HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO ALL YOU HAPPY SCRAPPERS!

...OR NOT - Happy Valentine's to anyone visiiting today!  Hope you are having a lovely day! 

WE are quietly enjoying 'normal' as a week of mid-term mania and illness has passed - and I finished one huge important task, so laid-back normal is kinda good!  I am going to make my famous brownies soon and then a nice chicken dinner after we play some monopoly and then a trip to the treadmill later on just to even things out a bit - :)

Did we make each other Valentine cards?  No. Is that kinda queer in a house full of card supplies? Probably 'yes'.  But I have been more focused on some scrapbooking, and just exploring some of my new goodies and I have something I'd love to share with you...remember the teaser in the previous post?  Well, heeeere it is!  It's Alex's first baby photo!  Hurray - I say that because its been in storage for 22 years!!!  Ain't that something?  SO any photo came come out to say 'hello' any ol' time as you can see here!


Let 'er rip! Stamping
First things first - I made the pages earlier before I knew I'd pair it with this photo I just grabbed some VERY VANILLA cardstock to begin the process.  And look, the previous post makes my point - take some stamps and just let loose!  That's all I did!  There was no plan at all - it was what we call in artisitic terms 'a very organic experience' .

 I used different stamps from different sets, and combined colours I thought would go well together, but there was NO DIRECTION until I stamped the letters - then all I did was aim for a 'fairly' straight line but even then, a little un-eveness looks great.  When I was done, I had two pages, the first one shown here is using our alphabet stamp set Lovely Letters - and for some reason unfathomable to me now, I made an 'W' on the end of "SWEET"...??? Who knows what brilliant idea I had at the time, but I made 'sweet history' of it by covering the odd W with a punched out heart ( Heart Punch) and problem solved.

                                                          

And on the other page I left a lot of room for my journalling.  I don't always know what I am doing with these pages if I design them first without photos, so it only makes sense to leave at least one area bare. Its easier to go back and add more later if you want to. I also ripped the top of the page off, and added another 'ripped' strip of PRETTY IN PINK cardstock - and it works on both front and back of the page, that's the beauty of un-even edges, or tearing techniques! :) {showing 'backside'}

 In the end, I loved both pages!

Now it was time to find some photo worthy of my pages - and looking to my baby albums, I found our first photo of baby Alex, you know, the one they take at the hospital. Our hospital is gone now, made way for a new health center, so I guess it has more significance.  Anyways, we had a near disastrous delivery and our  poor baby was delivered dramatically and as a result was paralyzed down one side, and I never held her right away because a team of 4 came bursting through, grabbed her and whisked her away - and thankfully solved the paralyzation problem. But the poor pumpkin had a fractured shoulder and collarbone and a sore head I image from the forceps used to deliver her last minute , which is why she doesn't sit up straight and look too happy. But she was a trooper and we were even more blessed after such a difficult delivery to have her healthy after all. So this photo goes in the album with pride!

PAGE ACCENTS

I used our Heart Punch a lot to make accents, especially for tumbling some hearts together in a stack!  i only glued the pointed tips of the hearts making a place to tuck the next heart or other item like a note, in the top part - treat it like a "pocket".

Eventually I will be making  more journalling but I decided to start with her birth announcement information, and used my own hand and tried to imitate the scrolled letters in the word, Wonderful, as my inspiration. You only have to try - not be exact - and the results will be pretty good! 

TIP - for preservation methods - write in pencil. I  then "copy over the pencil " in whatever medium I like, here I used a journalling pen in pink ink overtop of the pencil. Reason is that pencil will remain for ever - whereas every pen ink we generally have access to - even 'permanent' inks - fade. They might remain but look yellow over time but pencil endurs. That is why I use it as a "base" for more decorative treatment.  Trust me - as a former Art Conservator, I used to run experiments testing for the fastness or stability of black pens on the market, ones even marked 'Archival' - and through means of speeding up the results, they all altered their appearance. OK, enough of that!

I made a small accent using our Stampin' Up! product 'Build-A-Brad' ....see the small word "My", and then I added lovely grosgrain ribbon in pink/white stripe to really emphasize the photo. Another tie in with that is added under one of the journalling lines. Just a tad bit of ribbon, no biggy, but it is enough to add some ooomph! I used ordianry cross-stitch floss. 

I measured the folds into a pattern - make your own pattern, it all works. If you want to crease the edges with an iron while working, or tack the pattern in place with pins - go for it. I used my bone folder, and some of the floss to tack the ribbon in the back before adding a small tie in the front of each folded 'bow' .  This is the only bit of aggravating piece of work - but its nice to do, and you will be glad you did!!!

So finally - its done and in its new home in my new red linen album!

Thanks for joining in!

Cheers,

Beverly

* all materials Stampin' Up!