Inspired by {Birch Lane}

This week we are peeking at Birch Lane and a funny true story I came across a shot of place mats on their pinterest board ( seen here ) that I actually own. ( I did not buy them from them but, it does give me an idea that the quality of their things is nice so, that was an interesting side thought) more than a few orders have been placed by me following Inspiration challenges going live.
(yeah, if I could roll my eyes you would see me doing that about now)
This year I have started a December Daily Scrapbook binder and I seen these Metal letters below and was thinking that would be totally cool as art this way and I spent some time tinkering with my small alphabet dies trying for "the look" The alphabet I have is a little too small to do much distressing on so, I left mine as plain cardstock.

This was done taking a piece of Neenah solar white cardstock cut to 4X6 so it would slip into one of the pockets of the journal, rounded off the corners and then I ran that through the big shot inside a Tim Holtz brick embossing folder. I did take a pale grey pencil and add some random shadows below some crevices. The letters were cut with brushed silver cardstock from the Tim Holtz Typeset Sizzix die and the pine branches are from the crate paper snowflake collection.

You can find these letters here inside the store And you can find this challenge Here at splitcoaststampers to play along with us. That's about it from me, thanks for stopping by.

More December Daily pages

This page got the flip up photo of the framed ornament on the sideboard photo added to it, as it was one of our gifts from J.

This page got an instagram photo added to it. I guess I never got around to taking photos of the actual wrapping paper all over the floor while I was wrapping packages but, I know I blogged about wrapping so, its probably I just never printed those shots. 

Christmas cards wer received. and no, I never  mailed mine out. I was originally going to do it after the holidays because, we shot a family mug shot and then people were like its after the fact you are too late so, you may as well save the cards for next year... *sigh* I am thinking I just may mail them anyways. 

the left side is the back side of the pocket of cards and the right side is some shots at the airport.

when we finally received some snow it was the week after the holiday. but, it's all gone already again. 

Preliminary Dec Daily pages

So, these are like base pages with some photos added in so far... this stripe paper and the back page chevron paper came with the album and are too large to fit into the 6X8 page protectors. 

I did run this page through the sewing machine and since I did not want the stitching to be visible on the flip side I did cover it up with a free printable calendar I found on pinterest.

  

I had loved what I had seen on pinterest with people using the pages with no paper in the pocket so the what ever could free float so I put in this wooden snowflake and it does not want to stay put in the pocket and I don't want to glue it to the pocket so, I think this page will be going through the sewing machine when I decide its "done"

Day two was tying one on at work ;) ( that is 40 bows on that particular line up of boxes) 

the first of several colors of Christmas cactus's in my laundry room that bloom actually during the holidays. mine tend to go several times a year 

This one I did cut the 4X6 photo of an metal bird ornament in half to fit both those pockets the top right snowflake is heat embossed on vellum. the little page is a tim holtz page protector. ( it fits an size 8 shipping tag) 

The one photo of the float is actually from day 6? maybe day 5 have to look at a calendar again but, the rest are all from the 13th and really they all kind of go together so. the thing I learned doing this is I have no page pockets with horizontal 3X4 pockets. they are all vertical. so this is hmmm, and then I think its not like its a huge book and someone would not be able to tilt it side ways...

when our son left for boot came my husband teased him for the last 8 months before he left about did he want to see his mom's blue prints for what she was going to do to his room... the plan had been to do something like this while he was at boot camp but, it didn't get done. so, while he was at SOI his room was painted all one color ( previous before bedroom shots are not in here ) and so, we had just finished putting this together the sunday before he got home for Christmas. ( there is no minute like the last minute) 

I have some more wrapping photos that are not printed to the right scale yet.

the free printable on the right is on the outside of the page protector. the boot button has the shank removed and its also on the outside of the page.

the green layer was kraft cardstock that the embossing folder was inked before it was run through it.

on Christmas eve we always shut down at work early and so, this year we went to see the Hobbit. oh and they are watching a boot camp video on June's desk. when he was little and came to work some times in the summer they would watch partial movies some days sitting just like that. 

the tag page does not want to hang open on the other side. the little photos were taken with an 

instax mini 8 they are the size of a credit card. 

The page on the left was my favorite gifts. His being able to come home and the little toy camera. 

the photos on the right were cut in half to tuck into the pockets and I am still trying to tell my self that side ways is not bothering me.

the day after Christmas we did a photo shoot to get mug shot for our Christmas cards which still have not been mailed yet. 

more of the same top left is the one going out. 

So far this card is just glued to the back page but, I want to stitch around it like the front page and I have not found something to cover up the back side stitches with yet so, it just looks like this. I am debating about cutting down both of these pages so that they will fit into the page protectors. 

In the begining

If your coming to this blog as someone who "knows" me from twopeas or CKMB or the Sunroom You've probably already seen the following pages... (most of those albums do not exist online anymore and or people from my family have never seen them. these are the bad scans and original photos of these pages... the two pages above is what started it all. the took 2 weeks to complete. ( no joke ) it scared me to death to think of adding glue to pictures... didn't matter that i had the negatives and could have them reprinted if needed. sad thing is that these pages were made with glue sold to people who "scrapbook" tombo or snail in most cases, in most cases things are coming undone. (yes true dat) over the course of about 3 years i did altogether 24 different albums some were given away as gifts not everything was ever photographed but, these are some that were.

its going to cost a fortune in adhesive to fix them.

I almost miss the playing with the photos, but since we went digital i have not printed a single photo. Oh i have two very expensive home printers, pro papers, the print outs look like carp. and when i take the digital files to a place like wal-mart there machine crops the photos not the way i want them.... It makes me miss film. but, the thing is the older my eyes get the better the photos look to me on a computer screen rather then a small scrap of paper. so, anyways just some random thoughts.

enjoy.

not done yet...