Accordion Album / Birthday Card

It was my hubby’s birthday in August and not sure why but every year, there is always a mad rush to come up with a present or a last minute thought “ok, alright..I will make him something” followed by “crap, i dont have much time”….: P

So every time, I am not really 100% pleased with what I came up with and every year I promise myself that next year I will give myself more time to make a better one. It’s all a bit like on NYE when you make your new years resolutions.

This year, I have made him an accordion album from scratch with not that many pages so that it’s like an extended card. The idea was to print out instant photos on my pivi printer and then have everyone sign the album on the spot. I think this year, the layout could have been more structured with a bit more details.. (but i just didn’t have enough time, again…)

It was a bit hard to come up with the pages when you don’t know what the photos would look like. Thankfully, I bought the Technique Tuesdays’ “So Totally Happy” stamps by Ali Edwards and also her “Life Circles” stamps, they were very easy to use and the phases made it easy to work with any ‘partying’ photos. Everyone loved the stamps, even the guys noticed that I have actually made a card/ album…. lol

Happy happy wedding day

Finished layout in shadow box

My parents live overseas and whenever they miss us, they love to look through photos of us and think about the times we spent together. When we go home in Sydney, we love pondering over the photo collection they have on the wall, on the photo corner and laugh about old times, about memorable times.

So when my parents were about to return to Sydney, I wanted to give them something that they can take back to Sydney to add to their photo collection. It has been more than a year since I got married and they have always complained that I haven’t given them a family photo from our wedding 😛 yup i’m lazy in that way.

As I had limited time, around 2 hours’ time, I decided to copy the layout I learned from Prima class – it had enough layers for a photo in the centre and included number of embellishments so perfect to focus the attention on the photo in the middle 🙂

Close up of embellishments
From left: Butterflies were covered with glossy accent to give it a shiny look so it doesn’t look so flat; decorative corner has been embossed with shiny gold powder; petals were layered and held together by brads to form the flowers with decorative bling bling

Materials used: Sizzix Die (#656538 Decorative Flourishes Set), Ranger Ink Ancient Gold Embossing Powder (EGJ00761 African Gold), My Minds Eye Stella and Rose Gertie Doily Stamps, Prima – Essentials 10 Collection – Flower Embellishments – Sparkling Spring, Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Mustard Seed), Kaisercraft Rhinestone Flourishes (Classic Champagne), Kaisercraft Pearl Flourishes (Decorative Pearl), Jillbean Soup Blossom Soup Fresh Cilantro paper

Romantic Clifftop Dinner

Romantic dinner on clifftop

Over the weekend, a couple of girlfriends came over for a long overdue scrapbook day. Most of us ordered the June Studio Calico Kit and the moment I saw the kit and all my other goodies from SC, I was so excited!!! They are sooo pretty. This month’s main kit uses pastel colours, one of my favourite colour palette. Pastel and soft colours are always so romantic to me so I decided to use the kit for the romantic clifftop dinner we had in Bali.

Just the two of us

I didn’t have time yet to develop my photos so I used my Fujifilm Pivi mini printer to print out the 4 photos. It worked well because I had more than one photos which I wanted to include in the layout. I learned about this awesome handy gadget from Amy Tangerine’s blog. I take it with me whenever I travel now because it is so light and so handy! Pity it doesn’t work with iphone…..

Other materials used: Mister Huey’s colour mists (Boss Lady, Taxi), Zing embossing powder (Mustard), Claudine Hellmuth Studio “Doodles” Clear Stamp Collection