My Mind's Eye Blog

Mini Albums with Monika | December 2014 Edition

Happy New Year's Eve to all our MME friends. We wish you all that best and here's hoping your 2015 brings you peace, contentment, health, happiness, hugs, laughter, love, giggles and lots of time to be crafty!

Hi, I'm Monika and I'm a paper planner addict from way back. You know, before there was such a thing as a Google calendar or smart phone apps to keep you organized. And today, I'd love to share with you how you can trick out your paper planner with items from your scrapbook stash...why should layouts and mini albums have all the fun?

Supplies | Jubilee: Mint Julep "Journey" Journal Cards and Rub Ons, Wild Berry "Hey You" Rub Ons, "Live It Up" Sticky Notes and Chipboard Elements, "Peace" Sticky Notes and Chipboard Elements, "Tangerine" Sticky Notes, "Ride" Love Paper, "Ride" Bike Paper; Just Sayin' "Beauty" Paper, "Garden Party" Paper, Chipboard Elements, Transparent Frames, assorted Decorative Tapes

That's right, why not use your chipboard elements, enamel dots, decorative tape and cute scrapbook papers to personalize your planner to show your creative side. I began personalizing my planner by choosing my favorite papers and tracing the tab divider page onto the back side of patterned cardstock and trimming to size.

I recommend punching your holes now, before embellishing them with chipboard, especially if you are using something other than a hand held hole punch.


And who says we can't embellish our divider tabs? I love opening up my Filofax and seeing all that gold glitter! And the floral deer head just makes me smile!


Rub-Ons are a perfect embellishment for those of us that don't like a lot of bulk on our planner pages. You can still write on each side of the page without obstruction. And how do you like the way I added the colorful enamel dots to the Bike paper?

It always seems that I need to do forward planning when planning vacations and appointments, so I use a vertical pull-out calendar for the following year and made a top tab page so I can easily flip to this pages when I need to jot a quick reminder.


Sometimes a girl just needs to jot a quick list on a sticky note and not actually write it in her planner, right? I love that MME has designed some super cute options for adding journaling to a layout or mini album, but the sticky notes are so, so perfect for your planner or calendar, too!


And because I do use sticky notes, I've found that the transparent frames, trimmed down, are great to add between my weekly pages. I can still see the notes for the whole week, but I'm greet with an upbeat message and awesome design each time I review my day. Plus, the transparent frame is the perfect spot to hold my sticky note collection...yes, there may just be more than one note on here at one time!


I like to embellish the edges of my weekly pages with Decorative Tape to add a bright outlook and it doesn't add any extra bulk. By trimming an envelope, and reinforcing it with tape for strength along the cut edge, I am able to store my coupons here, thereby reducing the bulk in my wallet.

NOTE  | To find free Filofax planner downloads, like the perpetual calendar you see above, visit with me on my blog here.

Product Spotlight | Enamel Shapes

Hey there, friends!  Missy here today.  It’s almost time to celebrate a new year, so today I’m sharing a fun and festive Happy New Year layout with you. 

The Jubilee collections are full of fun enamel shapes, so I focused on the shapes from the Wild Berry collection.  It has a lot of fun geometric shapes as well as hearts and dots.

I had some excess white space on my photos, so used the geometric enamel shapes to create a fun little border pattern on them.  I love the design they create and the pop of color they give to the black and white pictures.  When I know I’m going to have a lot of color in my background, I like to print my photos in color…especially when there are a lot of colors going on in the photos. 

When I think of New Year’s, I think of confetti.  I found this fun confetti die cut in the Silhouette store and cut it on black cardstock.  I used the “Love” Paint Paper to back it, and I love the effect that it created.

Supplies: Jubilee- Wild Berry: “Love” Paint paper, 6x6 Paper Pad, “Today” Enamel Shapes; Sherbet – “Happy” Enamel Dots; Necessities – Black & Grays Enamel Shapes, Black & Grays Decorative Tapes, Black & Grays Alpha & Word Stickers; Lost & Found Record It! “Antique” Ephemera Pack; Other – Martha Stewart punch, Silhouette Cameo, cardstock, Stampabilities Ink, DCM Silver floss, Coats Thread, Signo Uniball White Gel Pen, Brother Sewing Machine, pop dots.

Here you can see those fun little enamel shapes.  There are so many things you can do with these.  They really added a fun element to my photos.

These enamel hearts are so tiny and adorable.  I added them to the sides on my photo cluster to add some fun details on the black and white striped paper.  I love creating layers, so I used several patterned papers in various colors & patterns to do that.  I also wanted to add some silver shine and glitter elements, so I layered in a lot of silver thread.

Here you can see more enamel shapes.  These little black arrows are from the Black & Grays Necessities collection.  I also dug into last year’s Record It! collection for this awesome silver Happy die cut.  Perfect for a New Year’s layout!

I hope this inspires you in some way to pull out your enamel shapes and create something fun with them.  Think of this idea the next time you have a photo with extra white space in it.  I know a lot of the time I’ll crop out excess space before I print the photos, but sometimes you can jazz up that extra space with ideas like this. 

Thanks for stopping by, and have a Happy 2015!

 

 

 

Anatomy of a Double Page Layout | December 2014

Hello everyone! This is Shelly here today to share with you this month’s double page layout.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Last week, I shared a few Project LifeⓇ  layouts documenting Christmas for my son’s album HERE. Today, I am here to share how I finished off the Christmas season documenting. With his album already in progress, I had two single 12x12 open canvases to fill up before and after all of those pockets. We have lots going on before and after the actual Christmas holiday so, I decided to document those pre-Christmas and post-Christmas events.

Supplies: Sleigh Bells Ring: “Reindeer” Paper, “Noel” Paper, “Christmas Tartan” Paper, “Branches” Paper, “Christmas Confetti” Paper, Gift Label Stickers, Designer Brads, Mixed Bag Diecut  Pieces, Decorative Tags; Joyous: “Noel” Paper, “North Pole” Paper; Just Sayin’: “Garden Party” Paper.

As with all my other pages, I pulled out my favorite pictures that I wanted to tell my story. My sketch came together after choosing my favorites. With any work in progress, this was not set in stone. You will see how I changed and modified my plan as everything started to take shape on my table.

As you can see, once I had my pictures in place. I played with my initial plan just a touch. I wasn’t falling in love with the very linear look that was initially happening. That is one thing I love about sketches. They can always be changed to make them work for what you need.

I also wanted each side of the layout to stand on its own. I kept a title and a little bit of journaling to explain each picture.

When it came to the title, I pulled out my die-cut machine. I love the gold stripe patterned paper from the Just Sayin’ Collection. AND it is such a bonus that the gold is glazed, so no mess! I trimmed a piece off and ran it through my die-cut machine.

I layered a few random letters with the red gingham that I used on the right side.

As for the papers, I kept mostly with the same patterns I used in the Project Life pages. I did however choose to add in that lovely blue with stars pattern from Joyous Collection. I liked how it added just a touch of non-traditional Christmas color to these pictures.

For the title on the second half of the layout, I did a flip-flop reverse. After finding the “Christmas” die-cut in the Mixed Bag, it made creating this title easy.

Once I had the pictures and title in place, I found that there was just too much open space on the blue pattern. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that space at first, but after seeing the big circle Decorative Tags and the bell from the Mixed Bag, I thought they would make cute ornaments to hang. I just love it when things fall into place sometimes.

Again, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season of celebrations! Thank you for stopping by, and I hope I have inspired you to document all of those other events that tie into your Christmas fun.

Shelly

Mix and Match with Karen | December 2014

This is Karen, back with another Mix and Match for the month of December. If you're anything like me, December is a very busy month for you, too. Between work and the holidays and working on my December
Daily, I rarely find time to do anything else during this time of year.

However, this time of year is also a very reflective time for me. I like to look back and the year I'm saying goodbye to and look forward to the year I'm welcoming. I like to come up with my word of the year and some
specific projects and goals for the year. And another tradition I started last year is to think about my desired feelings for the year.

This is how I want to be feeling throughout the year. Here, you can see my layout on this from last year.

So, instead of doing nothing, I wanted to challenge myself to see how quickly I could make a layout. I wrote my journaling, which was the important part for reflection. I grabbed a recent photo of myself, which was a core goal for 2014 (get in the photos more) and then I sat down at my desk.

I put the photo down somewhere on the page that felt pleasing to me. Then I took out all the My Mind's Eye tape that I love and makes me happy and just put it down on my page line by line. I let it seep into my other page a small amount to create the feeling of connectedness between the two pages.

I added one big 2015 and spelled "here i come" in little alphas and stitched all around my two pages. And I was done:



I know it looks simple but it also makes me really, really happy.

See, I even look happy in the photo:



You can read the full journaling here.

I like playing with product as much as the next scrapbooker and sometimes I love tinkering with my pages forever or coming up with something creative. And then, other times, I love being able to create a page that makes me happy in minutes.

It's good to have both in my box of tricks.

If you've got some tricks to make super-fast pages, I'd love to see them!

From our Family to Yours

Merry Christmas, MME friends!!  Lea here today, hoping that this post finds you enjoying every moment of this beautiful holiday! 

Today my cards are for you, our valued customers & readers, whom we treasure & appreciate so much every single day!  From our home here to your homes all over the world...we send the utmost sincere thanks & happy holiday wishes to you & yours. 

Supplies: Joyous: 12x12 "Tinsel" paper, Gift Label Stickers, Alpha & Word Sticker Sheets, Decorative Brads, Gems; Other: red cardstock, flowers, sentiment stamps, brown ink.


I've used the Joyous collection for my cards today!  I didn't want the season to pass by without using some of the amazing sentiments from the Alpha & Word Sticker Sheets...so I just used all of them.  Between both cards, not one sentiment sticker was wasted & it helped pass along our wishes to you!!

For the first card, the entire background is a block of the sentiment strip stickers adhered to a red card base.  After that, I layered a doily & circle sticker to the front.  After stamping part of the sentiment to an oatmeal cardstock strip, I finished by layering it with a brad & some flowers to the circle sticker.  I then accented with a few jewels as a final touch.

For the second card, I didn't have as many sticker sentiment strips as the first one, so I created a square block with the rest I had left.  I layered that block with a glittered chevron paper block to the front of a red card base.  I folded a doily in half, then added it to the front with another circle sticker.  I stamped the rest of the sentiment to an oatmeal paper strip, then adhered it to the circle sticker with flowers to finish.

Thank you so much for checking out my Christmas cards today, and I hope that you have an enjoyable rest of your holiday!  I will be back in the New Year with some more projects featuring the amazing My Mind's Eye product!  See you then!!

Lea

 

Collection Spotlight | Sleigh Bells Ring

Hey there, and Merry Christmas Eve! 

Missy here.  I have a festive layout to share with you all today featuring the amazing Sleigh Bells Ring collection.  I love that it has traditional colors mixed with woodgrain and deer.  I knew right away that I wanted to incorporate a deer onto this page because of the fun photos of my daughter wearing antlers. 

I began with the wood grain paper “Reindeer” and added some gesso to the background.  I then took a Crafter’s Workshop stencil and smudged more gesso through it with my fingers.  An interesting thing happened at this point.  Apparently I didn’t wash my stencil the last time I used it, and there was some green ink on it. 

The green smudged onto my page with the gesso, and I’ve never been happier with a mistake!  I love how it gave a green tint to the background pattern.  Sometimes a big OOPS moment turns out to be a great thing!

Supplies: Sleigh Bells Ring – “Reindeer” Paper, “Christmas Tradition” Paper, “Reindeer Names” Paper, “Joy” Paper, Alpha & Word Stickers, Wood Dots, Enamel Shapes, Mixed Bag, 6x6 Paper Pad, Treat Bags, Decorative Frames, Decorative Tapes, Decorative Brads; Decorative Tape Sets – Pink & Charcoal; Necessities – Metallics Decorative Tape; Other – Liquitex Gesso, Crafter’s Workshop stencil, vellum, Thickers, Silhouette Cameo, cardstock, Heidi Swapp Color Shine, Coats Thread, Brother Sewing Machine, Black Sharpie Pen

I combined one of the Chipboard Frames and Treat Bags as part of my layering.  I also mixed in some vellum.  I think using several different types of products to layer really makes your layout stand out.  It helps create lots of depth and interest, and it also gives you room to tuck little pieces underneath, like thread and brads.

The decorative tape in this collection is just adorable.  My favorite is the roll of reindeer names!  It’s perfect for any Christmas layout…especially ones with reindeer on it.  I used some gold thread to stitch through the tape.  I hand cut the deer from one of the papers in the 6x6 paper pad.  I also tucked in a vellum circle die cut I created in my Silhouette software.  Again, this is great for layering.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the gold trend.  I know I’ll never get over this gorgeous sparkly gold glitter tape from the Necessities line.  Just a little bit here and there really makes a huge difference.  I layered a little strip under my title and then stitched over it.  I added in a row of the wooden dots, which are really fun to use.  Lastly, I cut tiny pieces of pop dots to raise my title up.  This is a great way to add more depth to your layout.

I hope this has given you an idea or two on how you can use this fun Christmas collection.  The wood grain elements included in it are just awesome and really make it unique.  I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and thanks for stopping by!

 

Project LifeⓇ with Shelly | December 2014

Hello everyone! This is Shelly with some Project Life inspiration. With Christmas just around the corner, I thought I would share some Christmas inspiration Project Life style.

Let’s face it. We all take hundreds of pictures around the holidays. At least  I do! Each one containing lots and lots of action and colors, between that and the sheer number of photos, I get over whelmed. I tend to push documenting this festive holiday season all together. BUT… In came the invention of pocket page protectors. I discovered these fun things back in 2007 with the simple (6) 6x4 slots. Now, we have so many fun options to play with to make any picture work for our needs.

Supplies: Sleigh Bells Ring: 6x6 Designer Paper Pad, Gift Label Stickers, Alpha & Word Sticker Sheets, Mixed Bag, Enamel Shapes; Jubilee: Mint Julep “Live it Up” Transparent Frames; Other: Becky Higgins Design A & G page protectors, Bohemian Typewriter Font

When it comes to Christmas photos, there are a lot of things happening in each one of them, so I really like to stick with simplicity.  I want to let my pictures shine and tell the story. I chose just a few of the prints from the 6x6 pad that were calling to me.

I trimmed down the deer paper and added the banner sticker. I highlighted my favorite photo of my kids using the Jubilee Mint Julep Transparent Frames in gold. They were the perfect pairing with the Sleigh Bells Ring Collection. They don’t photograph well, but the look good in person! The picture shows just as bright as the others on this layout.

Have I professed my love for stripes lately? I have fallen into the striped paper trap lately with my pocket pages. I love that you can trim a piece down to 4x6, add some journaling, yet still look “fancy” in my eyes. They look like a pretty filler card, but serve a purpose.

I have wanted to incorporate a see-through pocket into my pages, but they never seem to make the cut. I always have too much journaling and pictures to use them. When putting together these pocket pages, I actually added an extra page protector to include a touch more instead of trying to cram everything in. I am so happy that I did, this gave me the extra fun space to be creative with.

This is actually the backside of the previous page. Like I said, I kept things VERY simple by repeating elements. I really love how cohesive it is.

To really make everything come together, I patched a few journaling cards all at once by trimming down the light wood grain paper to 3x4 and layering a strip of the plaid pattern. Those word phrases were the perfect little extra touch to bring them all together.

This spread was for my son’s album. I opted for the pockets for his Christmas memories, but of course with using pockets comes the challenge of what to do with the empty 12x12 spaces before and after these pockets when adding them to an existing album. I will be tackling this next week with my Anatomy of a Double Page Layout series.

Thank you for stopping by today, and I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas!

Shelly

Easy to Make Holiday Shaker Cards

Happy Holidays to all of you. This is Tonya here with you today. I can’t believe that Christmas is this week, can you?!  Today I have a trio of shaker cards to share with you. The great part about these is that these are “easy to make” shaker cards. Yep, that’s right with the help of the My Mind’s Eye chipboard frames, available in the Sleigh Bells Ring collection, some of the work has already been done for you! 

 

This next picture shows how these were assembled.

 

I simply adhered a piece of transparency on the backside of the frames, then added a layer of foam tape around the edges of the window, poured in some glitter and sequins. Lastly, I covered it all with the patterned paper that I wanted to show through the front side of the window.

 

Then I just adhered them all to card fronts and embellished away!

 

Supplies: Sleigh Bells Ring- Chipboard frames, Decorative Brads, 6x6 Decorative Paper Pad, Enamel Shapes, Mixed Bag Joyous- Joy Paper

 

For this card I added some glitter to the cardinal to help him stand out against the background paper.

 

Supplies: Sleigh Bells Ring- Chipboard Frames, Decorative brads, 6x6 Decorative paper Pad, Enamel Shapes, Mixed Bag, Decorative Tapes

 

For this next card I used the banner pieces that are in the mixed bag. I turned them upside down to make trees out of them and then topped each one with an enamel star.

 

Supplies: Sleigh Bells Ring- Chipboard Frames, Decorative brads, 6x6 Decorative paper Pad, Enamel Shapes, Mixed Bag, Decorative Tapes

 

 

These really were so simple to make. The chipboard frames give you the perfect base to begin making your own interactive cards.

 

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!!

 

Tonya

Wall Art Trio

Hi!  Tina here today with my final Design Team project for My Mind's Eye.  I have been so lucky to be able to share my passion for creating with y'all and being on the MME team was a dream come true.  I will still be around, so I will see you in cyber-land!

  Supplies:Jubilee-Tangerine:Adventure Flair, Awesome Mixed Bag, Fantastic 12x12 Chipboard Sheet;Other:Burlap Canvas, Michaels, Adhesive: Tombow (liquid), Scortape, Ink: Distress Ink

For my final project, I thought I share a super easy and super fun wall decor project.  It is no surprise that I LOVE MME flair and I wanted to create one more project using this fantastic product. 

 

This project was so easy to create, you could create multiples for a great gift idea.  Using small burlap canvases, I layered pieces of chipboard and mixed bag die cuts.  I topped each one off with a piece of flair. 

Note:  I removed the pin from the back of each flair so it would lay flat against my embellishments.  Using a simple wire cutter, it can be removed easily.

I adhered the 3 smaller canvases to a larger burlap canvas.  To finish the look, I added some Distress Ink to the edges of each canvas.  Voila!  Done!

Thank you for stopping by!  Big hugs to everyone!

Tina

Holiday Tags

Hi everyone Laurel here.  I love making tags (I don’t always use them, but I love to make them !)

 

Having handmade tags to attach to a gift just gives a gift that special touch.  But don’t stop there.  I like to add them to my cards and scrapbook pages too! 

 

Supplies:  Sleigh Bells ring: 6 X 6 pad;  Chipboard Frames; Cardstock Tags; Mixed Bag

 

Having tags on hand is just a good idea. 

 

 

I used the Sleigh Bells Ring collection as I love the warm homey feel of it.  The check, plaid and touch of black... sigh!

 

As always, I layered them up, adding bits and pieces here and there.  A bit of a challenge on such a small area, but I like a good challenge.

 

 

I have added these tags to my tag drawer, an upcycled sewing machine desk drawer, and they are currently on display in my home. 

 

 

Laurel