Dog Mini Album for Charity Auction

Speaking of Dogs animal rescue (in Toronto) will be hosting it's online charity auction in November 2011.  I have created a new mini album this year to donate to the auction.  (You can see some of last year's donated album in an older post.) This mini album has a total of 24-26 spaces for photos and journaling.

I started with the chipboard cover using a digital stamp that I hand coloured.  The dog stamp is "Rustic Kolar" from K'n K Designs and the papers are largely from the American Crafts "City Park" collection plus some scraps I had around.

There are two pull out tags which can have a photo on one side and journaling on the back.

There is also an accordion page (my first!).  I had trouble figuring out how to close it.  I wanted to use this paw print ribbon I snagged from the closing of Scrapalicious (my local scrapbook store), but it's too thick to tie.  I dug around my crafty stuff and found some Velcro dots, so I cut them down and used those.  It worked fairly well, I think.

Since the album is bound by jump rings, owners can add their own pages at any time or re-arrange the page order.

I'm no mini-album expert.  I may try to simplify the process by choosing a few layouts and repeating them with different papers or by choosing a uniform colour scheme.  I still have a lot of room to experiment!

I hope my album helps generate some well-deserved funds for the canines and their volunteers!

Calico Kitty

Just a very quick post today.  Someone had commented on my kitty in the window card post about seeing my die cut kitty in calico colours.  I thought I had one, but I couldn't find it.  So, I made a new one.  I made this one a wee bit smaller than the one I had before.  The original size was large for scrapbook pages but this one would do well on a card.  (That's where it's likely going to end up anyway!)

Hope you like it!  (His snout almost looks like a big bushy moustache!)

Plus, since it's Halloween month, here's a version of just the silhouette on a pumpking that I made last year:

Big Impacts from Small Things

My mother-in-law, who is truly a shining example of a mother (I’m so lucky to have such wonderful in-laws!), received some unpleasant health news.  Not knowing things is just as stressful as receiving concrete bad news.  I’m a firm believer that stress does physically manifest itself.  Similarly, positivity can improve physical health.  (My 90-year-old grandmother is proof of that!)

So, I made an encouragement card to remind her to keep her chin up.  There is no point on dwelling things that you cannot change or undo.  We can only keep going forward and aiming for the stars.  One of my favourite quotes is: “Aim for the moon.  Even if you miss, you will still land amongst the stars.”

I didn’t have a starry sky image (although I’ve been eyeing some nice ones!) but I did have this image from A Day for Daisies of a wee little snail perched high up on a flower.  (Yes, I have some strange obsession with these snails.  I love how they look like little travelling rosebuds!)  The digital stamp is named “Hang in There” but I liked it better to convey the message “Look how Far You’ve Come”.  I wrote on the inside: “Keep Looking Up.  You’ll be surprised how high you can climb.”  I thought it was a nice form of encouragement.  (In fact, it might make for a nice graduation card too – if only there was an itty bitty graduation cap for that snail!)

Turns out the health news has been dealt with and we are expecting no further tests or treatments!  Hooray!
Happy thoughts for everyone!

If you find yourself in need of an encouragement card, I put a blue one in my Etsy Shop and a brown one in my iCraft shop.

Thank Goodness for Little Boys & give a poem a home

It's very hard to craft for boys.  Lucky for me, I have three nephews and no nieces so I am constantly trying to come up with cards for little boys.  A co-worker of mine was going off for maternity leave at the end of August.  She and her husband had their third child and they knew it was going to be a boy.  She has two little girls already, so a boy is going to be a brand new experience for them!

When I saw this digital stamp image from A Day for Daisies, I knew this was the perfect one for her!

I also composed a little poem for her.  (It can be for any baby: girl or boy.)

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Their son was born on labour day 2011!  Here's a picture of the little sprite.