Beach Bliss mini album

Hi all,

When I saw that this month's challenge at LOTV was "pretty papers", I knew immediately what I wanted to do. After all, there are few things that show off papers as well as a mini album, no?

Deciding on which papers to use was pretty easy too. While the Bear necessities pad is my favourite, it has been discontinued, so I'm hoarding what I have left for all I'm worth, lol.
Thus, my next favourite right now (it does change with my mood, the seasons and the direction of the wind, etc.), which so happens to be the Beach Bliss pad. I just adore the blue and kraft colour combo!

So I grabbed me a chipboard album and started by inking the edges with Brushed Corduroy Distress ink, before cutting papers from the pad and inking them too and sticking them to the chipboard pages.
Out came kraft card, a whole lot of flowers, punches, alphabet dies (I finally have me one!) lace, gems and a charm to produce this:

Page one and two

Page one has a set of cascading photo mats and a little journalling card (also from LOTV).

As you can see, the photo mats on the left fold down to show the ones behind (excuse the chipped nail varnish!)

On page two I added a belly band with two photo mats tucked behind it and the word "Smile" die-cut from the same papers.

Page 3 and 4

On page three I added a simple photo corner and tucked a large tag/photo mat into it. I embellished with some scrunched up seam binding (from The Ribbon Girl) to add a little extra interest.

Page 4 also has a large tag/photo mat, complete with seam binding, but this time I made a more fancy pocket for it. I also added another journalling tag and some gems.

Page 5 and 6

Page 5 and 6 are different, in that they each open up to another page - i.e room for some lovely full-size pictures. Like this:

Page 5 has a simple belly band with photo mat on top of the flap, embellished with some more flowers.

And page 6 was given the same treatment.

And finally, I left the back blank, except for the same punched borders as the front for continuity.

And there it is!

As you can see, using papers from the same pad really does help give it a uniform look, and I helped that along even further by inking everything I could with the Brushed Corduroy ink before sticking it in. I think it really does help pull the whole look together.

This was soooooo much fun to do. to be honest, I was a little sad when it was done, so I may have to do another very soon!

Naturally I'm entering this into the LOTV challenge.

And while I'm on the subject of LOTV... I was in the shop on Saturday, and it totally made my year  to see that the card I made for their 10th birthday was on display on one of the shelves!! I'm talking serious happy dance moment here, lol.

Well, that's it from me for today, hope you're all getting through your Mondays ok!

Sammy-x