DIY Smashbooks

Hello, Scraphappy Fans!

How many of you know what a 'Smashbook' is? It's this really cool premade album filled with patterned papers that you can take your pictures and everyday-bits-of-life (aka ephemera) and just 'smash' them (or glue them) into. You can make it as organized or random as you want. You can fill it from beginning-to-end. Or you can open to a random page and stick stuff in wherever it makes you happy. The only problem with a premade book like this is that you have no control over what the actual papers are. What you buy is what you get, so I'm going to show you how to make your own. Now you can pick the papers and patterns YOU want inside your book.

First step: Pick your papers. I chose the new summery, tropical-themed papers from Graphic45. Now I don't know about you, but I always think these papers are beautiful to look at, but when it comes to actually USING them, my mind goes blank. Fortunately for me (and now you, since I'm going to share), at CHA the Graphic45 people demo'd how to use their papers in a DIY Smashbook!

In the center of the previous photo, you can see some blue rectangles. Those are clear acrylic sheets that I decided to use for my covers. There's several sizes available at the store, and they are all quite inexpensive. To use the acrylic, just peal off the blue protective film and decorate however you choose. I wanted the edges of my cover to stand out, so I mixed some spray mist with white acrylic paint and painted the edges.

Next, I trimmed my papers to fit in my book. I used several sizes, including some pieces that I die-cut into scallops to add some fun variety.

There are many ways you can bind your book - jump rings, ribbon, etc. I wanted to play with a toy I received for Christmas: a book-binding machine. There's a similar machine in the store that you can use whenever you want. Just buy the binding, itself, and have fun playing!

Follow the directions on the machine to bind your book, then add pictures, embellishments, and journalling to truly make the book 'yours.' Here's a look at my finished book and some of the interior pages:

Supplies:
- patterned paper - Graphic45
- clear acrylic
- white acrylic paint
- letter stickers - October Afternoon
- black washi tape
- Cinch binding machine and spiral binding
- Smooch spray mist
- Instax photos
- die-cutter - Big Shot
- scallop die - Spellbinders

Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show Day1

Greetings from Anaheim, California!

One of the awesome perks of being on Scraphappy's Design Team is that we, the Design Team Members, get to attend a Crafter's Mecca: C...H...A...Known to the rest of the world as The Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show. So that's where I will be blogging from this week. Each day, after exploring the show floor, I plan to come back here and share the goodness with you! Please check in each day and leave a comment about what you like and don't like. When I get home, we'll be sitting down with the manufacturerers' catalogs and making orders for the store! So if you want it, please let us know! And to encourage y'all to comment, Christy will give a prize pack to a random commenter from all of my CHA posts! So comment daily for extra chances to win. 1 comment per person per day.

(DISCLAIMER: All photos were taken on my phone. I thought that that would make it easier to upload them. I was wrong. Blogger is having issues. Please forgive any technical difficulties. I'm not able to post nearly as many pics as I had planned tonight, but I'll do my best.)

And now for the scrapbooking yumminess...

Our first stop of the day: The Ranger Booth. Gotta start with Tim Holtz's creative genius, right? The Kid (otherwise known as My Oldest Daughter/Helper/PackMule) and I started at the Make&Take table. We played with black UTEE, a Melting Pot, and a metal slide holder to make some UTEE jewelry. Who knew you could make a jewelry charm out of embossing powder? I know I didn't!

Photos from the Ranger booth:

1. Claudine Hellmuth's new 2-step stamps - looks like they're designed both for paper crafting as well as collage arts. The chunkier foam stamps make up the image background, and the clear acrylic stamps provide the overlying detail. For some reason, those house stamps just called to me.



2. Kraft Coredinations - now available in books of strips designed to work with Tim's long, skinny Sizzix dies.

3. Distress Markers - designed to work with and coordinate with all our favorite Distress inks.

4. Tim's new stamps - I apologize about the glare in these photos. The lighting here was not-so great, so I'm only going to show you the best. The travel- themed sets are some of my favorites from him EVER. I WILL be adding these to my stash :)

5. New Alterations dies - THESE ARE SO STINKING CUTE!!! New icons include globes, telephones, typewriters, and cameras - both in the larger Sizzix size, and well as in smaller, Movers and Shapers sizes.

Next stop, the American Crafts booth! American Crafts has recently partnered with various well-loved brands, so this booth was filled with fun color just begging to be scrapped! And as a bonus, most of their lines have coordinating Thickers! Happy Sigh...

1. Amy Tangerine - new line = Sketchbook - This line is full of bright, water-colored, whimsical designs that can make any project happy.

2. Dear Lizzie from Elizabeth Kartchner - a soft, whispy-feeling, very pretty pastel-water-color-feel line. Very peaceful. Perfect for spring, babies, or any other project with a softer feel to it. In the top picture on the right, you can see a package of banners. These are precut and presewn/prestrung sheets of die-cut banners. You can use it as one very long banner, or snip bits and pieces as needed to embellish your projects.

This next picture shows one of my favorite finds of the day. See the 'Smile' and 'Love' package? These are die-cut letters that have been strung onto a thin ribbon. Very pretty. These will definitely be on my pages in the upcoming months.

OK, World. I think I'm going to stop here for tonight. It's after 2AM, and I need to sleep! I took over 250 pictures today, so instead of cramming everything into this one post, I'm thinking I'll just write several blog posts for ya'll over the next several days. That work for you? You want more photos? Fewer photos? Photos of anything in particular? Let me know! Until tomorrow, thanks for reading. And don't forget to comment!

- Cori