Christmas Mini Book and Layout!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Frosted Designs blog hop this past week. You still have until noon today to submit a project for the prize and to get the phrase you collected emailed to Diana! If you want to go to the blog hop post, click HERE!

 Today is my day to share a project over at She's a Sassy Lady blog... Here is what I shared....

With the holidays fast approaching, I wanted to make a quick yet meaningful gift to give my parents when I head home for the holidays. Here is what I came up with.....

I decided to make a mini out of tags! I am going to fill this book with pictures of my parents with all the grandkids during Chrismas the past few years. I know my parents will love it and so will the grandkids... a  gift that will give for years to come!

Now for the details... I started with an empty cereal box.

 I used my Gypsy to design the tags I was going to use. There are many choices out there but I used the Plantin' Schoolbook cartridge and made all the tags 4 in. x 7.5 in. I wanted to keep this as a mini but wanted it big enough to add photos to!

I cut the tags with my deep cut blade set at 6 on max. pressure. I cut them 2 times and they cut perfectly....

After the tags were cut, I changed my blade on my Cricut back to the regular blade and cut out several coordinating papers. I used DCWV Tis the Season stack. I liked that they had fun, non-traditional colors and the papers are thick. 

Once the papers were cut, I brushed some glue onto the tags I had cut and lined up the patterned paper and pressed down. I was careful not to let it wrinkle or get air bubbles... which is pretty easy to do with these thicker papers!

Here is a tag that has been glued together. I covered both sides of the tag. By the time you get both papers glued on, the cardboard becomes pretty sturdy.

I decided the order I wanted the tags to be in...and then I started to decorate! That's always the fun part!

Here is my cover! I used some Martha Stewart border punches on the white background paper that I sprayed with Perfect Pearls (along with the white Prima flowers!) The Merry Christmas title is from Celebrate with Flourish cartridge. I used various ribbons to hold the book together and added a charm just for fun!

Here are a few of the pages... all ready for the photos to be added!

I have kept the inside of the book pretty simple because I want to be able to add the photos and still have some room to journal. My parents have 10 grandkids and I need to have room to add pictures of all of them! I also want to include some of our family traditions!

It is also time for a new sketch challenge at Sketches in Thyme! This week we are using a sketch from our very own Diana!

How great is this?! I decided to do a LO from Christmas last year! I wish I could say that now I am caught up on my Christmas photos but that would not be true at all!!! I do like this photo though... it was the last year my whole family was together in Indiana. (Now 4 of us live in Texas, one in Missouri and one in Indiana) I am getting excited to go back to Indiana over the holidays to see everyone!

This month we are being sponsored by Charlenes Button Box and she was so sweet to send all of us some of her buttons to work with!

I used these darling reindeer buttons and layered them on top of some crocheted flowers that I made! Yep... I am learning how to crochet!! (There is a reason why those flowers are hidden behind the buttons!!) lol!! 

Be sure to stop over at Sketches In Thyme to see what the rest of the Design Team did with this challenge! Have a great weekend! God Bless!

Barb  :)