Made it from scratch: OA Make it Merry Mini - Page 6

We're down to the last page today. Here we go!

Add green chevron paper to the page base. Layer a 1" (ish) strip of candy cane paper on the right edge. Punch binding holes.

Sew lines from edge to edge on all 4 sides.

Cut a piece of red sequin trim to 5.5" in length and affix between the stitching with very thin (1/8") red line tape and then stitch across the ends with the sewing machine.

Draw lines on the small snowflake and large snowflake (you can stitch it, but it's hard and tedious). Put the Joy and red plaid brads from the Decorative Brads set through the centers of the snowflakes.

Get out the Santa Claus flash card and put it just above the antlers. Affix it to the page just under the top stitching and tucked under the sequins.

Slip the :Sleigh bells" die cut and the bottom half of the Santa Claus card under the photo, determine it's placement and stick it down. Affix the photo (sized to 3.75" square) over the top. Draw a line around the "sleigh bells" text.

Punch holes through the grunge board, stick the brads through and secure. Layer the smaller snowflake on top of the larger snowflake.

Grab the remaining piece of word strip and trace around three of the words with a pen. Affix at the top of the photo. Add a tiny attacher staple on the right end.

Pat yourself on the back. You've finished 6 pages in 5 nights!

Get a good night's sleep, and come back to tackle making the book base tomorrow :)

Made it from scratch: OA Make it Merry Mini - Page 2

It's time for page 2!

(And I'm not really sure why my sister thought it was hilarious and I clearly wasn't enthused, but hey... it a memory, right?)

Alright, grab another page base and add a piece of 5"wide x 6" high pattern paper from the October Afternoon 8x8 paper pad. Adhere to the page base and patterned paper together.

Face the back of page 1 to the back of page two. Trace the location of the ring binding holes onto the second page, then punch the holes with a 1/4" punch.

Stitch the edges. This time I just sewed straight lines and let them cross in the corners.

Photo size: 3.5" wide x 3.75" high.
White mat size: 3.75" wide x 4" high.
Green cardstock mat size: 4" wide x 4.5" high.
Make a photo + mat sandwich and set aside for a minute.

Cut a piece of black chevron May Arts ribbon to 5.5 inches and notch the ends.

Cut a piece of silver tinsel pipe cleaner to 4.25" long.

Cut a piece of Maya Road white roses trim to 4."

Use double sided tape/red line tape to affix the black chevron ribbon on the page so that the notch in the banner fits around the bottom binding hole.

Affix the photo + mat stack so it sits partially over the black chevron ribbon.

Sew the raw edge of the roses trim over the bottom edge of the black chevron ribbon

Affix the silver pipecleaner along the bottom of the black chevron ribbon using a tiny attacher.

Cut a section of the word strip out of the Holiday Style Miscellany pack. Outline it with a thin black pen (I used a .03 nib). Attach it to a scrap piece of the snowflake paper and trimmed out leaving a border.

At the top add the rectangular label from the Witch Hazel label set.
Add the year using the numbers from the Peppermint Mini Market stickers.
Get out "December 2012" stamp from the set that comes in the Make in Merry Kit. Ink only the "December" part of the stamp. Then grab the "Hey Santa!" stamp, ink it and stamp it above where you stamped "December."

Clean your stamps (or not) and you're done!

Made it from scratch: OA Make it Merry Mini - Page 1

Before we get started on the first page, let's do a little project prep work okay?

 

First we need to make our base pages (6 in all).

• Pull out 3 sheets of 6" x 12" grunge paper.
• Cut the sheets into pages that measure 5" wide and  6" tall.
• When you are finished you should have 3 - 5" x 6" pages and 3 scraps about 2" wide x 6" tall. *Make sure to save the scrap pieces too (you'll need them for the cover later).*
• Optional step: I painted the edges of the pages with a Ranger Paint dabber (sandal) so that they grey of the grunge paper was covered, but you can leave the grunge paper raw if you'd like.

One thing to note: as you work through the project make sure to save your scraps. We'll be using them on future pages!

Here's the first page: 

Okay, now we're ready to make the first page. Here are the supplies you'll need:

• Snowflake paper from the 8x8 October Afternoon Make it Merry paper pad.
• "No." Label from the October Afternoon Witch Hazel label set.
• Teal button from the October Afternoon Make it Merry button pack.
• "Christmas wishes" sticker from the October Afternoon Make it Merry Little Flyers.
• Red baker's twine from the October Afternoon Make it Merry kit, or other red twine.
• Black chevron ribbon from May Arts
• Corrugated heart from Jillibean Soup (or punch your own).
• "1" brad from Basic Grey "Clippings" line.
• Adhesives: Red line tape, 1/16" thick foam tape, runner adhesive
• Other: Sewing machine and black thread. (If you don't want to sew you can just do pen stitching with a black pen.)

Directions:

1. Cut the "Make a Song" (snowflake) paper to 5" wide by 6" tall.
2. Cut a strip of the "Make a Garland" (the strip with the blue and black text) paper where it meets the next patterned strip and trim to 6" in length.
3. Adhere the first two pieces to the grungepaper page base. (If you are planning to stitch the paper, make sure that you don't apply the glue where you'll be sewing. keep the glue about 1" from the edges.) If you aren't going to stitch the pages, make sure to glue thoroughly and be forewarned that wet glues will cause the grungepaper to buckle and warp if applied too thick.
4. Create a template to determine where to punch the holes in the page for the binding.
1. To do this I got out the ring binder, a scrap piece of grunge paper, a ruler, and a pencil.
2. Place the ruler flush to one side of a ring and draw a line onto the scrap grunge, repeat this until you've drawn lines for each side of the two binding rings.
3. Measure 1/2" in from the left side and draw a line the length (6") of the piece. This will create an "cross-hairs" (intersection) with the ring binding marks. Punch a 1/4" hole at each of the two intersections.
5. Use your new punching template to mark where to punch your page, then punch the 1/4" holes in the page.
6. Sew a rectangular border around the the page about 3/8" from the edge. (Start on the side where you punched the holes.) If you don't want to sew for real, just draw stitching marks with a black pen instead. (Personally I like to use a fine or med point American Crafts Slick Writer for doing pen stitching.)
7. Size and print your photo at 3.5" wide x 4.5" high. Then either leave a 1/8" white border around the photo when you trim it, or mat the photo on white cardstock.
8. Cut a piece of green cardstock to 3-7/8" wide by 5" tall. Mount photo to green cardstock. Mount this to the page just inside of the stitching lines on the right.
9. Cut a piece of black and white chevron ribbon to 3.5" long. Turn the top under about 1" from the end and stitch to make a loop at the top. Trim the end to make it look like a banner. Add red line tape to the back. Adhere to the upper left corner of the page.
10. Grab the "Christmas Wishes" mini banner sticker from the OA Little Flyers set, add 1/16" thick foam tape to the back and layer on top of the black chevron ribbon.
11. Cut a piece of red baker's twine to 36" (3 ft). Wrap it around the page twice and knot it about 1-1/4" from the top of the page. Slide a teal button onto the twine and then tie the twine in a bow.
12. Add red line tape to the back of the corrugated heart and tuck it partially under the ribbon and button.
13. Add the black "No." label to the lower right corner, folding part of the sticker around the back of the page. Poke a hole through the label, paper, and grungepaper. Push the brad through and spread the back.

Page finished! (And hopefully in less than an hour.)

Made it from scratch: OA Make it Merry Mini

Visiting Santa Mini Book by Mollie Deem

For those of you with more modern photos,this little mini would be perfect for instagram photos too!

When I was home for Christmas last year my mom had displayed photos of my siblings and I visiting Santa at the mall. Like a sneaky little elf, I grabbed them for a quick scan so I could reprint them and make a little mini book later. So last weekend I got an idea and I thought it would be fun to make a little album for my sister for Christmas, but there was just one problem... with only 6 photos needing just 3 pages, using plain paper would make for a pretty wimpy (aka sad and pathetic) little book. So, I needed to come up with a way to give 3 little pages some substance! Thus the grunge paper mini book idea was born.

 

(And my friends will be shocked to learn that I finished this baby in less than a week! -And so can you.)

 

Here's my strategy:

-Make the cover on the weekend (it takes a little while to get done).

-Make one page a day... in just about an hour a page.

-Have a fabulous gift you want to keep for yourself in less than a week's time :)

 

So, want to make this album too? Here's what you'll need:

• October Afternoon Make it Merry:
• One Make it Merry kit (sold out)
• One sheet of PP676 - Make a Card
• One Sheet of PP684 - Make a List
• One package of buttons
• One package of Flyers
• One package of brads
• One sheet of SS446 - Word Stickers
• One sheet of Oxcober Afternoon Witch Hazel SS437 - Label Stickers
• One sheet of October Afternoon Black and Cream Mini Market Stickers
• One package of 6"x12" grunge paper from Ranger/TIm Holtz
• Ring Binder - Large, Advantus/Tim Holtz Idea-ology Collection
• One Christmas Muse Token from Advantus/Tim Holtz
• One "hitch fastener" from Advantus/Tim Holtz
• One safety pin from Making Memories (could use a Fastener from Tim Holtz instead)
• One elastic tie from Seven Gypsies (7ge)
• Green, Black Chevron ribbon from May Arts
• 3 red 1/8" eyelets
• "1" brad from Basic Grey "Clippings" collection
• Silver pipe cleaner (craft supply, Michaels)
• White roses trim, Maya Road
• Red sequins trim (Recollections, Michaels)
• 1.25" Chipboard circle, Bazzill
• Corrugated heart from Jillibean Soup
• Sewing machine and black thread
• .03 Black Pen
• Wonder tape, American Crafts
• 1/8" Tacky (Red line) tape, Provocraft
• Strong runner adhesive (I used a combination of the Xyron Cheetah and the Xyron Tape Runner with permanent adhesive.)
• Clear stamp block
• Versafine Black ink

If you don't have a Make it Merry kit from October Afternoon, you'll need the following:

• October Afternoon Make it Merry:
• Tin Pins
• EM462 - Washi - To/From
• 8x8 Paper Pad
• Tin Pins
• October Afternoon Holiday Style:
• Snowflake Rubons
• Miscellany pack
• SS448 - Mini Market Stickers (peppermint)
• Red baker's twine

So go gather up your supplies and come back tomorrow to learn how to make the the first page in about an hour.