Summertime Tin Album - Part II

As promised, I'm sharing the inside of my Summer Tin Album this week.  My first challenge  coming up with something that wasn't bulky, as the tin is quite thin.  I love adding layers and dimension to my projects - so I had to do this without adding too much bulk.  I decided on a simple accordion fold design with only 5 pages.  After measuring the inside of the tin and figuring out how big my pages needed to be, I simply cut and scored 2 sheets of patterned paper and glued them together to get the 5 needed pages.

Materials Used:

3D Crystal Lacquer

Color Crystal Lacquer - light blue glitter

patterned paper

Tim Holtz Adage ticket

Tim Holtz bottle cap stickers

vintage buttons

brown bakers twine

Distress Ink - vintage photo

vintage dictionary pages

pearl embellishment

plastic date disc

Tattered Angels Glimmer Chip - seagull

I cut the same size patterned paper to act as a picture mat on each page.  This way when I'm ready to add pictures, I have a place holder for them.  I made them smaller (I'll print my pictures wallet size) so I could add journaling and any small memorabilia (ticket stubs, receipts, pressed flowers, etc) to the page.  On this first page, I added a plastic date disc that I cut to fit on the edge, a Tim Holtz ticket and my infamous paper flower (made from old dictionary pages).  Only this time I slathered the flower with Crystal Color Lacquer in light blue glitter.

I love the way it turned out - it's rather stiff, so would also make a great pin or addition to a hair band.  These are so easy to make, that I made some in several different colors that I'll be able to add to other projects!

On the next 4 pages, I just added a variety of patterned paper and small embellishments including buttons, twine and an alligator clip. 

I traced the design on the paper here with same Crystal Color Lacquer that I used on the flower.  I love the dimension it gave and I also liked that when I inked the edges, it resisted the ink, which made it "pop" even more.

For these cute little bottle cap stickers, I simply covered them in 3D Crystal Lacquer and let dry overnight, which gave them a bright shiny coating.

Here's the cover of the completed album - all ready to receive my summer memories!  Now, I just need to get busy and make some worthy of my album!

  I couldn't just leave the back of the album blank, so for a bit of whimsy I decided to do the same technique to mimic sand (3D Crystal Lacquer sprinkled with Distress Embossing Powder), and add a fancy little seagull.

I hope you enjoyed my project.

Until next time....stay creative and have some summer fun!

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 www.sakuracraft.com for more ideas on how to create with 3D Crystal Lacquer

and

www.crystallacquer.blogspot.com for more project ideas and inspiration!

She Canned it Anyway

We were visiting my mom-in-law, Ruth, earlier this week and she had a bounty of Meyer Lemons.  I love lemons, always have.  I remember as a young girl picking the lemony orbs and loving their fragrance.  I once sliced them and floated them on my bath water - must have read something in my favorite magazine about the advantages of doing so.   We brought home several pounds of lemons and a recipe for Lemon Marmalade.  I'd heard of Orange Marmalade, but never Lemon....I was intrigued.  I'd been wanting to try my hand at canning this year...I had done it in the past, when I lived in Oregon and had mountains of blackberries to deal with, and I was itching to do it again.

 I just needed a few items - like canning jars, lids & rings which were easy to get - and I was set. 

The recipe was simple - lemons, sugar, water.  After slicing the lemons and letting them sit overnight in the fridge, I added the sugar and started the cooking process.  The skill is getting to the "jelly point"  - which I kept reading about online while investigating different recipes.  I had my trusty candy thermometer, so I just had to be patient enough to get just the right temperature.

TA-DA!  Easy peasy!  The hardest part was waiting for the mixture to get to 220 degrees!  It's very yummy - of course we had to sample it!

Now I'm trying to think of what's next - I've got a few jars left........off to find more recipes!

Until next time....get creative in your kitchen!



Mountain Top Gardening

Well here she is....my first Sweet Pea bloom of the season. 

I'm so excited to finally see her and a few others in my first attempt at flower seed sowing at 6100 feet elevation. I had bought some packets of seed at Descanso Gardens back in April.  I was so enchanted with the beautiful images on the packages, that I just HAD to buy a few.

I was so in love with them, that I made a page for them in my journal along with a planting map of where they were planted in my little garden patch.  I planted two varieties of Sweet Peas - Explorer Mix and April in Paris.  The photo above is of the April in Paris variety and I have one purple bloom from the Explorer Mix.  I have a few Columbines growing, no blooms yet and I haven't seen any of the Zinnias.  I do have some Marigolds with a few buds along with one tiny Rosemary plant and the Sage seems to be doing really well.

With some 30 degree evenings and some very cold days, I didn't think I would have much luck with the seeds - but am so happy to see that it could be done....with a lot of patients, a little water, some sunny days and a little pixie dust :)

Summertime Tin Album - Part 1

Summer is my favorite time of year - so when I received this metal case from Sakura for this month's projects - I knew I wanted to make an cute little mini album for this year's summer pictures.  I will be doing my album in 2 parts this month, this first one showing the cover of the Summer 2011 Mini-tin Album.  Here's the list of supplies that I used.

Small metal case

3D Crystal Lacquer

Patterned paper

Beach-themed cutouts

Rubberstamps from Tweety Jill

Chipboard Adirondack chair from Tattered Angels

Brown twine

Distress Embossing Powder

Distress Ink

Glimmer Mist

I first cut a piece of scapbook paper (I used a piece from a Tim Holtz paper stack) slightly smaller than the front of the case.  I distressed it with a distressing tool and inked it with vintage photo distress ink. I measured a length of ribbon (this will be used to tie around the album) about 16" and glued it on the front of the case, and then glued the paper on top.  After that was dry, I ran a ribbon of 3D Crystal Lacquer along the bottom in a wavy pattern,

and poured out the one thing I had on hand that resembled sand - Distress Embossing Powder in Antique Linen.  I let that sit overnight - then just tapped the excess off into my handy dandy tidy craft tray and replaced the unused bits back into the bottle.

 I used beach images from Graphic 45 paper, cut them out, did a little distressing and inking and tied the tag around the "Beach" piece, using brown twine, before gluing it down.  The stamp looking embellishment is a Tweety Jill stamp that was embossed and colored with distress ink (red barn and vintage photo).  I also stamped the background paper with a few beach images using Tweety Jill stamps.

The Adirondack chair (Tattered Angels Glimmer Chips) was sprayed with several colors of glimmer mist, dried and inked a little bit with Vintage Photo distress ink, then sanded around the edges to give it a worn and antique look. I really like how the embossed areas popped  after they were misted and inked!  

For the last little embellishment, I hand wrote "Summer 2011" on a scrap piece of polka-dot paper, distressed and inked it and glued in onto the album.  It was given a nice coat of 3D Crystal Lacquer and dried overnight to give it a nice shine. 

I'll be sharing the inside of the album next time! 

In the mean time...stay creative!

Karen

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