Happy Holidays Christmas mini album

 For a different approach to saving memories for Christmas 2011, I went for a contemporary/romantic design using Tim Holtz's wonderful technique of using an embossing folder in my Sizzix on recycled plastic packaging to givce it an icy look on the cover.  In addition I used his flower die cut to make the flower petals.  They are so much fun to make, so cost effective and the designs are unlimited.  I dabbed them with Ranger Distress inks. 

. As usual, I added a variety of photo mats, journaling spots, pockets and tags.
Throughout this chipboard album I included special accents, die cuts, fragments, and embellishments, including an ornament which opens into a photo mat, a gift which opens to photo mats and an envelop folder holder which offers five additional photo mats.

For some of the embellishments I made a chimney and a small bird and used the Tim Holtz die cuts of deer and tree which I purchased from Vintage Prims on Etsy.  The pr- made embellishments are from this years line from K and Company.
Tools and techniques were inspired by Tim Holtz, K and Company, Recollections, Martha Stewart, Perfect Pearls, Ranger Distress Inks and more. Embellishments include handmade flowers, handmade mulberry papers and tags, ribbons, chipboard elements, aux Swarvski crystals, Prima bling and embossed rubber stampings. Word sentiments add another facet to the album. This chipboard album measures 5 inches by 6 inches and the pages are bound by two metal rings accented with ribbons and handspun yarns. 

Christmas mini albums 2011

It seems I can't stop making mini albums1  so now that Halloween is over, I turned my attention to Christmas.  This will be the first time making Christmas albums but once again, I have a stash of items from making Christmas cards for many years.
The first one I tried was a Christmas Memories album perfect for capturing those magical holiday moments. I decidewd to make one that would be appriate for the entire family.  The five chipboard pages are combined to feature layouts for both young children, older children, adults and even extended family.  Each page has either a photo mate or journaling square or tag and the snowman book on the last to second page is the perfect place to write up memories and gift lists, whatever suits a family.
There are handmade papers and flowers, chipboard and metallic embellishments sprinkled within the album along with faux Swarvski crystal bling, pockets, tags, and photo mats.

I used my Tim Holtz edge die cuts and a number of different K & Co. paper paks and embellishments, as well as vintage stamps.
I hope that these albums will be keepsakes with writings and personal touches, be handed down from generation to generation!
I've made six of these approximately 6 x 5 inches to 6 x8 inch albums so far.  Four of them will end up on Etsy and I've made one each for my granddaughters including the one which will be born within the next two weeks!

Halloween mini albums frenzy

When one of my friends asked if I was going to post Halloween mini albums for sale on Etsy, I hadn't thought about it since I'm caught up in the baby girl mode waiting for my second granddaughter to arrive.  But Halloween is my favorite time of year so thanks to Elizabeth I went into my usual obsessive mode of creating and made four books in less than a week.  I love to see a variety of styles and colors, was always that way with weaving scarves and shawls, making beeswax collage etc.
But this had to beat them all in productivity.  And I only spent $3.59 cents.  I already had enough supplies form collecting Halloween items for years in my stash. 
I was very fortunate and kind of went into the zone watching British TV shows, favorite movies (Firefly, "9", The Englishmen Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain) and cluttered up my living room with scrappy goodies until one could not sit or walk, except for my narrow place on the couch. 

Since I've been making these for a few years now, I have a system of  steps.  First I apply all the background pages to chipboard or cereal box cardboard, often cut with Tim Holtz edge dies. Then I add photo mats, next come the embellishments, then the words and scripts. Ribbons and bling with jewel spots are next followed by rubber stamping, flowers, metal pieces, Tim Holtz additions.  I love using  embossing cards (Bingo and Spirals), die cuts, Perfect Pearls  and other accent techniques. The last thing I do is make the tags.  It's like dessert after a large dinner of baked potato, veggies and yummy steak!

Of course I love using all my favorite designers, including 7 Gypsies, K and Company, Graphic 45, Reflections.  But even more fun was looking through my vintage pieces.  I've been collecting these for years and I love adding them to my distressed look.  I'm not a cutesy kind of gal.  As a goth from way back, a VOG (very old goth) I  like an edge to my work and even though these are meant as children's albums, I hope they have enough dark touches to appeal to all those moms out there who really get into Halloween.  I also like to add the New England flavor.  We're known for our dark sides what with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and authors like Nathanial Hawthorne and the nearby town of Salem, Mass., the witch capital of the U.S.  We were brought up on the macabre even in school and ghost stories and witches tales were common folklore. 

Foxglove Broadsides inspires journal making

More writing on Foxglove Broadsides, more making of journals.  And what's fun is that as I explore the plot line and my protagonist, Cecile gets embroiled in more and more rather off the wall experiences, they all serve as fodder for creating art. 
At first when she's more involved in her duties with the bookstore and steam press (with odd moments of participating in rebellions) I was only doing research on presses, printing, inks, etc.  But as the botany came into it - lots of research there, and as I realized I could use my personal background as a student balloon pilot,
and staff writer for a ballooning magazine), well that came naturally.

The research leads to many photos and stories and they're all so interesting I want to capture them to - so I do with art - and go off on tangents like the research on absinthe, which I started years ago for my novella or series of shorts stories, Two Ruffians and a Rat before it was sold in America. Since I sold more on ETSY over the weekend, I had to replenish the supplies.  That's four journals shipped in the past week, so I have to restock - especially any in the botany/garden variety in time for Upstate Steampunk Con in November.  I'm thrilled to be working with the Steampunk Debutante papers from Graphic 45, as well as others, such as Tranatlantique and Communique.  But I waited along with many others for the Steampunk line to be available.

Losses and Failures - character building, right?

I have the distinct feeling I'm not supposed to leave my hermitage at the moment.  The fact that I have had interrupted internet service for at least 6 to 8 weeks now, first with a really nasty virus then with problems with my internet provider who needed four days and four different technicians to fix (it was a burned out card in a box up the street from my house).  And not five minutes after my internet was fixed I went outside to drive to a dementia class for work only to find a dead Saturn Vue.  The ignition switch is gone again.  I replaced it two years ago.  Not cool.
On the high side, it's a good thing I'm in a writers group because the virus wiped out all my new writing on my second novel, Shaman in Exile, which is one chapter away from being finished and a good bit of my new writing on Foxglove Broadsides (a short story becoming a novel).  I also lost half the Shadow Archer Press catalog of books by authors from all over the world. but thankfully have them all on hard copies) and lost the entire Steampunk issue of Fissure magazine - everything: all emails, all contacts, all submissions, all pieces accepted, all artwork. I am not a happy publisher.  Luckily, thanks to bringing hard copies to writers club, I can retype everything I lost on Shaman in Exile and some I lost on Foxglove - although about three chapters are gone - just gone.
This hit me so hard (at a time when I am selling a number of Shadow Archer Press books and back issues of Fissure) that I'm veer between scrambling to recover, retype, relocate hard copies of everything I lost to abject despair which I funnel into escapism by making steampunk journals (on Tesla, absinthe, aeronauts, chrononauts, etc.) to sell at Upstate Steampunk Con and on my Etsy (Gail Gray Studios).  Not wise as far as my writing goes, but otherwise I'd be out of control. Other mechanical things broke (and even non-mechanical such as a toe) at the same time, which is the way it is with mechanical things for me.  How about all of you? Am I the only one who gets it in 3's or 6's?
So I do advise you all, especially writers and artists - make a backup copy frequently of your work!  Don't trust that you are protected.  The virus sent to me, disabled ALL of my security systems before attacking various parts of my computer and corrupting the files. 
Remember:  Back up or face heavy losses - some of which may be irreplaceable. 
But I'm trying to look at all this calamity as if I were one of the characters I write about.  These losses and failures are what we put our characters through to build their character, in the old fashioned sense of the word - to expose their vulnerabilities in order to showcase them transforming faults into strengths, right?  So I should look at this as a great opportunity for transformation, right?
Maybe the best thing to do at times like these is to step back and take a philosophical look at our role on the world stage, as if we were characters. No one likes characters who get everything they want, no one cares about characters have it made.  No, we love the characters who face insurmountable obstacles and endure a constant gauntlet of setbacks.
I'm trying...