Sophisticated Elegance

Hello Hello
and
!!! Happy New Year !!!

Hope everyone has recovered from their Christmas hangover, I think I have finally! Over the past couple of days when I've been off work I have taken my mornings on the couch doing absolutely nothing.

It's been wonderful!
(note to self: do this more often)

Just real quick I wanted to share with you this envelope album that I made for my mom. I used a black and creme paper pack that I had picked up from Hobby Lobby and I think that I may have to get more of it, I really like the simple elegance of it...a lot; mixed in with the shimmery paper and...
ooo la la

For this particular album the theme I decided to go with is: sophisticated elegance

Knowing ahead of time who a gift is for will save you in the long run. I knew that I wanted this particular album to be for my mom - who had requested something 'new' - by that we mean...
 it's been years since I've made anything for her - WHAT? How did that happen? OMG

So in order to appease her I dived into an envelope album, which usually takes quite a bit of time (or maybe that's just me) and set my theme first. I had these lovely shimmer champagne color envelopes just collecting dust so I decided to put them to use, that's when I found this very suave creme & black paper pack at Hobby Lobby that I fell in love with. The colors were a perfect fit to go along with my theme and also to go along with the way that my mom does her home decorating (which is when planning ahead can really come in handy). I like when things that I hand make match the decor in certain rooms of my home and I knew that my mom would appreciate that too.

As for the pages most of the patterns do the work but aside from the paper the majority of the embellishments come from a border punch that I have in my stash, along with tags and journal spots that I don't have showing in these photos. The border punch is a Martha Stewart one and it's called the Daisy Fan. My reasons again for not adding a lot of fancy embellishments is because I knew who this would eventually belong to; my mom is a natural writer so I left plenty of blank spots so that she could add in not only lots of photos but also her own stories, which I am hoping over time she will.

Now not only are there tons of fold outs or flip outs, which ever you want to call them, there are a ton of pockets to stuff stuff in, which I am again hoping my mom will embrace the use of. In my experience that is the fun part when looking at older albums is all the ephemera that was collected in that time. Because things change so fast I think it's important to keep, even in it's smallest measurement, something that reminds us of where we've been and how we got to here. To create the pockets and the photo tucks I used the MS border punch and gave myself about an inch leeway on the opposite side of the decorative punch in order to have the means to adhere the piece down (with wet glue) and still have the right amount of room to hold larger photos and or journal spots in their allotted places.

This album can be totally loaded with pictures and stories and whatever else my mom might think to add without fear of it falling apart, this is one tough cookie. But it's also a unique scrapbook album made mostly from envelopes and although it is a long process to get from the starting position to a finished piece, it is well worth the effort.
Of course this is just my opinion.

As for the cover, I used a sheet of the pattern paper from the collection and then along the spine I used a piece of raw canvas that I stamped on using a coordinating stamp and staz-on ink. At the seam where the canvas joins the pattern paper, I used my hot glue gun and tacked down that gorgeous piece of black trim that just completely sets the whole mood for my Sophisticated Elegance. Aside from the particular stamp that I used I am very pleased with the way this album cover turned out. I will certainly do a canvas spine again but most likely without the stamping.
So there you have it, that's all for today!
Hope all of you have a safe and suave New Year's!

just B