OH NO!!!!! Not Another Photo Folio .... LOL!! 'Fraid So!!!

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.  I would especially like to welcome my new followers.  Thank you so much for joining me on my creative journey.  I hope I can give you a little inspiration along the way.

As you can tell by the Post Title #!!??!!@#, I am finally able to share with you the folio I made for the Tutorial I posted recently.  I really hope you are not sick of these yet as there is still one more to go after this one.  (I just know you are holding your head in your hands .. stop it!!  It's only one more!!!  LOL!!)

In case this is the first time you've seen these, I first made these little photo folios as an exchange gift for a 'Girls Day Out' with four of my lovely crafty friends, Heather Jacob, Astrid Maclean, Adriana Bolzon and Helen Wallace.   I made one  for each of the ladies and then decided to do a Step by Step Tutorial and this is the one I created while writing that Tutorial.

The papers used on this folio are all from Maja.  I have always loved Maja papers but they are not easy to get here and now I have heaps thanks to my sweet friend Heather Jacob who gifted me a stack of these gorgeous papers.  Thank you so much for your generosity Heather, I am blessed by your friendship in so many ways.
 

Unfortunately I didn't have much left in the way of the word chippies that I used on the other folios
but I did manage to find a few different ones that were suitable.

When writing the tutorial, I did explain that the pages don't really sit flat when the book is open (as you can see in the photo below) but I don't really see it as a problem.

Photo mat from the inside front pocket.

Half pocket page.

Folded card from half pocket.

Double pocket page.

  Journaling cards.

 Full pocket page.

 

 Photo mat from Pocket page.

Flip page.

 Opened once .. 

 .. fully open .. 

 .. the inside back cover .. 

.. and the back of the book.

As you saw, I decorated this one pretty much the same as the others with just some stamping, stenciling, washi tape and a few Scrapmatts chippies.

Thank you so much for dropping by and suffering through another of these.  Only one more to go (which will be a while .. (yeah, I can hear your sigh of relief .. LOL!!)) and then I'll be done with these!!

Have a great week!!
Take care and God Bless.

Hop to Stop!!

Hello dear crafty peeps and welcome to my blog.  Hope everyone is having a fabulous day!!

So, a couple of weeks ago my dear crafty friend Lizzy Hill shared a post about the Hop to Stop.  This Hop is run by Becca Cruger and is about raising awareness for Domestic Violence!  

As well as the Hop there is also the opportunity to help by making cards to donate to Becca's local shelter.  They are looking for birthday, thank you and encouragement cards and for them to be left blank inside to make them more usable.

Well, this is such a worthy cause that I decided to join in with the Hop and also to make a few cards to send on to the shelter.   Unfortunately I didn't make as many as I would have liked but I did managed to do about 5.  My biggest problem with these was that, for ease of posting, I felt they needed to be clean and simple! Well, anyone who knows my work knows that I don't really do clean and simple.  Most of my cards are reasonably loaded down with layers and embellies which make them quite heavy so, not cheap for posting.  Anyways, thank goodness for Pinterest.  Had a look around, got a few ideas and came up with these.

Now, for the Hop, you have to use purple on your card so, I hunted around for purple stuff to put on these cards, and came up with .. virtually, nothing!!  But, I managed to find just enough to be able to create these.

I had made a background ages ago that was just sitting around doing nothing, and had a touch of purple in it so, I cut it up and used part of it here.

 I also found a purple VersaColor stamp pad so have used that on almost all of these cards ..

.. along with a small amount of purple Maja papers.
(I received a very generous gift from my dear friend Heather Jacob a little while ago .. it was a pile of Maja papers which, luckily, had some purple ones among them.  Thank you so much Heather, you are such a sweet and generous person and I am so Blessed to be able to call you my friend!!)
I possess only four Gelatos, which I have never used but, luckily, one of them was purple, so the bit of colour under the stamp was created with my Gelatos!  Love them!!

Went hunting for some purple embossing powder but, no luck, so had to use black which actually balanced out the washi tape quite nicely.  I have decided that heat embossing is not one of my skills!!  (One of many I'm not good at!) Every time I try it, I mess it up one way or another.  Very frustrating that I can never get a crisp, clear image but, I guess that's what happens with hand made stuff .. adds character, I say!!  LOL!!

 Stamped the butterflies twice and fussy cut them to give the card above some dimension, and messed up the stamping on the card below but used it anyway, 'cos I quite like how it looks!

I will be sending these off tomorrow.

Now for the Hop.
As I said before, you have to use purple in your card and these are the wonderful sponsors for this Hop.

So, here is my card. 
I made this for a friend's birthday .. killed two birds with one stone and got back into my comfort zone!

The papers are from Maja (more  of that fabulous gift from Heather)
Did a bit of stenciling with transparent texture paste ..

.. and added some Scrapmatts chippies.

The flowers are from my stash and the leaves were cut with my Silhouette.

Along with a piece of netting and a twine bow, I also sprinkled around some micro beads.

My usual pockets on the inside.

Done!!

I know there's not a lot of time left but, if you can manage, it would be lovely if you could create a card for the Hop, it closes on the 30th October.

Thank you so much for visiting and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.

Photo Folio - Step by Step Tutorial - Part #2

Hi there everyone!!  Hope you are having a spectacular day!!

 Well, as promised, I am back to share the second and final part of my step by step tutorial for the little photo folio I made for some gorgeous friends of mine.  I had planned to post this by the end of last week but, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men??  Well, I'm not a mouse and certainly not a man , but mine didn't just go awry, they ran out the door screaming!!!!  Between problems with Blogger, feeling ill, losing our electricity for almost a day then losing our internet for another day ..  life definitely did not go to plan!!  Anyways, I am finally here to share this tutorial.  If you haven't seen Part 1, and you would like to, HERE is where you can find it.

Hope you're all set for another Mega post!!

So this part is about making the cover and putting the folio together.

As I explained in Part 1, for the cover you will need 1 sheet of A3 size cardstock. It can, of course, be made with 12 x 12 sheets but, with the A3 size, it can be made in one piece. 

The Cover

Following the diagram, cut the cover from your chosen cardstock.
Solid lines are cut lines and broken lines are score lines.

Note:  If you are using 12 x 12 cardstock simply cut the smaller sized side flap separately.  Just remember to add an extra 3/4inch to the side edge (making it 4 1/8" x 6 3/4") so you can adhere it to the cover.

I should explain too, that the top and bottom flaps are not as long as the ones in my previous folios.  These don't  actually meet in the middle as the other ones did, but I felt that wasn't really necessary anyway because they are only there to make the outside look neat when the book is closed.

Score 5 lines where shown on the diagram, 1/8" apart.

Lightly bend the cardstock on the score lines.  Don't crease them, they just need to be able to curve around the inside page set.
Round the corners and ink the edges if desired. 

Now the page set needs to be attached to the cover but, before doing this, we need to attach the closure.
If you have an elastic strap similar to the one used on the Tim Holtz Collection Folios (one with the small toggles at the ends which locks it into the book) then, obviously you can use that.  After you have covered the book with your chosen papers  you can simply punch the holes through and insert the strap.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to lay my hands on one of these so I had to make up my own version.

Attaching the Closure

As indicated on the diagram ( X marks the spot!  LOL!!) Place your ruler about 1/2" below the scored lines at the top, then find and mark the center.   Do the same at the bottom.

Turn the cover so that the smaller flap sits at the top.  Place your ruler about 1/2" below the scored lines, find the center and make a mark 1/2" on both sides.

Punch holes where you made the marks.  This is where the elastic closure will go through.

 

 On the previous folios I made, I added eyelets where the holes were punched and then simply glued my paper over the top leaving a hole over the eyelet, which didn't look as neat as I would have liked.  This time, I actually managed to glue the paper down first and then added the eyelets but, it's not as easy as it sounds because of the way I have to add the elastic.  Are you confused??  Not surprised.  All this is really quite easy to do, just a little difficult to explain.  Hopefully, if you take it one step at a time, you will see what I mean.
Anyway, chose the paper you wish to add to the center section of the inside of the cover and cut a piece 41/4" x 61/4" (this will actually end up glued down over the top of the base of your page set).  Ink the edges and cover the back with double sided tape.  Place it about 1/8" from  the score lines on the right side of the center section of your cover but only remove the backing of one line of tape.  You need to adhere the right side only, making sure it covers the holes made previously.  You will then need to re-punch those holes out from the back, using the ones already made in the cover as a guide.

Do not remove the rest of the backing on your double sided tape as yet.

Turn the cover over and adhere your chosen paper to the center section.  This is the back of the book.

You will now need to punch out all four holes through that paper on the outside of the cover.  Turn the cover over again so the inside is facing you.  Re-punch through the hole at the top and at the bottom, while holding the inner lining out of the way.  You can then re-punch the holes at the side through all of the layers.

From the back of the cover, add eyelets to the side holes through both designer papers.  Then add eyelets to the holes at the top and bottom but make sure you do NOT go through the liner on the inside.

Here is how it looks from the outside ..

.. and this is how it looks from the inside.

Hope this is making sense so far.

Cut a 16" piece of your chosen elastic (I used hat elastic .. the thin round type) and thread it through the eyelets as shown ..

.. the ends will sit underneath your inside liner.

As I couldn't find the toggles which lock the ends of the elastic into the book, I decided to sew the ends together.

 To make sure it doesn't slide around too much, put down a line of glue and stick the elastic to the cover.

I also added some sticky tape for extra strength.

Now we're ready to put this book together.

Attaching the Page Set

Attach double sided tape to the back of the base page on your page set.

Before adhering the page set down just check that it fits comfortably underneath the inside liner.    Slide the base page under the liner .. the left hand side should sit about 1/8"  from the score lines on the left and your liner should sit flat over the top of the page set.  If you cannot push the set in far enough or, if your liner is slightly buckled, simply trim a piece off the edge of the base page.
 

When you are happy with the fit, pull the page set out again, remove the backing from one line of tape only at the loose edge of the base page and then carefully slide it back underneath the liner until it is positioned properly and stick it down.   

 
When you're happy with its position, remove the backing from the rest of the tape lines except for the last one on the other edge (by the sew line) as shown below.  Adhere the page set to the cover.

As this edge takes the brunt of the action when opening and closing the pages of the book I think it's a good idea to add a line of glue under the double sided tape for extra strength.

 

You can now remove the backing from the double sided tape on the inside liner ..

.. and stick it down.  There will be a slight bulge underneath from the elastic, but it's not really enough to be a hindrance.

Yayyyy!!

  Your book is now put together and the only thing left to do is create a pocket on the inside front cover, cover it all with your chosen papers and create the photo and journaling mats.

Inside Front Pocket

Following the diagram cut 1 piece from your chosen cardstock.

Score 3/4" from the edge on three sides as indicated on the diagram.

Crease on the score lines, ink the edges and cut off the bottom corner pieces as shown. 

Make sure when you fold the edges of the pocket in that the corners will sit flat.

 If you have rounded the corners of your cover, you will need to round off the bottom left side corner of your pocket as well.

 Attach double sided tape to the scored sections and adhere your pocket to the inside front cover.

Now, all that is left to do is create the photo and journaling mats.

I haven't drawn diagrams for these .. I will just give you the dimensions.

The photo mat for the inside front cover .. cut one - 4" x 6" 

The photo mat for the full pocket page .. cut one - 3.5" x 6"

The journal mats for the double pocket page .. cut two - 4" x 2.75"

The folded card which sits inside the half pocket page ..

Cut one - 6.5" x 6" 

Score at 3.25" and fold it in half.

 Woo!! Hoo!!  It is done!!!!!

You can now finish covering everything with your chosen papers.

I really, really hope this was easy for you to understand.  Putting this book together may seem rather complicated but, when you are actually doing it and taking it one step at a time, you will find it is really quite simple.   One thing I should tell you, due to it's construction, the pages do not sit flat when the book is open .. they actually pop up slightly but it is quite neat and flat when closed.

So, this book is now complete.  Right at the very beginning of this saga, when I shared the books made for my friends, I said that I hadn't as yet made my own.  Well, I still haven't yet made my own.  The book I made while writing this tutorial is also going to a friend.  She said she really liked it so I hope she wasn't just being kind because she is now getting one as well.  I will actually share piccies of it in the next couple of days ... Oh dear, perhaps I should not have said that considering what happened last time!!!!  LOL!! 

I am in the process of making another one, and that is definitely going to be mine!  (I think .. LOL!!)

Thank you so much for sticking with me through these huge posts and a special thanks to those of you who left me such lovely comments.  I really do appreciate your kindness and support.

If any of you end up using these instructions to make your own folio, and you have any problems at all, please just contact me and I will try to clear them up.  Also, please let me know if you've made one and send me a link .. I would love to see it!! 

Thank you so much for visiting and have a great day!!

Take care and God Bless.