My First 8 x 8 Album

I made an 8 x 8 scrapbook for my aunt who just turned 84. She lives in Utah; I haven't seen her since my father died in 2003. With little ones about (my grand babies), the family has changed, and she enjoys looking at photos.

Except for greeting cards of various sizes, I have only worked with 12 x 12 pages. In addition, this is the first album that I have put together strictly to give away; I was surprised to find difficulty in parting with it. Silly me.

Incidentally, the photos are mounted fairly straight onto the paper. When I crop a slightly crooked photo shot, the mounting may look crooked.

I decided to use page 1 as a title page or greeting card. Two of the corners have stamps embossed in gold that I touched up with red and blue gel pens. I added some turquoise mulberry paper:

The second page is nothing spectacular. I used rub-ons. However, I love the photos of my son lifting each of his children in the air--on different days. He was not posing. I grabbed my camera, as I often do, and captured normal loving stuff.

Here is my son reading to his son. (Most of this scrapbook is built with photos of the grand babies. The older members of my family are not cooperative.) Another straightforward page with a photo that I adore. I topped a punched-out flower with a sparkling brad.



Both kids love to model my glasses. My two-year-old granddaughter looks like an attorney here. :-)

I've been playing around with chipboard lately. I painted this chipboard lavender and I made it shine with Ranger Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel.



Here, my granddaughter plays hide 'n' seek under the dining room table. Maybe she prays that nobody will find her.

I love this butterfly that I stamped with pigment and embossed with fine gold powder. One of my recent specialties is coloring stamps with gel pens--and plain colored pencils. The finished product is always fun. This butterfly is amazingly beautiful in person.

I painted the flowers green in the following pair of photos. And I covered them with my favorite ultra thick embossing enamel.

My grandson has gradually made friends with Karl the cat, without scaring him away. I got one distant shot, and one closeup (with a glare on the photo that I couldn't seem to avoid).

I will upload more photos in a second blog.

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