– crop-a-dile or strong hole punch

– various embellishments

– number stickers or thickers

– scoring blade

– ribbon

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1. cut your chipboard sheet into a piece that measure 3.5 x 7″

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2. Using your scoring blade, score the chipboard down the middle (at 3.5″)

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3. Bend the chipboard at the score line so it looks like the above photo

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4. holding the chipboard folded in half, punch two holes (using the large hole punch on the crop-a-dile) at the top (near the fold) of the folded chipboard.

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5. Now, using the small hole on the crop-a-dile, punch 2 holes (slightly closer together) on the bottom of the chipboard ( make sure you punch through both sides)

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6. Cut 2 pieces of ribbon about 5 inches in length

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7. Thread the ribbon through 2 of the small holes and knot on the outside of the chipboard. Make sure the ribbon is the same length for going through both holes.

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8. Stand the chipboard frame up and insert 2 binder rings in the top holes

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9. Decorate your pages however you’d like and hang them onto the binder rings (all 31 in order). Then simply put on your desk and flip it to a new page each day depending on what date it is. This will work for any month : )

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