Diving Into Smash(ing)

I am so proud of myself that finally I took out one of my Smash journal and started playing with it.  It didn't come easy because all these years I have just been collecting different styles of Smash and I even made two handmade journals for smashing, remember?  First I made an everyday all year journal and then I made a Summer travel journal before we went to Marbella, Spain 2 years ago BUT they're still accumulating dusts which is really NOT GOOD!

Well, last Tuesday late afternoon, due to my fellow crafters in our FB Smash group, I received tons and tons of love, support and encouragement from them after I confessed that I haven't taken the courage to start Smash-ing.  And so, after reading all their messages and replied, I pulled out the Babay Smash book and decided to preserve all the memories we had with our very loving cute yorkshire terrier dog, Kasper.  I was able to play with the cover then the first page.  I have yet to print ALL his pictures so I will not be distracted with the flow in doing it.

Really, I thank my group friends because without them I will surely just continue collecting Smash journals.

I am so thrilled about this project as well as my hubby and son because all three of us will make this possible.  We have been writing memories lately but yeah we cry in-between.  We will even go through the chosen pictures and discuss and write telling the story behind every pix.

Have you been Smash-ing?  If not, take the plunge coz it really has no rules.  It's like art journaling - every page is beautiful =D

I have MORE books to play with it and determined that it will NOT remain a collection!

I wonder if soon new styles will be released.  So far, I haven't seen any :(

Happy Smash-ing!

Happy Crafting!

Birthday Gift : Keri Smith Books

Yes!  I finally have the different books of Keri Smith =)  Thank you to my Parents-in-law who gave these books to me this morning as an advanced birthday gift!  I just can't explain the feeling I have right now =)  I'm so overwhelmed that opening each book gives me a headache to understand.  I know I have to sit back, relax, breathe in ... breathe out before I take a look on each page of each book.  Hhhmmm, I guess I can't do that this day and not even tomorrow, which is my BD, which means I will be watching a movie with my son since it is the day before the school starts.  I promised him last Sunday that we will go and watch a movie and promises made to our children has to be fulfilled.

I will definitely check out each book and give my personal opinion ... sort of a review especially for those who are interested to buy.

Here are my Keri Smith Books:

Hhhmmmm I still have few other books from Keri Smith that I would love to have but we'll see....

ABC Book of All I Want for my Son

Nobody knows what will happen to me tomorrow or few minutes from now.  Everyday I cherish the moments I have with my family most especially with my son.  When he sleeps at night I look at him and pray to God to let me live and see my child grow up to manhood.  All I can do is pray, pray, pray.

I was inspired to do an ABC Album of the Things I Want my Son to Know and Learn by heart.  I always believe that aside from education, teachings of values are one of the most important of all.  I have learned the same values from my parents which I have documented for my son.  Having accomplished this album years ago, I somehow felt that I made a wonderful gift for my son.  It can be handed down from generation to generation.  I only pray that he will learn and remember it by heart.

Inside the album (inside front cover), I have  a letter for him dated April 2008 coz that was the day I finished making this book and I know he will be able to read it with full understanding years from now.  I also added ABC's of Bible verses that touches me as a person.

For the whole album, I made my own Alphabet chipboards, used left-over yarns from my mother-in-law, few shapes of eyelets, foam stars in different colors, left-over ribbons I have kept, and most of all I doodled - drew different things in every page.

Do you also have things you want your son to know and learn by heart?  I know you have :)  Maybe you can do an album, too.

 

Star Book

I bet almost all paper crafters have done the "Star Book".  It's really a cool project to make but entails patience.  I did mine a long time ago, April 2008 - I was invited to do a demo about scrapbooking.  The participants are really newbies and would love to know different things they can do in scrapbooking.  Of course I was honored to do scrap demos ... as always ... most especially for newbies.

And so I dared myself to do a STAR BOOK and in every page I showed them different ways by using different materials like stamping, dry embossing, ribbons, brads, different scissors, folding paper, making windows, using stencils.  Mind you they are really newbies as in newborn babies hihihihihihi:)

It was my first time to do a starbook and it was fun especially when it's done.  You may not find my creation impressive but it's the most I can do to give the "newbies" a blast.  When I was doing the demo, I can see in their eyes how interesting this hobby is hihihihihihihi. Looking at it now made me laugh coz it's a simple star book but then I have to consider the fact that it was for tutorial presentation purposes.  The pictures were not nicely shot so bear with me =)

I wonder if I will do another star book this year or even in the near future.  Hhhmmm, I don't think so but who knows.  I think it would be fun especially now that  I have so much tools and matetials.  Oh boy!  where is this book now? :(  Hope I can find it someday and maybe I can revamp it or use it.   We'll see .....

If you are interested to make one here's a video I found that is easy to follow =)

My Own Smash Book Version 1

SMASH was such an "in" thing for 2011 and I know it still is but since it is quite expensive here I decided to assemble my own.  I say assemble because my version is made of left-over and randomly picked cardstocks from my stash.  I categorized the cardstocks and made sure that each piece is and can be cut into an A4 size then bind  it using Bind-it-All and wire-o size 1 1/4.  

The journal itself has 62 pages plus added envies, insertions, mini folded albums, and tags.  Hhhhmmm, maybe I should remove some pages or better yet some sections .... I don't know.  For now I'm admiring what I was able to assemble last night.  The cutest part is my son and I played with stencils and my set of Viva Paper Soft Color.   Oh yes my son enjoyed the moment very much that I put him to bed at about 9.30pm - bad, very bad of me ..... he's suppose to be snoring at 9pm!

One thing for sure I will be making another one but less classy as this one and not so many pages so I can bring it anywhere I go.

Here are some pages .....

My son used Tim Holtz mask on those blotz.

The butterflies are stencils from Panduro.

The tags were embossed using TimHoltz.

yup, once again the swirl was achieved using Tim Holtz Mask.

This is my son's favorite and he used Tim Holtz Mask.

My son just inked away from what's left on all foams he used.  I think he did well!  The doily lace effect is a stencil by Panduro.

Added a mini accordion album on this page.

There are a lot of lovely and cute pages in my own smash book but it's just too many to show.  Oh well, that's it for now and hopefully will be able to create something later this day =)

Happy Crafting everyone!