Aloha mini album

Good evening everyone, and welcome to my new followers.  Wow!  I am getting pretty close to 100.  I'm going to have to think of a nice giveaway if I ever do reach triple digits.  Hmmm.

In the stitching department, I have no photos to share.  But I have been busy.  I stitched something for a Halloween exchange I'm participating in, now I just need to do the finishing.  I have also selected and ordered frames for 4 pieces.  This morning I pinned to pieces to their boards, and adjusted the pinning on one side of a third piece that my dad had so sweetly started for me.  One more piece to pin (and it's a huge one) and then I'll head back over to Mom and Dad's sometime in the next couple of weeks so that Dad can finish the framing.  I've decided to enter one piece in this year's state fair.  That is, I'm going to enter if I successfully managed to properly complete my entry form.  I'm pretty sure I did, but sorting through all those online instructions and picking categories can be a bit daunting.  I have pulled out a piece I started last September to work on for the rest of the week, so I'll post photos of it next week, most likely.

In the scrapping department, I finished a mini album documenting the Aloha themed bridal shower that was thrown for me back in March.  I'm super excited about this little album.  It might not be anything fancy, but it was so much fun to put together.  I don't do a lot of mini albums, so this was a wonderful break from my usual 12x12 layouts.

I got the album itself from Farmhouse Paper Company, which is a new company.  It's the cutest little thing, with little pockets and inserts as well as several chipboard pages.  I love the variety of the inside pages.  And all of the paper is from Graphic 45's Tropical Travelogue line.  The front cover was made using parts of two of the invitations.  I found out long after I had glued them down that my sister somehow ended up with no invitations, while I had two (which is kind of funny since she never mailed one to me), but it's too late to give her one now!

I used every bit of available space to include images from the party (except the backside of the back cover), because there were so many I wanted to keep.

Hmm, pretend the image above has been rotated 90 degrees.  I made several of my embellishments stand up off the page with foam tape or pop dots.  And of course, there's lots of inking on every page!

Using the 6 tabbed pages, I divided the album into 6 sections: Food, Friends, Family, Games, Gifts, an Memories.  The front tab was covered with blue crackle paint, while the back side of the tabs were either inked or covered in white crackle paint.  I used a tiny crystal swirl on every tab except for 'Memories,' which was too long for the crystals to fit.

The food and drinks were delicious.  However, my hostesses definitely had a mischeivous side.  They snuck Spam sandwiches onto my plate (Spam is very popular in Hawaii, our honeymoon destination and the inspiration for the shower theme).  And they also spiked my punch with rum.  I am very fond of rum, but I thought it was a little wicked of them as I was rather sick with a cold or some such at the time of the shower and already feeling floaty enough as it was.

I know most of you are just skimming through these images and aren't really interested in the method behind my madness, but if you happen to make an album and add some images that only fit sideways, make sure that you turn them all the same direction so that the viewer only has to tilt the album one direction in order to look at the sideways photos.  Here, all of my vertical photos are laid out so that their bottoms are on the left hand side of the page.

See what I mean about the little pockets and inserts?  My photos showing the door prizes and room decorations can be tucked neatly inside of the little map image (this came in very handy later on in the album as I will explain later).

You can't tell we're related, can you?  : )

One of my friends gave me a sheet of Jolee's stickers as part of my gift.  I used most of the sheet in this album, and my favorite sticker was the lei.  I cut a portion of it off an added it around my neck.  Then I used the three leftover flowers to add a lei to Melissa's neck as well so that all three of us would be sporting flowers.

I really am so very fortunate to have such wonderful friends from so many areas of my life.  

Okay, that's half the album, and a ton of photos!  I'll post the second half of the album by the end of the week.  I am thinking that the next thing I will tackle scrapwise are the photos from our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  I am seriously tempted to make another mini album for those photos.  Of course, I'd want to find another Farmhouse album.  Wonder how hard that will be.  Til next time, I hope everyone has a little time to be creative!