8x8 Album Paper

I have two 8x8 albums that I maintain.  One is exclusively Halloween.  This year, I had trouble finding 8x8 halloween paper, so I bought a 12x12 pad of Halloween paper and cut 8x8 squares out of each sheet.  The remaining paper made three 4x6 mattes and a small section that can be used for punches.  Presto!!  When you can't find exactly what you need, make it!

Stepping Stones or Milestones

One item on my wish list is a square punch.  I do not have one currently, but I plan to purchase one.  A cute idea for the square punch is to punch out a square from grey paper, and then round each corner using a corner rounder.  Take sandpaper or a distressing tool and rough up all edges.  Instant stepping stones!!!  These can be used for spring and garden pages or the stepping stones can be used on milestone pages such as baby's first step, or graduation from high school or college.  Just about any accomplishment or important turning point in life.

Road Rage

Making roads is fun.  I saw the puzzle punch used in a Creative Memories catalog as a road but it did not have highway lines on it.  Using a white and metallic gold pen, I added the lines on the puzzle road. Roads are fun accents to pages.  They work great for road trips and travel pages, but also are great just as a little something special on a page.  You can make a road out of many things and any shape you want. 

I used an oval cutting pattern to make the road in the second picture.  I drew on the yellow dash center line by hand (hint:  use dash lines instead of double yellow lines. Dash lines don't have to be perfect and if one dash gets a little off center, just get back on track with the next dash.)  Here, instead of drawing on the white side lines, I cut an oval out of white paper the same size and overlapped them a bit so the white would peep out from behind the road.  You can also make a second oval out of white paper just a tad larger than the black paper so white will appear on either side of the lanes. 

If you do not have any fancy patterns or punches, no worries.  Use a straight cutter to make a straight road.  Presto!!  A cute addition to any page.

Circle Punches and Snowmen

Let's talk Circle Punches!  I love punches, and I think it is fun to create pictures out of punches.  One of my first scrapbooking purchases was circle punches.  Since winter is just around the corner, I chose a winter scene as an example. The circle punches can easily be used to make a simple snowman. Using white paper, punch out two or three circles of different sizes. Stack the circles on top of each other starting with the largest circle on the bottom and the smallest circle on top.  Presto!  An instant snowman.  From here, you may adorn the snowman or just leave him plain.  In the example above, I used a bubble punch and black paper to punch tiny circles of varying sizes out of black paper.  I used the smallest ones for the eyes, and the next size up for the buttons.  I cut a carrot nose from orange paper and stick arms out of brown paper using scissors.  (Hint:  Carrots and sticks are never straight so almost anything you cut out will work for a nose and a set of arms.  Don't worry about being perfect.)  I used a black pen to draw a smile.  A cute snowman is sure to liven up any winter scrapbook page!

First Day and 8x8 Albums as a Gift

This is the first day of my blog.  Basically, I intend this blog to be a journal of fleeting scrapbooking ideas that I think of that I may soon forget.  And if some of these ideas happen to be of use to others, then that is something special!!!

I thought of an idea yesterday.  I like working on 8x8 albums because they are fast and fun.  I thought if someone took pictures at a wedding shower or baby shower and then scrapped the pictures into an 8x8 album, it would be a lovely gift for the bride or the mom to be and something to treasure forever.