So first thing first.  Happy Canada Day!  :)  Today is Canada's birthday - she's 141 years old.  She looks pretty good for her age - no wrinkles, no grey hair.

This means a day with family and friends, cheezy parades and BBQs.  Looks like it is going to be a great day. :)

Second - did you know that Memory Makers was giving away a copy of my book, Cut Loose, this week????  Oh ya!  There is chance to win a copy here - all you need to do is leave an answer to their question in the comments.  Pretty easy!  Go.  Enter.  Win.  Good luck everyone :)

So last night I wanted to scrap.  I actually felt like I was counting down the minutes until the kidlets went to bed.  You know the feeling.  I mean, I love them but sometimes I want a little me time.  Then they went to bed and I walked into my dining room/scrap space and....it was a mess.  I mean a I don't want to take a photo and show you cause I am too embarassed kinda mess.  It just sort of happened over the last week.  I would try to squeeze in some scrapping and I started stacking things to the side and whamo - total disaster!

But I was tired and to be honest I didn't want to tidy it up. (*insert foot stomp here, lol) So I decided to abandon my plan and cozy up on the couch while my hubby played video games.  Well, that got boring fast.  So I grabbed the laptop and decided to digi scrap.  That is the beauty of digital - when you already have one giant scrappy mess you can digi scrap cause it makes no mess!

So here is what I made. 

(a lot of the embellishments for this page are from this free kit - paper is from here)

One of the things I like about digi scrapbooking (beside the lack of mess) is I can use digital papers in ways that I wouldn't with physical paper.  For example, see the above paper background?  I would never cut and layer it that way 'cause I would need probably 2-3 sheets to create that look.  I am much too thrifty to do that.  BUT with digital I can "cut" my papers and not "waste" a thing.  Not sure what I mean - see the paper below.  That is what it looked like originally.  I cut sections from it, overlapping my cuts and then overlapped the pieces on my page.

And then I thought I was going to bed so that was going to be it but my hubby decided that he needed to finish just one more level so I made a really quick page in response to this challenge. 

I am an adventurer. Not always in real life but definitely in my heart. :)

(paper from here - I so love this paper - and embellishments from here)

Now I am off to have a fun Canada Day and maybe tackle the mess in my scrappy room. :)  Have a great one everyone out there.

So you might have seen that I am starting to work on a summer album for each of my kidlets, Harper and Magnus.  I started the covers last week but hadn't decided where I wanted the albums to go yet.  All I knew was I wanted one for each of them and I wanted work on them throughout the summer.

This past weekend I put some more thought into them and came up with a plan.  I decided I was not going to treat them like tradition mini albums that have a cohesive theme and use coordinating product throughout the album.  I am going to treat each page like I treat a scrapbook page - individually.  I have a very general theme that is based on each kidlet & our summer vacation but that is about it.  I plan to add in anything that catches my interest about them throughout the summer break.  It can be big or small, something we do, something that is said or even thought - theirs or mine.  Pretty loose but it leaves a lot of opportunities open.

So I decided to title each album - Harper Was Here & Magnus Was Here.  Very general but captures  the idea of the album - a snapshot of our lives this summer.

I started to work on the covers but was really itching to start on some inside pages.  So I put the covers aside to work on during a time when I don't have a story to tell and worked on some inside pages. I plan to make a summary page at the beginning but again I will work on that later.

So here is the first page in Harper's book.  Something big.

I got Harper to add her own writing to make it personal.

And here is the first page in Magnus' book.  Something small.

Just a funny that Magnus said the other day. 

(Ignore the spelling error in the journaling - it has since been corrected.)

This is how Harper feels....

This was her on Thursday before she left for the last day of school.  Oh ya, she was bouncing off the walls she was so happy. :)

So that made yesterday our first day of summer vacation.  Funny how summer doesn't feel like it has started until the kidlets are out of school.  So this is how we celebrated...

(most digital items on this page are from freebie kits on the MM site). 

Tomorrow is soon enough to follow the rules with getting dressed, limited video game playing and healthy eating. :)

(And I am proud to be THAT mom - I mean what is the harm??)

Look what the MyCraftivity newletter says today...

This is just a screen shot of the newletter so the links won't work but to see the entire newletter click here.

Have to admit that I am kind of excited to think it is on sale for real now. :)

For the MyCraftivity shop click here.

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Back with scrapbooking later today.

I didn't get as much time as I wanted to start my new albums yesterday but I did get the covers started.  I did take pictures in hopes that it might help someone who has never tackled one of these type of fun albums.

Remember, these are the albums I am working with.

So I decided to start in on Harper's album - the flower.  I picked my paper and then got started. 

The first thing to do is to open the binding a bit so you can slip some pages off to decorate.  Just carefully pull to open. (If you don't want to do this you can just decorate around the binding.)

They opened easy enough so I slipped off the cover and got ready to cover it in paper.  There are two ways to cover the chipboard.

First way - just adhere down the cover to the paper.  Do not cut it out first.

You then use your fingertip craft knife and "draw" around the edges and get a perfect cut.  This is what I would normally do since I love this little knife so much but I left my knife in my boxes for the GASC and they are somewhere between Chantilly, VA and Grand Rapids, MI right now, lol.  I was trying to be efficent and make sure I wasn't bringing so many supplies back and forth!  ugg!

No big deal though 'cause there are more than one way to do things!

So I traced out the design onto the back of my paper including the markings for the binding holes.

I then cut out the design making sure to cut just inside the lines.  (When you trace something it gets a little bigger so you want to cut it a little smaller than the lines so that it fits.)  I don't worry about perfection - you will see why later.

Now the holes for the binding are square and I do not have a tiny square punch to fit.  Of course I could have run out and tried to find such a punch but instead I work with what I have on hand.

I used a small circular punch and punched along all the marked squares.  I will later make these into squares but for right now they offer the perfect starting spot.

Now it is time to adhere the paper.  I always get asked what type of adhesive I use for this...

Yup.  The humble glue stick.  The adhesive we start with and quickly leave behind as we get more "experience".  Well, it is time to revisit this great adhesive.

There are two reasons I love it for covering chipboard surfaces.  One - it is cheap & holds well - got to love that!.  Two - really important -I can get really good edge to edge coverage. This is what I really love about it.  I can just rub away not worrying about using too much cause it is expensive and I can get every little bit of the surface covered in adhesive.  With mini albums that are to be handled without protective covers it is important to make sure all the edges are secure so they don't start to lift and eventually tear. 

I always apply it directly to the chipboard cause it is stiff & sturdy and I don't have to worry about accidently bending or tearing my paper.  (have fun!!  LOL)

So slap that paper down and rub with your fingers (or a brayer if you have one - I don't) to make sure the paper gets adhered everywhere.  Now you may find this has happened...

Remember how I said don't worry about being super precise when cutting?  Well, unless you spend forever  cutting (and who wants to do that????  LOL) you will get some "wobbles".  It's ok.  This is why sand paper was invented! (and ink too)  It is the miracle tool for hiding wobbles!

You can use a regular piece of sand paper, a sanding block (found at the hardware store), a nail file (check out the dollar store) or if you really want luxury (at a decent price, lol) go for the Basic Grey Precision file set.  Love, love, love this tool.  BUT of course my set is in the same box as my Finger Tip Craft knife (see above!) so of course a new plan was needed.  If I had my file set I would use it to get in an around all the edges of the shape as well as all the little binding holes (this is what makes this tool so great - you can get into small, tight places). 

You want to sand the edges to remove any paper that overhangs as well as tidy up any uneven "wobbles".

No special tecnique involved - just sand the edges!  You will get a white edge as the printed part is sanded off.  You can leave this as is or if you want to disquise your "wobbles" even more you can ink or paint the edges.  This will hid everything!

But I don't have my BG tool and I am feeling a bit lazy so I grab this...

Yup - found this in my hubby's tools.  Attached the sanding bit and went to town (have used it for this before so I knew it works).  Talk about getting the job done quickly!  Just a tip - use the LO setting so you have better control.  The downside?  You can't get into tight places like the "V" of the flower petals or the small binding holes.  So in about 2 minutes I had all the major areas sanded and then I had to stop scrapping as life needed me :).  So today I need to figure out how I am going to sand the small holes and then get to decorating the cover.

Have a great day everyone. :)