More handmade cards!

I am on a roll and have listed more cards in my etsy shop for sale.  Here are two more I added.

New cards in my etsy shop.

Just wanted to share a few cards I made and added to my etsy shop the other day.  I originally made them for the holiday bazaar coming up in a couple weeks, but figured I’d put them for sale in the shop first and see what happens.  I can always make others if I’m bombarded with orders!  LOL

Opinions needed.

So I made this card and then I decided to add a ribbon to it and now I can’t decide which way I like it better.

Tell me what you think in the comments please!

Ribbon or no ribbon?

Altered Autumn Candle + Altered Christmas Candle.

My aunt is such a big support to me and my scrapbooking business.  When she needed a gift for her fellow teacher (needed it RIGHT NOW but I rolled with it), instead of going and spending the $10 somewhere else she said she was thinking of a candle and I whipped up these instead for $5 each.  I’m going to make more for the holiday bazaar I’ll be at in a couple of weeks.

What do you think?  Would you pay $5 for these at a craft bazaar?

Sweet cards.

My fellow scrapper friend Thea and I have signed up to do a holiday bazaar in a few weeks, so we’re busy working on some things for our booth.  Right now I’m just thinking, “What was I thinking?”  Here are some cards I made.  I tried to not be elaborate and over the top because people in this area are not gonna pay $4 or $5 for a card.  And frankly if I wouldn’t pay it myself, I’m not going to ask someone else to do that! 

The little felt cupcakes come with the sequins on them in a package of 4 or 5 from Joann Fabrics and then I blinged them up a little with Stickles glue.  I am so loving that right now!

I get around :)

I made a new notecard set for a client of mine who hired me to do her retirement album (I’ll be showing that soon).  I stamped the flowers and then watered down some acrylic paints and painted the petals with it. 

 I’ve been trying to get some things I make featured on different websites and holiday guides to drum up more business and I’ve been “getting around” a bit. 

Here’s me on Cuteable.  She shows the above cards.  She’s featuring pink items since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  This blog is so cute!  She shows cute, neat little things that she has found online in shops or blogs.  I love it.

I also got myself into a holiday gift guide online at Paper Girl Productions.  I love her blog also.  She finds the coolest paper goods and cards and handmade things.  You can see the gift guide here and if you click on the “holiday gift guide” under the banner at the top and then the “whimsical” category, you’ll see my stick people cards!

Those same cards are in the Indie Public gift guide.  I’m on page 2 of the S section.  This is a website dedicated to artists who do handmade items.  There are some awesome things in here.  She had an early email go out to all the participants in it, and I immediately saw something I had to buy……so I did.  Hey, Abby, it matches my glasses!!   :)

Japan vacation scrapbook part 4 — the end.

You can see where I showed the other three parts to this series here (part 1) and here (part 2) and here (part 3).  And this would be the last section of pages.  Whew!

left side  (this is some place where you’re supposed to jump and your soul will go to heaven)

right side

left side    (tea ceremony where you eat a ball of sugar–that’s my kind of snack!)

left side   I think these photos are so cool because they catch this holy water in a cup and then they drink it.

left side    These are photos of them throwing yen into the water for good luck.  Sounds like something we do here in the U.S.!

right side

left side    I love that she got photos of these different aspects of a different culture.  The top photo shows how people write their prayers down on papers and then tie them to things.  And the bottom photos has these rocks with bibs on them that are prayers for babies that have died.

right side       In the top shrine photo, people have added rocks for good luck.

left side

right side        Isn’t this golden pavilion GORGEOUS?  It’s called Kinkakuji (I think) and it has real gold in the paint!  How COOL is that?

left side (filler page for the end of that section)

right side              new city, new title page

left side

right side

The End!

Again, you can see where I showed the other three parts to this series here (part 1) and here (part 2) and here (part 3).  And this would be the last section of pages.  Whew!

Japan vacation scrapbook part 3.

You can view part 1 and part 2 of this Japan vacation scrapbook series here and here.  Part 4 (the end) is here.

left side

Those red things at the top are octopus.  I learned while making this book that the Japanese word for octopus is TACO.

I thought food photos were very important while documenting her trip for her so I was sure to include them in the album.  I LOVE the top photo.  Eating whale is prohibited in Japan, but this sign shows all the whale parts that the restaurant serves.  The middle photo shows rice with baby fish that Ashley said was really nasty and the bottom photo is her inside a McDonald’s where they have a double Big Mac.

left side

right side

These girls went to Tokyo with no place to stay and there were no rooms to rent apparently so they ended up sleeping on the floor of an internet cafe.  These young folks nowadays……..there is NO WAY you’d have caught me doing that in my 20′s.

left side

In that photo at the top of the boxes, there were people sleeping in those.

right side  (Tokyo at night–isn’t it beautiful?)

left side

It’s hard to see them, but I love the colorful balloons in these photos.  I guess at their baseball games balloons take the place of pom poms or things like that.  She said there’s no 7th inning stretch.  Everybody sings a song and then releases the balloons.

right side        (new city, new title page)

left side

I thought it was a wonderful thing that her caption for the bottom photo was about how it was the first temple she had gone into and she cried because it was so amazing.  I was glad that being a young adult she wasn’t too embarrassed to admit that.

right side

More to come tomorrow!

P.S.  I do take custom orders for vacation albums.  This particular book has 45 pages and with all of the supplies that I used cost $400.00.  Each book I make is different, of course, and supplies are different so cost would change with each custom design, but that is the general range of cost for this one.

Again, you can view part 1 and part 2 of this Japan vacation scrapbook series here and here.  Part 4 (the end) is here.

Japan vacation scrapbook part 2.

This is a continuation of the Japan vacation album I was hired to make as a gift.  You can see the part where I showed the first 10 pages here.  You can also go to part 3 here and part 4 here.

She captioned this photo “pinching nips around the world.”  This girl is so funny.  I thought it was very interesting how their parking garages are built in the right hand side photo so that there is more room.

left side

right side  (Hugh Jackman again!)

left side

She captioned this photo “ass cheeks” — as if we couldn’t tell what was in the photo! And by the way, yuck.

right side  (photos of the beautiful Himeji Castle).

left side (various signs that have terrible English and/or make no sense)

right side

More funny signs.  I love the Chicago sign with PALM TREES.  Cracks me up.

I think my favorite is Condomania, though.

left side (filler page)  I split the photos up into sections of the different cities she visited.  In this particular city, I had no more photos left but I needed to fill a page so I gave her a journaling area to jot down her memories and thoughts.

right side

This is a title page (another filler).  I made a new title page for each city that she visited.  Each title page looks different also.

More to come tomorrow!

**edited to add links to parts 3 and 4 on the blog.

part 3       http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-3/

part 4       http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-4-the-end/

Journey to Japan vacation scrapbook.

Last year my husband’s granddaughter took a week’s trip to Japan to visit a friend of hers who was over there teaching English.  It really was a wonderful experience for her, and it changed her outlook on life in different ways.  So my husband’s daughter (yes, hubby is much older than me) hired me to make a scrapbook for HER daughter as a Christmas gift.  The granddaughter had been uploading her photos to snapfish (or some other online place — I can’t remember) for the family members to view, and lucky me she had been typing in captions for each one so the family members would know what the picture WAS, so I just ordered all her photos she had uploaded and typed up all her captions that she had provided for me without even knowing it!  ha!  Unfortunately, there were like 200+ photos of this trip I think, and I couldn’t possibly fit them all into a 9×9 scrapbook.  I picked out the best ones that I thought meant the most to her, got rid of duplicates or pictures that looked almost alike, and then tried to squeeze as many photos as I could onto each page!  I will share the results with you here.

P.S.  I do take custom orders for vacation albums.  This particular book has 45 pages and with all of the supplies that I used cost $400.00.  Each book I make is different, of course, and supplies are different so cost would change with each custom design, but that is the general range of cost for this one.

Here are pages 1-10 (and the cover page is first).

cover page

left side

right side

left side

right side

(this is one of my favorite photos because the name of the bar is “Moe’s” and the friend in the layout is also named Moe.  What are the odds, seriously?  Cracks me up.

left side   (I used paper label holders from Walmart to accent the different cities she had visited while in Japan)

right side

left side  (seriously….doesn’t the guy in the top pic look just like Hugh Jackman?!?)

right side

left side

right side   (I think karaoke is a big deal in Japan)

*edited to add:   Okay, finally finished getting it all on the blog, so if you want to view parts 2, 3, and 4 (each in their separate blog post) you can click the links below.

part 2        http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-2/

part 3       http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-3/

part 4       http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-4-the-end/