Valentine's Mini-Book

Valentine's Day was fast approaching, and I still didn't have a card or a gift for my husband...so I was thrilled to see the little mini-book that Tim Holtz posted on his blog on the 11th.  What a wonderful creation, made from just one sheet of 12x12 paper!  This is my version of the mini-book, and I'm pleased to say that my hubs loved it!

Grungeboard heart covered in Fired Brick
Crackle Paint, then Walnut Stain distress ink

Maya Road calendar sheer; Vintage Valentine printed
from TammyTutterow.typepad.com

Three tags (7 Gypsies) for the pockets of the mini-book

Mini-alpha stickers inked with distress ink

Prima flower inked w/ distress ink then covered with
Rock Candy distress stickles; button colored with
alcohol inks

Metal Philosophy Tag colored with alcohol ink

Mini-alphas colored with alcohol inks, then covered
with Rock Candy distress stickles; Epoxy bingo marker
made using Epiphany Crafts Shape Studio

School-yard Valentine page printed from SisBloom.com/blog
and covered in Rock Candy distress stickles

Embossed chipboard from IOD inked with distress ink
then "LOVE" covered with copper Perfect Pearls

LOVE my labeler!!  

Back side; Grungeboard hinge attached with brads

What did you do for YOUR special someone for Valentine's day?

P.S.  You may have noticed the epoxy bingo marker I made using the Epiphany Crafts Shape Studio - be sure to check out my review of this awesome tool tomorrow over on Craft Test Dummies!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

This past Thursday was my husband's birthday.  I'm always at a loss as to what to have the kiddos do for him for his birthday (or, for that matter, what to do for him myself...).  I had made plans to have someone watch the kids so he and I could have a date night at the movies (a first in a LOOOONG time), which I knew he would enjoy.  And as I sat thinking of birthday card ideas for the kids to make, while we ate our Pizza Hut pizza hut, an idea formed in my head. 

We finished dinner, and I told the kids we had to work quickly (this was Wednesday night) before Daddy got home from work.  I cut the lid off one of the pizza boxes.  Anthony was just dying to know what on earth I was going to do with THAT.  I cut 4 squares from the pizza cardboard, about 4.25 inches by 4.5 inches each.  I cut matching sized pieces of cardstock and glued them to either side of the 4 pieces of cardboard.  I then cut 3 pieces of light yellow colored cardstock the same size and found a coordinating color (a rusty color) of acrylic craft paint.  I took turns painting one of each of my kiddos' hands and had them make a hand print on a piece of the yellow cardstock.  (This took some cajoling on my part for my sensory-challenged 2-year olds!)  After quickly washing their hands before they could touch anything, I used my heat gun to dry the hand prints, then wrote their names and the date on each of their hand prints, and let them each draw on the opposite side of their hand prints.

Meanwhile, I began running the covered cardboard pieces through my fun new tool - the Zutter Distrezz-it-All - to distress the edges.  Once the children were finished with their pieces, I also ran those through the Distrezz-it-All as well.  I put the pages in order and glued down pictures of the children opposite their hand prints, adding additional photos on the other pages.  I added a stamped greeting, a dated tag, some crumpled and inked book text, a piece of corrugated cardboard, and a playing card embellishment with a quote on it to the front of the booklet.  I then used my Crop-a-dile to punch holes in all of the pages, near the top and bottom, and used book rings to make the entire thing into a little booklet.

You can see here how thick it is and the texture the pages have due to the cardboard and distressing:

Here are the pages inside the book:

Another example of what the Distrezz-it-All does:

More pages:

My husband loved the book/card, and now he has both something he can take to work with him to show off current pictures of his children, as well as a keepsake/mini-album that I'm sure he will treasure much longer than an ordinary birthday card!!  And my son loves that we made it from a pizza box!!  :)