"30 and Beyond" Guest Book!

Okay...you know how a while ago I wrote a post about wanting to have a guest book for my 30th birthday party? (which is tomorrow!)  Mom gave me a half-size sketch book to use for it and I decorated the cover last night.  I spent the last few hours of my birthday having fun crafting!  Couldn't ask for a better end to the day! ;)

 Fold over the top and bottom

 Cut  the corners at approximately a 45 degree angle...

  ... and glue the flaps down.

 Then cut the side corners off at approximate 45 degree angles and glue down

I had written a little poem that I wanted to include on the inside cover...so I rubber stamped it on some kraft paper cardstock and glued it on with some paper button embellishments.

 30 and Beyond! ;)

30th Birthday Guest Book Idea

I've been brainstorming for ideas for my 30th birthday party.  Yes...I turn the big 3-0 on June 21st this year and have decided to have a big party at my house.

I've also been reading a creative/artful journaling book I got from the library.  One of the chapters talks about a "guest book" art journal. 

This has resulted in an idea that has been swimming around in my head for the past few days...I want to make a guest book for my party.  And not a typical guest book where people simply write in it...an artsy one where people can draw, paint, and collage in it (as well as write).  And my plan is for this guest book to not be solely for my birthday party, but my 30th birthday will be a starting point for it.  

My plan is for it to be similar to "The Book" my family wrote in at "camp" (aka: the house my mom's family owned in the Adirondacks)...that sadly burned down a few years ago.  I'm not sure why we called it "Camp"...since it was really a house and staying there was much more comfortable than camping.  It used to be a boarding house and had a lot of bedrooms.  So "Camp" was a lot more than a little cabin in the woods. 

After the fire, when we were picking through the charred rubble, seeing what we could salvage, my cousin found the book for my mom (Mom was the one who bought the book in the first place and left it at camp for people to write in).  It was a bit charred on the edges and waterlogged from the firefighters, but we could still read a lot of pages.

And as you can see, we didn't just write in it.  We drew, painted, doodled, and pasted things in.  There was a summer when my family (Mom, Dad, my brother, and me) would bring friends up with us almost every weekend.  And we would "make" our guests write in the book.  We would use the book to journal about what we did over the weekend, and also for lots of quotes and inside jokes that were created while at Camp. Mom's 2 older brothers, my cousins, and grandma would visit and write in the book as well.  

Anyway...

All this to say that I want to recreate my own version of  "the book" for my house.  My house isn't quite as much fun as Camp was (Lyndonville just can't compete with the Adirondacks!) but when my family and friends get together here, fun is definitely had...and we can write about it in a book just like we used to.

My idea for the "title" of this guest journal is "30 and Beyond"...since I am starting it at my 30th birthday party and will be using it beyond that.  I wish I had more pictures to share with you, but I haven't actually gotten a book or started decorating it yet.  I want to just get a sketchbook and decorate the cover. (I saw this idea using Washi Tape today)  Part of me would love to use a Smash* Book...I've been seeing them in the craft stores and have been wanting an excuse to buy one.



It's essentially a scrapbook for the lazy scrapbooker.  But DIYer part of me rebels at the idea of buying a pre-made book (have I mentioned I suffer from "ICanDoThat-itis"?).  But I like that the pages are made with pretty paper.  Oh what to do?...what to do?  There's a cool tutorial I found about making your own Smash inspired book, but I don't have the required binding equipment.  I may just stick with my original idea of using a plain sketchbook and just having all my scrapbooking stuff and art supplies on a table for people to use at the party.  I'm sure my crafty friends will have a ball with it!

My Early Christmas Gift...

So, my mom is awesome....but also kind of crazy!
She went shopping today (on Black Friday...~shudder~. I refused to go shopping today!). But she only went to JoAnne Fabrics and Michael's and said that it wasn't all that crazy. But she also got an awesome deal on a Cricut Personal Cutter at JoAnne's. The regular price is $199.99 (eek!), but today it was on sale for $74.88 (squeal!). So Mom bought me one as my Christmas gift, and not only could she not keep it a secret, she couldn't wait for me to open it! I don't even know why she bothered to wrap it!

So we had fun tonight playing with my new toy. (and for the scrapbooker, cardmaker, or papercrafter...it's a really fun toy!)

One of the cartridges has a special card-making feature on it.

Mom did say that if I was going to be in town for Christmas instead of in Ohio with my husband's family, she would have waited until Christmas to give it to me. (My husband and I alternate years that we spend the holidays with our families...if we spend Thanksgiving with my family, we'll spend Christmas with his. Next year we will do Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. It's a good system.) But on the other hand, it's not uncommon for my Mom to buy me something as a gift for Christmas or my birthday and not be able to wait to give it to me.

Scrapbooking & Digital Print Hint

I somehow got 20 free digital prints from Creative Memories last week, which when they arrived this week, sent me into a scrapbooking phase today.

It's surprising how many pages I can get done (not counting titles and journaling) when I get into a good scrapbooking phase. The pictures on the large pages are from when I had my hair appointment for my hairdresser and I to figure out what to do with my hair for my wedding. The smaller album is my "Anniversary Album", and the pictures are from our first anniversary. We went to Virginia to a Rennisance Festival, and then to Cleaveland where we went to the zoo and got to pet stingrays.

I also figured out a trick for getting more pictures for your money. I go into a picture editing program and place two pictures in a file and save those two pictures as one image. Then when you get your digital pics printed...voila`!...two pictures for the price of one. This also works well for scrapbookers if you want your pics smaller than the standard 6x4, but don't want to mess wth ordering a bunch of wallet sizes. Plus, not a whole lot of waste with cropping. This is what I did with the stingray pictures seen above.

Pretty sweet huh?