Random Memory Pages

I recently decided that I was going to start a new kind of page to go with my chronological scrapbooks. These pages are called "Random Memory" pages. Random Memory pages highlight trends, sight/sounds/smells, incidents, and favorite experiences from all times of my life. They all have the same layout, and each page has lots of journaling and a picture or 2 if I have one. With a layout already in mind, I can spend more time recording my experience, and less time trying to create a cool page for each one. I've only made a few of these pages, but I am pleased with the idea and think it will help me to express myself more in my scrapbooks.
Now I keep index cards or a notebook in my purse wherever I go. If I think of an idea for a random memory page, I can record it right away. I came up with lots of ideas at my cousin's graduation ceremony from nursing school...I just need to get scrappin'!

My Mini Masterpiece

I decided that after all the quilling I've done recently, I ought to have one project for myself. This is my 5 x 7 shadow box project, which I finished in June.
There a lot of roses in this, and even more leaves! I branched out and quilled a rectangle box for the rose garden, instead of making a pot. I made the box by wrapping brown quilling strips around a rectangle Lego.
The only things not made of paper in this are the 2 brown shelves (made from a dowel and stained a walnut color) and the bird cage, which is a Jolee's Design 3-D sticker. I took out the sticker bird and put a quilled one in its place! I also made the girl's necklace from white wire and a diamond star sticker.
I am proud to have something I quilled on display in my own house ;) I call it my mini masterpiece.

Display Case Project

These are the display case scenes I came up with for my niece, my mom and my girls. I learned how to make little tulips, fringed flowers and miniature rose bushes. I love the roses the most. They are intricate and lots of work, but SO pretty. In order to have sturdy stems to hold up the rosebuds, I had to use toothpicks wrapped in green paper strips.

I also figured out how to make some new birds! Mom and I love cardinals, so I made up my cardinals based on real life photos of the birds. Quilling is a lot of work, but I love the finished product. Each quilled piece is glued to the floor of the display case. There is a clear cover that sits on top, since it is actually made to show off and protect baseballs. These display cases are perfect for keeping the quilling dust-free and safe.

This is the one I gave to my daughter, Jenna

This is the one I gave my Mom. It has a little stool instead of a bird bath and yellow roses since they are her favorite!

My niece got this one. I love the little blue flowers in the center.

3-D Girly-Girls

My mom and my niece, Taylor, came from California in July to visit us in Connecticut. I thought it might be fun to present Taylor with her own "thanks for coming gift" exclusively made by Aunt Tiffany. So I started quilling like crazy in May. Over the course of the next 2 months, I came up with several quilled girls as part of the present. Yes, part of the present.
I let mom, Taylor and my daughters choose the ones they wanted, since only my mom has any of my quilling samples. Here is what I came up with. Personally, I think they are darling. Without interruption, these little girls would take about 3 hours to make. In my world, they take a whole day to create because I have 5 children. They are about 2-2.5 inches tall. What do you think?

This was my 12 year-old's choice. She LOVES green!

Taylor chose the purple girl and my mom picked the pink one

This one I gave to my mother-in-law a few days ago

This one is mine :)

My 10 year-old decided to learn to make her own girl. She did a great job.

Quilled Wall Hanging

A few years ago I was given a lovely 3-D quilled project in an 8 x 10 shadow box. My friend Julie didn't make it this, but when she heard I loved quilling, she let me have this wall hanging. Basically, it served as inspiration for my first big project.






Here is what I came up with as a Christmas gift for my mom. I used an 8 x 8 black shadow box. I made the windows and shelf from small dowels which I cut, sanded and painted. The rest of the project was made with paper, pins and glue.
I came up with all of the birds and insects. They are my favorite parts of the design. My mom loves hummingbirds, so I knew that I needed one of those, complete with a hummingbird feeder. The bird bath is my other favorite part. The water in the bird bath is tacky glue and blue food coloring mixed together. I like how it turned out. It took an entire month to make, whenever I had a chance to sit down and do it. It was hard to give away after all of that work, but at least I've got pictures, and I can visit it whenever I'm in California.

Quilled Bride and Groom

I think this is the most adorable little married couple that paper can make! I couldn't resist buying this kit called Bride and Groom Miniature Kit from Quilled Creations. These 3-D quilled cuties are designed to be cake toppers, but please never put them directly onto the frosting! They are a little over 2 inches tall. They are also extremely intricate and their miniscule pieces can be very hard to hold onto before they are all glued together!

I loved making them so much (once I figured out how) that I made a set of them for my mom and some friends of mine who were engaged. My mom watched me make her bride and groom, but my engaged friends didn't realize for a few days that they were made exclusively out of paper, vellum and glue. I enjoy watching people's faces when they see my bride and groom up close. Most people are quite impressed. I like showing them off and I also like the compliments that follow :)

My 1st 3-D Quilling Project

After a few years of shopping at Quilled Creations online, I found that there was a 3-D Quilling kit for sale. I just HAD to try it! Even though this kind of quilling was never going to go onto a scrapbook layout, I liked quilling so much that I bought the kit. This little flower pot is one of the projects from Alli's "Miniatures 101" kit, and my very first attempt at 3-D Quilling. So cute!

Tiff's Scrapbook Philosophies

My last post got me thinking that if I'm going to have a scrapbook blog, perhaps I should let readers know how I scrapbook, what works for me, why I've stuck with it, and what I love about my hobby (actually it's more like an obsession :)

Here are some facts about how I scrapbook: I keep chronological scrapbooks, sizes 8.5 x 11 in 3-ring binders. My husband loves photography, so he takes most of the pictures and I do most of the scrappin. So far, I have 26 detailed scrapbooks of my life. Each of my children also has a scrapbook that I keep for them until they turn 10. (My kids can take over when they turn 10, although I still organize their memorabilia and keep their pictures in photo albums with labels and dates for every picture.) Two of my children are older than 10 now, so I consistently keep up on 4 scrapbooks- mine and my 3 youngest children.

I have decided to stick with 81/2 x 11 pages because all of my pages get scanned and organized in computer scrapbook folders and power point presentations. I burn them to DVDs and keep them in important document folders. I also have copies "out west" where my mom and mother-in-law live. That way, all pages I've made won't be lost forever if something happens to them.

I also have a "scrapbook corner" in my house next to the fireplace. I have tall skinny Billy shelves and white storage boxes from IKEA on all the shelves. My corner is in my living room and I sit facing the TV so that I can be with the family while I scrapbook (it wouldn't work if I wasn't.) I have to scrapbook whenever I get a spare minute, so my corner looks a bit cluttered 24/7. But...because my stuff is out, I don't waste much time having to take out and put away my supplies every time I sit down. My kids are finally old enough to know that they cannot enter the scrapbook corner, so I done away with the safes and locking boxes that I used to have. I am in my corner as often as possible, but my best scrapbooking time is in the evenings after my little ones are in bed.

I have stuck with scrapbooking because of the awesome tools, embellishments, and creativity involved in making each page. I love working with my hands. I also love collecting things. Scrapbooking definitely provides me with plenty of things to collect! I love the techniques, the magazines, the blogs and the scrapbook conferences too.

I think scrapbooking should be done your style and your way, or you will never stick with it. What works for one certainly doesn't for another. I also think that you should not be upset if every page isn't a magnificent masterpiece. Some pages are wonderful, others...aren't. But you will always be grateful that you made those pages. Your children and those of future generations will be grateful that you made those pages.

All in all, scrapbooking works with my life and is the perfect hobby for me. I don't waste time in front of the TV because I'm always making something. I can take scrapbooking with me when I go places. I am keeping a record of my family and our history. I have documented myself by recording how I feel and the many experiences of my life, so that others will know me through those books.

And scrapbooking even helps me to fulfill my philosophy that "my day isn't complete until I've purchased something" because I can get great scrapbook stuff for not much money to get my fix.

Thank goodness for Scrapbooking!

Scrapbooks Pages with Quilling

These are my favorite pages with quilling. Quilled pages certainly take quite a while to make, so I have to confess that there aren't very many in my scrapbook collection. I have a bunch of quilled designs ready to be used on pages though. (Like I said, I quill whenever I don't feel like scrapbooking!) I keep a few of the cutest and most intricate quilled designs as examples for quilling demonstrations.
The funniest thing about these pages is that most were made before I had my 4th and 5th children. I guess it's sad but true...I have less free time than I used to. It's also true that I really like 3-D quilling now too. 3-D quilling pictures are coming soon!

Layout and Tags featuring Beginning Quilling

I started quilling designs for pages not long after I learned how. Since scrapbooking is my main hobby, I tried to find techiniques that lend themselves to scrapbooking. Quilling is sturdy on pages and doesn't add a lot of bulk. I absolutely love how it looks. Quilling does take time, however! I have learned over the years that if I quill when I don't feel like scrapbooking, I can have designs ready when I need them later. Most of my quilled pieces here were designed by Ali Bartkowski of Quilled Creations. I am a big fan of hers!
These are really simple page layouts, but you gotta start somewhere!

2 of my all-time favorites

Here are two of my all-time favorite scrapbook pages. They both feature my son, Brock, who was a blue-eyed, chubby-cheeked, adorable baby. Whether it's the subject, or the colors, or the design of the pages that I love, they've at the top of my favorites list!
I made the "Baby Mine" page at a scrapbook store-sponsored crop I attended, and I entered it in the page contest there. It came in 2nd place. Both pages show off a technique called tearing. I love how tearing looks on scrapbook pages!

Mom's Mother's Day Scrapbook

I keep chronological scrapbooks for my kids and I, and don't often make gift scrapbooks. BUT... about 7 years into my scrapbooking endeavors, I decided to make an 8 x 8 album for my Mom for Mother's Day. I called it "15 Things I learned from you, Mom... When you didn't know I was watching."
I like how it turned out, but looking back on it, I would definitely put in better photos of myself :) You see, since then, my husband has taken up photography. We're a match made in heaven! He provides me with awesome pictures, and I scrapbook them! Great pictures really inspire great scrapbooking!
Here are a few of my favorite pages from the album... (notice the quilling on page #14!)

My Favorite Hobbies

Hello! My name is Tiffany and I am a craft-a-holic! My 2 main addictions are SCRAPBOOKING (a craft that brings memorabilia, photos and journaling together into a keepsake album) and QUILLING (the art of rolling strips of paper into shapes.) For the past 12 years, I have spent almost all of my spare time (and lots of time when I should have been doing other things) crafting.
I have always loved doing crafts, but I started scrapbooking "full-time" about 12 years ago when my first little girl was born. I decided early on that I wanted to document her life so that I'd remember her at every stage. Scrapbooking was my answer! I lived in Utah at the time, and awesome scrapbook stores were easy to find. One trip to Pebbles in my Pocket and I was hooked! I've been scrapbooking ever since, and my 5 children, husband and I have bookshelves full of scrapbooks documenting our lives.
I went to a craft show at the middle school close to my home in Michigan in 2003. That's where I met the lovely ladies from Quilled Creations. They were selling quilling supplies and demonstrating quilling. I bought their beginners kit and have been quilling ever since. At first I only used quilled designs to embellish my scrapbooks, but now I do a lot of 3-D quilling projects. I love the intricate designs in quilling! I seem to have the patience to make projects that take awhile.
This blog will showcase some of the projects and pages I've made over the years. I'd love to have your comments. Enjoy!