Tee Time



Hello Hello
How is everyone living these days?
I have been super busy, I did finish up the second of two custom orders this last week and am about to start on a new idea that will hopefully be successful to me and my little homemade business that I have going on over here. I am still so new at all this Entrepreneur stuff so I certainly have my hands full.
As for today though, I want to share with you a scrap book that I made a couple years back for my nephew, at the time he was a freshman in high school and had made the golf team so for his birthday I made him a golf album. By the way him making the golf team as a freshman was a huge deal, not everyday you see that so this was extra special for the whole family - all golfers! (go figure)
So I started with a chipboard book from Teresa Collins and then also used one of her sports paper kits to coordinate. I do know that neither of these are available anymore but you could certainly check out her other products she does lots of wonderful paper lines, follow this link.
So for my pages I did them the easiest way that made since to me, I took a letter size sheet of card stock and folded it in half long ways which made my page size 8.5 by 5.5, this worked really well for two reasons. The #1 reason is because I made those pages into pockets, I put the open edge in the binding and at the bottom I just added a line of glue so that nothing would fall through. Now I had the perfect spot for lots of extra photos and ephemera. 
*you know me and my ephemera*
The #2 reason is because it fit the size of book covers that I had already had in mind to use. If I need a #3 reason it would be because now I also had a very large space to work out all the rest of the details on. So certainly other photos, maybe ones that he'd like to showcase, could go right on the page instead of in the pocket. Or if he had received any awards, it is possible to scan them-size them down-and then print them off and add those to any one of the pages. I was also thinking maybe a game schedule, that would be good. Just anything that will help to tell a more complete story and what it meant to him to be the only Freshman on an all Senior team.
Of course being a 'guy' album I had to keep my color scheme to masculine colors and I certainly had to keep the embellishments to a minimum and let me tell you, that is hard to do, especially when I had a massive amount of space to fill in. I think that by sheer will-power I pulled it off but I can't say that I enjoyed it all that much. Usually that's my favorite part or very close to my favorite part which is adding in all the extra little details but unfortunately that is also what lends something more of a feminine flare.
So what you see here is what I came up with: there are lots and lots of pockets to stuff 'stuff' in, I made lots of flip ups with journal spots hidden in them,
I did a ton of tags that had a sports theme on them or a sports related message,
and to my surprise I was able to incorporate some die-cuts. The fleur-de-lis seemed to go well with the golf themed items so thankfully I had that to play with, although I was careful not to over do it since it was really the only element I had to use.
I have some ticket stubs and some postcards,
more tags to add bits & pieces on,
and then finally the end - thank goodness! I'll tell you, I love my nephew but I might have to think long & hard before I agree to do any more sports albums, they are just not my cup-of-tea. Probably because I am so far removed from my days of sports and it wasn't as if I was ever any good, so doing this was certainly a challenge.
Now as for the cover I finally got to do something fun!...er 
First of all this pattern paper I used to wrap the covers with was awesome, it was glossy but also embossed with the texture of a golf ball, just in an extra, extra large size. I wish I could explain better than that but I can't. If you look at the pictures either above or below you can kinda sorta see what I'm talking about but it doesn't do it any justice. 
Anyways continuing on, another element I found to go with the cover was this material that I picked up @ JoAnn's (I think)...it's the same stuff those shower scrubbies are made out of - you know that thing that you put your body wash on and then use it to lather the soap on? - yes that material...
anyways for some reason it just seemed to fit with the whole concept so I went with it. I added it to the binding rings along with a fluer-de-lis charm and then a #18 wooden bingo chip that I turned into a charm, that was pretty much it. I used a few letter stamps & clear epoxy stickers to spell out the word GOLF, added in a couple other bits & pieces and was done. 
And if I do say so myself I think that this other wise 'pain-in-the-ass' album (I say that with loving affection) has turned out to be quite charming.
So what are your thoughts? Do you like it? I must say even though this was a difficult project for me, I am glad I rose to the challenge. This is the way I figure it, what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger right? Well same applies here, if I hadn't done it then I'd have no idea what I'd be capable of and what if in the process of making this, I learned a new way of thinking that maybe I wouldn't have learned any other way? That's the way I justify my pain, I have picked up some useful ideas, or thoughts somehow-somewhere along the way and that made it all the while.
So next time you're faced with something difficult, don't immediately turn away from it, embrace it as a lesson well learned and take from it what you can - you may just end up surprising yourself.
Until next time...
                   craft on!
Thanks for stoppin' in

just B

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