DeLiCiOuS Recipe Box or Photo Box

I put a new recipe box on Etsy today. This one has more of a French feeling, and is absolutement delicious. www.scrapbooklab.etsy.com

This gorgeous 4 x 6 recipe box will look amazing on your kitchen counter as a work of art, and a functional place to store your favorite recipes!

OR

If you’re not into cooking. Use this recipe box as a PHOTO BOX, storing your most delicious photos inside.

Also: The recipe box comes with 6 make ahead meal recipes from my upcoming book Lazy Day Gourmet, including: Moo Noodle Pie, Sunny Sarasota Chops, Heavenly Chicken and Dumplings, The Everything Tastes Better in a Puff Pastry Fish Biscuit Recipe, and Jive Turkey.

This is the perfect gift for the holidays, or as a way to pamper YOURSELF.

Frame Your Scrapbook!

As a Scrapbook Evangalist, one of my passions is finding new ways to present scrapbook layouts as valid works of art. And as I was decorating my new house, I decided to take that concept and create a scrapbook gallery in the circulation hall. I wanted to make the scrapbook layouts blend in architecturally with the rest of the elements in our rambler cottage style house.

So, I went to my local Michael’s, and found unfinished shadow box style memory frames, and got to work creating my gallery. I painted the inside panels black to create depth, and because Black is the New Black, as I have discussed before! And then I painted the frames white, using the same Super Hide white that all of the trim and baseboards are painted throughout the house.

Once the frames were dry and ready, I mounted a piece of store bought 12 x 12 scrapbook paper into each frame. I used the same background paper in each frame to give the gallery a consistent feel. And then I took some of my favorite digital scrapbook layouts, and had them printed at 11 x 11 at a local Kinko’s type print shop. If you have your digital layouts printed at your local print shop, ask them to use a cardstock, and to print it on a Fiery or better printer. I prefer non-glossy. But that’s a personal choice. The prints you’ll get will look darker than they do on your computer monitor, so choose layouts that naturally have high contrast to print at a local printer. If you want prints that look EXACTLY like your layouts on your screen, then order from a PHOTO printer, such as Printroom.com.

I cut the 11 x 11 layouts so that there were no white borders, and then mounted them into the memory frames on top of the 12 x 12 background paper. Then, I measured, and hung the frames on the wall, gallery style.

I think it looks great, and it was an easy and inexpensive way to instantly increase my art collection!

Cookie Recipe Box- Scrapbook Style!

This is further experimentation into creating fun and interesting recipe boxes of different shapes and sizes with a scrapbooking flair. You’ll notice that my ribbon concept EXPLODED. I kinda like it!  The recipe box comes with a set of cookie recipe cards, including different cookie recipes for holidays throughout the year.  Will be available on etsy in a few days.

Scrapbook Recipe Box & Recipe Cards

I love projects that can easily and successfully combine digital and paper scrapbook techniques. While my recipe cards are all being designed digitally, I have decided to package them in a nice paper scrapping medium, and am creating recipe boxes. It’s been challenging trying to work on them with a sick toddler in the house, but Beckett went back to school today, so I’m FREE… to create, that is.

Holy Bok Bok, Batman! Recipe Cards!

I’ve fleshed out a recipe card concept, and am moving full steam ahead in production. I’ll be offering at least 3 sets of recipe card with 5 recipes each, packaged for holiday gift giving goodness. One set will definitely be vegetarian. All will be delicious. Complete sets, packages and ready for shipping will be ready around October 1st. You’ll be able to buy them at http://www.scrapbooklab.etsy.com. They will also be available during the 3WA Craft Fair in late October/early November.

Black is the New Black

With all of the doodling, handwriting, and inking going on in the scrapbook world right now, I’m happy to report that Black is the New Black! I have found myself jumping aboard, and embracing the style with much enthusiasm. When my grandchildren look back at my 2006 scrapbook, they’ll refer to it as “Grandamme’s Dark Ages”.

Last year, I went through my “Pink Period”, and perhaps next year will be “The Year of the Earth Tone”. But for now, I’m cranking up the AC/DC and freestylin’ with the Sharpie. I outlined every single damn element in the K & Company mini book in black, and today as I was working on my new upcoming collections for autumn, I found myself tuning the Lightness on my Hue/Saturation dial down to nearly nothing.

If these layouts get any darker, we’ll have to bust out the black light, and call it a party!

How have you been using black in your layouts or designs these days?

Wayang Golek

Now Taking Holiday Orders- Custom Scrapbooks

I am currently taking orders for custom scrapbooks for the Christmas season. Give your friends and family a completely unique gift this holiday season! All you have to do is send over digital photos, and I will create a completley unique scrapbook, complete with journaling!

Click here to see samples of my scrapbook layouts!

As your project is being built, you will be able to view the progress of your pages, make comments, give feedback, and watch as your completely custom scrapbook is put together. Your complete scrapbook will be shipped to your door within 2-4 weeks of your order.

A 25% deposit is required upfront, and the remainder will be collected upon your final approval, and before shipping. Shipping costs will be added to the final billing. PayPal only, please. If you cannot pay via PayPal, please e-mail me to arrange a money order payment.

ORDER NOW! Since each scrapbook is completely custom, I will stop taking orders sometime in October.

The following packages are currently available for Christmas 2006:

12 x 12 Complete Custom Scrapbook – Includes hard cover top loading scrapbook, 10 custom designed scrapbook layouts, and professional studio quality photo prints of your 10 pages. This is a full sized scrapbook, and would make the ultimate new mom or grandparent’s Christmas gift. The entire scrapbook will be shipped to you, fully assembled and ready to give as a gift or to proudly display in your home.

The Buy Now button below will charge you $75 for the deposit, and place your order.

Price: $300 + shipping.
Additional Copies of Scrapbook: $70 + shipping

To order: Click here
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8 x 8 Complete Custom Scrapbook- Includes a hard cover top loading scrapbook (size 8″ x 8″), 10 custom designed scrapbook layouts, and professional studio quality photo prints of your 10 pages. This is a smaller sized scrapbook, around the size of an oversized mousepad, and is just as charming as the full size option. The entire scrapbook will be shipped to you, fully assembled and ready to go!

The Buy Now button will charge you $50 for the deposit, and place your order.

Price: $200 + shipping.
Additional Copies of Scrapbook: $50 + shipping

To order: Click here
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Custom Mini Book- The charming mini book is a paper scrapbook, which uses 6-8 photos, and usually revolves around a theme or event. It is a perfect and affordable gift! Give one to your best friend with photos of your life together. Give one to your lover as a way to say, “I love you.” Make one to have as a keepsake of your baby’s first birthday. The possibilities are endless. The mini book includes a small 5 x 5 ish scrapbook, all paper elements, stickers, ribbons, embellishments, etc, and prints of your photos for use in the book. This is my only paper scrapbook option! Pick this one if you’ve just GOT to have that handmade look! See example mini book here.

Price: $85* + shipping.
*Price may vary, depending on the materials you choose. But this is a very close estimate.

To order: Click here
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If you have any questions, or would like to discuss your project with me personally, please e-mail beth at this domain, or login to chat with me via Instant Messenger screenname bedaberry. Thanks! And I look forward to working with you!

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!

K & Company Mini Book Finale

Total time to complete the Mini Book: Right around 4 hours.  Keep in mind that I am primarily a digital scrapper, so a well seasoned paper scrapper might be able to do it in less time.

The mini book is complete, and has been wrapped with an orange ribbon, and is ready to be delivered to my best friend, Evita. I spent a total of around 4 hours, and less than $20 to create this little book, Advice For Lovers.

Here are the final two layouts, and a photo of the finished cover.

Be Silly. Be Happy. Click to enlarge.

And share your secret with fools like us. Click to enlarge

 I really only ran into one snag in the Mini Book & The 25 cent glitter glue pen project.  The front and back covers of the book (including the inside) is slick coated, so the beautiful glue pen I had done on the inside cover wound up flaking off into perfect little circles on my desk the first time I opened the book up to give it a final inspection.  

The glitter glue pen likes good old cardstock or non-slick paper.  Note to self.

Technique: I also decided that the elements in general looked flat and didn’t POP as much as I wanted them to, so I used a regular felt tip pen, and outlined almost everything in the mini book. And I created some handwritten doodles to give it a more personal touch, and to fill in some of the blank spaces in the layout.

Overall, I would give the products I used in this mini book 4 Stars- Loved it!  I especially liked the 3D tags that were created to fit neatly on the tabs of the book.  And the cool Brenda Walton 3D flower and butterfly embellishments wound up being my favorite pieces in the whole project to work with.

Products Used: 
K & Company Mini Book- Meadow
Sharon Soneff Alpha Stickers- Sonnet

Kelly Panacci- Cardstock Flowered Sticker Alphas

Brenda Walton- Emma Collection Flower and Butterfly Stickers.

K & Company Mini Book Continued

I continued to torture the glitter glue pen today, and forged ahead with the creation of the K & Company Mini Book. I have to say that after this experience, I am a big fan of the mini book, and let me tell you why.

First of all, I’ve always felt like paper scrapbooking limited my style. The alphabet sets were always slightly or extremely smaller than I would have liked, and having done a lot of digital scrapbooking, I am extremely spoiled by being able to resize letters to their proper HUGE status in my layouts. I strongly use what I call my Wonky Letters (TM) style, which consists of me taking gigantic letters, and aligning them on my layouts like a set of crooked teeth. “First letter tilts to the left, next letter tilts to the right, third letter tilts to the left and drops down an eigth of an inch…”, etc. My Wonky Letters (TM) style works wonders in the mini book format. This was a pleasant surprise.

Creating a mini book has also forced me to do something that I’ve always been terrified to do. I have been stretched creatively, and forced to cut photographs with scissors. Cutting up my photographs was probably the number one barrier of entry between me and the wonderful world of scrapbooking, and definitely the reason I chose to dive into digital instead of paper scrapping. When you’re creating a digital scrapbook, you simply crop, resize, and save the original version of your photo on a nice hard drive that gets back up nightly to an external back up drive. Cutting a photo? It’s like asking me to cut the fingernails of a two day old baby. What if I screw up? Somebody might get seriously injured! I might chop off an arm, or a head!

I had to throw caution to the wind and cut those photos because they were too big to fit on the mini book format. I feel like I’ve been liberated! I even cut one of the pictures in HALF, and used it in the center of a two page layout. It was like walking on the moon!

Something that I have noticed about the mini book is that my pages are warping. I am not sure if it is the glue stick I’m using, or because the paper is thicker than normal, but the pages are buckling inside. It must be the glue stick. I’m using Scotch Scrapbooker’s glue with 2 Way Applicator. Fancy, I know! I don’t think I’ll be able to do my normal “Three Days with Shakespeare” scrapbook pressing routine where I place the book underneath my college edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare for 3 days, in which anything under its crusing weight comes out flatter than a flapjack. I have a good many 3D elements in the book. But I’ll give The Bard a shot, and see if it flattens up before I give it away on Friday.

If you have any advice for a poor warped Scrapbook Evangalist, please post a comment. I like my scrapbooks a little shabby, a little junky, a little bit rock and roll. I’ve been told that I have a tendency to pile it on a little thick… but never in reference to a scrapbook!

K & Company Mini Book & The 25 Cent Glitter Pen

Today I started a K & Company Mini Book. I combined it with a set of Brenda Walton 3 dimensional flower stickers, and various alpha packs. You know I can’t resist mixing it up. While I was out shopping today for a dinner party, I wound up wandering down the craft aisle at Target. Luckily, Target’s craft aisle leaves a lot to be desired, so I was not tempted to empty the entire contents of the aisle into my shopping cart. But I did manage to walk out with a couple of 25 cent glitter glue pens.

I’ve never experimented with the glitter glue pen. Tonight all of that changed. The K & Company mini scrapbook kit comes with a variety of lovely papers, alphabets, tags, stickers, and other scrapbook goodness. It’s turned out to be a perfect marriage with my 25 cent glitter glue pen.

I started out using the glitter glue pen to create simple curved lines off of the Brenda Walton flower stickers. Behold the glitter glue pen madness that soon took over my pages. I think I have found a new signature scrapbook supply that screams Beth Berry, Scrapbook Evangalist!

Enjoy. You’ve been warned. Glitter glue at your own risk.

Click image to see all sizes.