August Expressions!

 

Awesome, another month closer to school. :)  Not that I haven’t enjoyed this summer, because it has had some pretty amazing moments. But I do love fall and back-to-school time the best of all of the seasons. But quick, before the summer is over, here are a few fun summery projects and cards from the Express the Moment August Expressions (card making) kit!!!

Here is a card with a cute frame and kite background. . . some of these adorable bright colored summery papers are by My Mind’s Eye and they are from the Citrus Lime collection. I do love MME.  :) I was thinking that some fun summery quotes would be fun for these bright cheery cards. One thing that makes me think of summer is summertime music. You know how you can hear a song and just automatically think of summer? There are tons of them out there. I used “Bright, bright sun-shiny day” as a sentiment for this card. What summery song titles can you think of to use as sentiments?

 

I can’t get by without using this week’s card sketch from Stars & Stamps with this kit. This is amazing. . . the twine, buttons, letter stickers and everything I needed to make this week’s card sketch were included in this month’s kit. Cool huh?

This card was made on a small round scalloped edge card base. The card base wasn’t in this month’s kit. But I have about a zillion of them around here and wanted to use some. :) I cut two 4” circles to make the inside and front of this card. I added a 1” strip of orange patterned paper and a flower and button, and stamped the sentiment directly onto the dotted background paper. This one is one of my favorites. :) If you don’t have a round or scalloped card base or the means to cut one, it would be easy enough to make one by just adhering your circles with a scrap of paper or cutting them so that the edges touch, just fold along this part. You could even trace around a can, bowl, or other round object to make your own card base.

Just look at this patterned paper with the little bingo numbers on it. So cute! I made this card with several layers of the bright patterned papers and then I added a Dustin Pike digi stamp and a sentiment inside. “Age is just a NUMBER.” Isn’t that so true?

This one was fast and easy – I added a small mat of striped paper to an A2 size card base and rounded the corners. I added a small border strip and a title that came along with the kit. “Soar – spread your wings and fly.” What a fun card to give to a kiddo headed off to college right? Of note, this paper totally reminds me of Fruit Stripe Gum. Remember Fruit Stripe Gum?

Did you take a ton of fun family photos with your sisters brothers aunts uncles cousins kids and other family members? Wouldn’t it be neat to send them a tiny memento of your summer fun? And it’s made out of toilet paper rolls!!! I saw somebody make an album similar to this somewhere on the internets. I don’t know who, or possibly, it was a couple of sources. I do not know who owns the rights to thinking up the Toilet Paper Roll Album. At any rate, they were brilliant. This is one version of the Toilet Paper Roll album that is fast and easy. Let me show you how I did it.

First you will need to save up or go dumpster diving for some empty toilet paper rolls. :) Check the kids’ bathroom trash. They usually have several! I bought really cheap TP last time, so these were fast and easy to come by! You can use as many rolls as you like. My little album used five rolls. First, smash them flat. Use a bone folder or other tool to crease the edges firmly. Then, put your rolls under something heavy for a while. Like a stack of books. A ginormous pile of scrapbooking paper. (I KNOW YOU HAVE ONE!!!) Or your Cuttlebug! Those things are heavy. At any rate, smash them. So that they are super flat. You can work on the rest of the album while your rolls are flattening.

While you are waiting, Cut enough pieces of paper to cover both sides of your rolls. My rolls measured exactly 2.5 x 4”  but you should probably measure yours first, just to be sure. I’m pretty sure that most toilet paper rolls are the same size. But maybe not!!! I also distressed the edges of each piece of paper and cut and punched a few other embellishments.

 

I also cut three pieces of paper that measure 2.5 x about 3.75” – just slightly shorter than the other pieces  (above) and added a variety of tabs to them. These pages slip INSIDE of some of the rolls and you can pull them out for a cute surprise. :)

By the time I was done with the previous steps, my rolls were pretty flat. I distressed the edges on both sides with some dark brown ink. You don’t have to do this, or you could distress with a different color, or even paint with white acrylic paint. Whatever you like. :)

The rest of the job is to adhere the papers to both sides of the rolls in a book fashion. . . think chipboard album, only tiny. :) I added a few scraps, punches and stickers to each page along with photos of the day that my brother, Alex and I spent at the pool with my niece and nephew. Of note, if your printer prints certain sizes of photos onto a large page, like a page of wallet sized photos, this works perfectly for this size album!

Here is one of those tab pages. You could also slip little things into these spaces like mementos, ticket stubs, programs or whatever you like! The last step is to use a hole punch or drill to punch through each roll. DO NOT put your tab pages inside the rolls, until this step is over. You don’t want to punch through the tab pages. Also, if you have a good punch, like a Crop-A-Dile or an industrial strength drill press this works much better for punching through all of those layers rather than a little hand-held traditional hole punch. Your hand will thank me. I joined the pages with a couple of spare rings and added a bunch of ribbon scraps to the rings. CUUUUTE!!!

This tiny album really didn’t take long to make. I meant to time it – so I could say exactly how long it took, start to finish, but I wasn’t watching the clock closely enough today. I do know that I started building this little album when hubby started watching the NASCAR race today and when I finished, there were still 243 laps to go. So about 6 hours. Just kidding. :) It really only took an hour or so. And it was fun!

That’s all for today, thanks for stopping by! (And for hanging in there, this is a huge post!)