DIY Wedding Card

In about two weeks, I'll be attending a wedding with my boyfriend, Jackey so I decided to make my own wedding card to go along with the present.  I am very satisfied with the results and to my surprise, it didn't take up too much time either.

FINISHED PRODUCT:

HOW TO DO IT:

Step 1:

- take a piece of construction paper, fold it in half 

- take a piece of white paper and trim it down so that it's one inch smaller all around than the card

- use a hole puncher and punch three holes on the folded side

Step 2:

- take a piece of ribbon and string it through the holes from the top (if you also punched holes on the back of the card then use another piece of ribbon to string through the back as well)

- tie a ribbon at the top

Step 3:

- take another piece of paper (whichever colour you think best matches the card, and trim it down so that it's one inch all around smaller than the white rectangle)

- choose a sticker which you think best suits the card and theme and stick it exactly in the centre (preferably a sticker which is more 3-D)- the sticker that I chose to use here is made by Jolee's Boutiques and these stickers can be found at Walmart, Zellers and Michaels.  However, I usually buy them from random discounted retailers or dollar stores because they are much cheaper!)

Step 4:

- type out a nice greeting and print it out on a white piece of paper

- trim down the piece of paper so that it's one inch all around smaller than the card and glue it on the inside of the card

- use another piece of paper (preferably one that matches the colours and theme of the card), and trim a border exactly the size of white rectangle with the greeting on it

My trip to Vegas

Since I am not working on any projects currently, I have decided to share a few pieces that I made from before.

This piece is based on my trip to Las Vegas a few years ago with my boyfriend and family.  For the left side, I saved my boarding passes so I could use them to decorate the page.  I also took a picture while the plane landing so I could create the effect up top where it looks like the plane is landing into Las Vegas.

For the page on the right, I didn't plan this layout initially, but it so happened that I had too many pictures that I wanted to display in my scrapbook so I came up this  layout.  If you ever have too many pictures you want to display on one page too, then you can should also try this layout as well!

My tiny new project

This past weekend was my boyfriend, Jackey's mom's birthday and I thought of making her a small scrapbook (thought it would be more special than a birthday card while it still delivers the b-day msg).  I worked on the scrapbook for about 3-4 days, and I'll be sharing a few of my pieces from this scrapbook.

I bought this small scrapbook album (6" by 6")which also came with some themed paper and stickers at Wal-Mart for around $4.00 (I think it was on sale but even at regular price, it should only be around $8-10).

My #1 favorite piece from the album:

HOW TO DO IT:

- I recently bought a stack of scrap-booking paper from Homesense that already had the pretty cut-outs so I simply just trimmed it down to the desired size
- next, choose a background color that you like and in this case, I chose to pair up my purple cut-outs with a blue background













- third, chose a colored ribbon of your choice and glue it across the top and the bottom (this way, it can also hide the edges ends of the cut-outs (if it wasn't trimmed nicely)
- fourth, glue the photo you wish to display across the center
- finally, glue any words or phrase across the top (or you can also make some bows with the ribbon or use other stickers to decorate the top)

My second favorite piece:

HOW TO DO IT:
- choose a color for the background and decorate it with ribbon across the page
- trim borders for your photos (one of the ways to do it is to trace your photo to get the right size border for your photo)
- instead of using alphabet stickers, I decided to cut out my own Chinese words to form the heading
- finally, decorate the rest of your scrapbook with appropriate themed stickers

My trip to Michaels

I've always passed by a Michaels while in car and also heard good things about it from my cousin but I've never actually been inside until today.  When I stepped in there, it was a candy store for people who love arts and crafts! They carried everything from baking supplies to art material storage units.  The only downside was that I found everything to be a bit pricey but I still managed to find some good deals! I bought a mystery pack of stickers and four rolls of ribbons. I generally like to shop for deals because I believe in getting the full bang for my buck!

                                        

mystery sticker pack for $9.99

my favourite #

my favourite #2

 At Michaels, I bought a mystery sticker pack for $9.99 (originally $19.99) and it was definitely worth every penny that I paid for it! The pack came with 14 sets of stickers and my favourite ones are the two posted above.  Although, I may not have use for all the stickers but these stickers are very nicely made and when sold separately, they usually go for $4-7 per set at Wal-Mart, Zellers and some arts and craft stores.

Another awesome deal I found today are the ribbons (ribbons are very handy for decorating scrapbook pages and also forming the frame for pictures).  I usually buy my ribbons at the dollar store cause they are the cheapest there but today, there was a promotion at Michaels and the ribbon was half price.  At the dollar store, I usually pay $1 for 3 yards of ribbon and today, I paid $2/roll (regularly $4/roll)but each roll was 10 yards long which makes it even cheaper than the dollar store and their selection at Michaels was amazing!

most recent piece for my travel album

I did this piece for a trip that Jackey and I took to Vancouver last Septemeber to visit my family.  For my travel pieces, I generally like to save our boarding passes so I can include them as a little decoration in addition to the pictures.  For this one, I also took a few of the free travel guides off the streets and at the malls so that I could use the maps for the background as opposed to using patterned paper all the time.  This way, the design also looks more coherent throughout because it's a travel theme and it's based on Vancouver.

If you do intend on creating a travel themed scrapbook then you should definitely consider buying some extra postcards and picking up a few of those free travel guides to help decorate your pages

one of my latest creations

Currently, I am working on two scrapbooks- one that includes all the travelling that Jackey and I have done in the last 5 years and another which is based on special occasions.  In the pictures above, is a piece that I did yesterday night for our graduation for the special occasions scrapbook.

I always knew that I wanted to do a page on our graduation so I went to Winners and Homesense and bought some graduation stickers and themed paper.  I used a basic black background (i tend to use solid colors for the background so that any other design I add to it will stand out more) and cut frames for each of our pictures.

For the right hand side, i decided to separate our graduation photos into two sets- the 3 pictures on the top are from Jackey's graduation and the bottom 3 are from mine.  I had some trouble deciding on the layout of the pictures and the extra designs at first but once i started moving the pictures around, I created a mental picture of what I want the layout to look like.

Both pages were pretty much made from scratch as I added different pieces of patterned paper around as the borders for both the page and the pictures.  This is definitely one of my favorite pieces!

Some Tips for first time scrap-bookers

TIPS FOR SCRAP-BOOKING

Best places to pick up scrapbook material: Homesense (my favorite place to go because they carry high quality paper and nice albums for a third of the price of Chapters ), Dollarama (great for stickers and ribbons but not the paper), Wal-Mart (good for stickers and basic tools like hot glue guns, glue sticks, markers, etc)

First, If you would like to start scrap-booking then the most important thing you should do is come up with a theme that you want to base the scrapbook on.  It's much easier to make a scrapbook and keep track of the materials you want to buy when you have a theme or topic.  This way, you can start off by buying materials that is useful for your theme.

Next, don't give up just because you're stuck on ideas and don't be afraid to check out other people's work for inspiration.  I've sat there for hours before trying to think of a creative layout for my work but wouldn't be able to think of anything good.  So, if you're stuck, then don't hesitate to check out the back of your scrapbook packages or go on-line to find some inspiration.  Much like writing, you need to physically start playing with the layout by placing different pieces of patterned paper together, etc