Jessica's Custom Creations: Mother's Day gift albums

It's almost Mother's Day! I love Mother's Day ... here in Northeast Connecticut, the flowers have started blooming, the world is becoming green again and the warm weather makes you want to actually spend time outdoors. It's the perfect setting for a holiday that celebrates motherhood - a time of life and beauty.

I love my mom - I really do. She is my best friend (besides hubbie dearest) and she is such an inspiration to me. I wanted to do something special to honor her, so I leaped at the chance to take part in Mouse, Paper, Scissors - Mom. I had taken a few classes at JessicaSprague.com - including the original Mouse, Paper, Scissors with Heidi Swapp and loved learning new hybrid techniques. This one was great because we would make a special gift for Mother's Day. Just the incentive to get something done and hopefully on time!

I was so inspired that I've finished three projects so far and am working on a fourth ... maybe a fifth ... Grandmas! I'll show you two in this post - hybrid albums!

I really like the way my original project turned out. I didn't finish it because I know it's for my mom and she'll be the most forgiving if it's late :) I'm still looking forward to adding pictures and embellishments.

Here it is:

The project used papers from Bo Bunny's Gabrielle line. I think they were beautiful and already had a distressed and stamped look about them. I did add a bit of my own, though.

The ruffle on the front is made from old book paper. I then painted over it with Chandelier Glam from Tattered Angels. That seals it, but also gives it some glitter and sparkle. I love the kind of flexible quality it adds.
Here is the first page. The whole album is shaped. Every other page is cut short, though for some unique embellishment.

Sandwiched between the shorter pages is another book page ruffle.

This page has tabs that I printed different words on. I also printed and cut out this butterfly embellishment.

I tried to add some interest to the back of the tabs ... but didn't quite get where I was trying to go. I chose to work with it even though I don't love it ...

This page has a pocket ...

That holds a mini file folder:

This is a spinner ... I printed out the words on the computer and hand-wrote a message around the edge. The large, fabric brad is from K&Co.

The back ...

And that's it for that one. I've got a plan for the inside, but haven't been able to execute it, yet. I hope to before Sunday!

I absolutely loved the idea and look of the album, so I decided to make another for my mother-in-law. Just to mix it up a bit, I chose to re-design the look. I used Danielle Young's new collab kit with Brine Designs, Passionflower.

Aren't the colors wonderful? I love them!

I'll walk you through some of the process I went through to use my digital kit in a hybrid way.

The first step is to probably design your album. I already knew the general shape and had a few ideas of which elements I wanted to have. I drew out a little map on a piece of paper of what I wanted to highlight ... a picture of my mother-in-law, a picture of her kids, the grandkids, etc ... then I designed a few of the pages, picked out the papers and printed the designs on cardstock. I actually had my printing done at Staples, but you could do it at home like I did for some of the embellishments. Here are my printouts.

The pages I trimmed, scored and folded as so:

and I glued together the bigger pieces and trimmed them to the shape.

I then started cutting out and assembling my embellishments.

Here are the tabs with a bit of the Chandelier Glam ...

My circle punch:

And my distress ink and tool ...

And this is one of my favorite elements - coordinating tissue paper! I printed it myself!!! You tape the tissue paper (I just did the top) to a piece of stiffer paper and run it through your printer! I used some papers from the Passionflower kit, but my printer decided to run out of blue ink right before hand, so you'll notice that the tissue paper is nowhere near the same color as the paper it's supposed to be (look at the folder in the top right and you'll definitely see the difference). However, it was a happy accident because that color of magenta was already an accent color in the kit and went beautifully!

Here is my workstation somewhere in the process. Notice the caffeinated beverage ...

I think it was just at the beginning of assembly ...

Here's the cover. I absolutely love it and don't want to give it away anymore!

You can see the custom tissue paper and a banner that I printed out along with a Prima flower, Making Memories pearl brad and two Prima butterflies.

Here's the spine:

You can see how I wrapped the paper around and scored it to make a spine.

The inside pages:

The first page has a picture of my mother-in-law and her husband. It's printed directly on the paper and using a digital frame along with some digital stamps behind it.

The banner is something I printed on a different sheet of paper, but out and attached to add dimension, though. I used pop dots on the left side and then glued the last two penants down so they go perfectly with the fold of the book.

It's not in these pictures (I was rushing to snap shots before the sun went down), but I went in afterward and wrote some words that describe her and some quotes that she likes and some of her favorite hobbies, etc. All the tags will be blank in the photos, but I filled them up.

This is a library pocket that I made by printing the paper with a double-sided design and filled with pockets and trimmed with tissue paper. The butterfly is from the last project, but matched nicely.

Notice the tabs ... I learned from the last book and thought to print a pattern on the other side before cutting them out. However, I neglected to think about the fact that the side they would be showing with was the exact same pattern. In a way it's cool, but it was completely un-intentional. I tried to break it up with some tissue paper.

This is the second page. Once again, the words, photo and frame were added to the digital paper and printed out all at once. A dimensional banner, flower, pearl brad and more tissue finish it off.

This third page is about the grandchildren. I listed her five kids and their children (her grandchildren) in the little circles. I created those circles by adding the frame to the digital paper and then masking a different paper into circles underneath the frame.

The library pocket features a patterned paper that I personally created using a plain orange/yellow paper from the Passionflower kit and then adding the digital flower stamp element on top of it before printing out.

This page has a pocket where I put three file folders. These folders are to hold photos or notes from the grandchildren. I really didn't have good photos of any besides my kids ... so I'll let her add her own!

This is the last page. My plan for this page is to let the kids or grandkids write personal notes or autograph it. It can be personal or not ... but it gives her the opportunity to enhance and add to the book. I added the stripe of different paper and the banner is digital this time instead of cut out and added on top.