Hi it's Ruth here on Release morning with a great project for using up all your odds and ends and leftover peices of patterned paper. This month I used everything that was left from my july kits, I literally only have alphabet stickers and a few brads etc left, but have used up the paper from my Main and Pocket Life kits and almost all the embellishments from both those and the embellishment kit in this fun and bright mini album for my niece.


I love to use mini albums as a quick and celebratory look at a recent happy event, since that is when I have a million photos in a short time span. This time it was for a fourth birthday party, with all the usual trappings of presents, cake and games.

I used an inexpensive clipboard from Daiso (a discount store that recently opened in a nearby shopping centre, but any clipboard would work fine). This one caught my eye because it was aqua and the orientation was horizontal instead of vertical, but I was planning on using a regulation masonite vertical one from officeworks before I found this beauty, and it would have worked great too. Lots of places have great clipboard for sale if you would something a bit pretty, like these cuties from typo.
I started this project by piling up all the paper I had remaining and triming some of the peices a bit smaller to make extra border peices for other pages, then I selected 6 sheets that would be the "pages" of this mini album and lay them out with a photo each.
Then I assigned the rest of the paper scraps to each page so I knew I wouldnt leave the later pages short by using them all for layering on the first few pages. I deliberately mixed up the sizes as I wanted the pages to peek around the edge of each other.
After building each page to a certain point I think planned out the journalling, adding in spare pocket journalling cards and a few bits of kraft cardstock as needed, I didnt write the journalling yet but made a plan for where it would go.
I was now up to the final stages, so I got out all my remaining embellishments and letters and put them in front of me, it was quite inspiring to see all the yummy goodies I could choose from that were in the July kits.
Next I put the pages in order next to me and worked through them one page at a time adding all the embellishments, titles and journalling from my pile of goodies plus my basic tools like scissors, pens etc.
Knowing that I have made several pages from these supplies already I gave myself permission to cut out images from journalling cards, add flair with abandon, I was not "saving" anything for something better, I was just going to enjoy adding anything in my pile that I felt inspired by.
I really find that giving myself permission to be free with the way I use items fuels my creativity and inspired me for future projects too, it helps me get a bit out of my box as I dont worry as much about wrecking something, since I will be fine with it not working, I have made enough from this kit that the rest is free for playing with.
I had a lot of papers with heart shapes missing from one of the layouts I made this month and just popped something behind them and let them be a recurring shape in my mini album. I love using hearts and I adore my niece so it worked for me.
You can see the letters from the frames mixed up to make new words, it meant leftover letters unused, but I love the words I made so it was worth it to me.

Good morning everyone!

Hope you are all having a lovely week. Today I'm here showing a layout that I made with a combination of the July kits - Day Trip, Road Trip & Scenic Route. After making a 4 page spread for my Week 26 Project Life with the PL kit, which you can see here, I didn't have too much left over - so I mixed all the kits in. I have LOVED working with these kits - the themes, the colours, everything suited my life surrounded by boys!

So onto the layout.

It all started with that lovely piece of vellum from SC. I think I need more! Then I just built it all up around that. I liked the grey paper - i thought it matched well with the trees in the photo - and the adventure theme of the kits was perfect for our day of exploring the mountains.

I decided to challenge myself a little - instead of doing journalling, I wanted to tell the story using words only - stamps, die cuts, stickers, thickers. I thought by capturing the simple details, I could still tell the story. Here's a close up of the cluster on the top right.


The stamps I used are from Kellie stamps & Papertrey Ink. I just added further to the already printed strips on the paper. It was a cold wintery day in the mountains, but we decided to go anyway. That's the message I wanted to capture in a simple form. The alpha set was contained in the Road Trip scrap kit - the embellishments came from the other two July kits.