Grandma's St. Patrick's Day Birthday Album :: Projects Of Recent

1.  Lately things have been s l o w but s t e a d y. The day after Archer is due is Grandma's Birthday. &since it is not clear whether we will be able to attend or when the baby will choose to come, I'm trying to finish her album early. My MIL asked if I would make a custom photo album for party goers to sign//photos//etc. I chose to do a 1/2 paper bag album, 1/2 regular album. That way she can use to pockets to save cards that are given to her& others can sign the book if they wish to. 

Since her birthday is St. Patrick's Day I stuck with a green scheme, but I also threw in hues of yellow and blue to offset it a bit. 

I've got a large lovely picture of grandma in a green sombrero (in next picture)
to use for the front... Will likely add flowers/gems/etc

**UPDATE** 
I spent much of yesterday working on this cover. I felt that it was the last leg of the race& once I start something I  enjoy finishing it. So here it is: Finished album cover...

Note: I went totally photo crazy with this post :

Put a small flower burst in the corner using flowers picked up from joann's (i just used ones from a bunch, added some stickles,& hot glued them down) along with roses from IAMROSES. They were placed on top of 3 overlapping scalloped flowers in blue/yellow/sparkle green (that were sprayed with perfect pearl mist) & also a ribbon with this cute sentiment :CHERISHED MEMORIES: attached. 

Added a doily& punched circle adhered with 3d foam tape. Then placed some of these little green gems to pull it all together. I used them on the inside pages as well. 

Happy Birthday Banner edged in the same stickles. Stamped the sentiment with tim holtz evergreen ink that was in his Christmas collection. 

I used a binding method by Laura at The Paper Trail called "stack the deck." (<--- link will take you straight to her post on HOW TO make this binding)  **This is by far the smartest binding method I have used and allows your pages to turn beautifully. With other methods like the "accordion style binding" the pages are stiff to turn and often times pull apart. SO frustrating!

Since I don't know what photos will be in the slots I'm
going to ask for the book back after the party so I can add
them and get sentiments placed on the pages. 

I placed 6 pages specifically for guests to sign. 

Ended up just using a simple ribbon to cover the icky edge on this page. Also: since I'm not sure if i'll be there and I'm worried people will sign photo mattes, I placed sticky notes on all the pages used for signing. WHEW: I hope this is all worth it and I get back a lovely book to embellish!! 

Once I got to thinking, I feel like this will be another photo page. If I'm able to attend the party I'll be sure
to take lots of photos! 

I may leave an extra  plain matte so if the signature pages get too crowded we can have them sign the matte and
tape that in this spot. 

I was thinking that many of the guests will already have written nice
things inside the cards and may not wan to RE-sign the pages.
This way she can keep special cards as well. 

2.  Yesterday when we went to the craft store *(lily&i) she SOOO wanted me to get her some ABC stickers. She said she needed to work on them. ----> she knows what to say to mom. <3

So we came home and created this mini-abc book for her to be creative with. Each letter has 2 blank pages. I challenged her to use one side for a drawing of something that began with the letter& the other page to be something we found out of a magazine. 

It worked quite well since she was only up for drawing so many pictures (as i suspected) and was re-excited once we were able to get out glue and scissors to start hunting for photos. We put a dent in it, but certainly didn't finish it in one evening. Dad seemed to enjoy watching her work while making dinner and I had a blast sitting with her to copilot. **i'm getting better each day about not OVERhelping her or putting what I want her to do in the book as #1. 

On a side note, we were finally able to get our maternity shoot photos back. They turned out so lovely and Lily had so much fun. She's absolutely NOT camera shy. Or anything shy for that matter. 

<3 <3 <3