I haven’t met a mini book I didn’t love. I love mini books. I love the size. I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I finish one. I love giving them as presents. In short, I love them.
This mini book, from Amber Zimmerman, is no exception. She took all the goodies from the August 2010 Main Kit and made the most adorable mini book ever. It’s so simple, but so sweet. Love it. Check it out:
To see more photos from Amber’s mini book, visit our Gallery.
It’s August. Wow! This summer has flown by. I’m sad to see it go, but I know that my daugther is excited to go back to school and it’ll be nice to get into our school-time routine.
I’m in Denmark right now, along with my husband. We have had some great adventures and have enjoyed our time as grown-ups without kiddos (though I always miss my babies when I am away from them). We have decided we need to make couple’s time a priority as it’s good for everyone if mom and dad are happy.
Since I’m in Denmark right now, I thought I’d share the four things I love best about Denmark.
1. The bread: I can seriously eat my weight in bread while in Denmark. Every day there are baskets and baskets of fresh bread. Bread with breakfast. Bread with lunch. Bread with dinner. I think I gain about 20 pounds each time I visit Denmark, but it’s so worth it.
2. Public transportation: It’s super easy to get around Denmark. Jump on a train. Hop on the bus. Hail a cab. No matter what you want to do, you can get there in no time with few, if any, complications.
3. The Hoptimist: In 1968, furniture designer Gustav Ehrenreich created the Hoptimists (above). In accordance with the trends of the time, his figures were characterized by their bright and positive colors and appealing shapes. These little fellows do nothing more than bring a smile to my face. The bounce around and look like they are giggling. I bought one for my husband my last trip to Denmark and it’s a favorite trinket on his work desk. No one can walk past without giving the Hoptimist a tap and then they always walk away with a smile.
4. The Ice Cream: Much like the bread in Denmark, the ice cream is freshly made each day and uses real ingredients (like real cream) to make some of the world’s yummiest ice cream. Even if it’s snowing you’ll finding me walking down the street with my daily ice cream cone. Love, love, love it. Interesting fact, you can get licorice ice cream in Denmark. They are serious about their licorice, it’s like their national flavor!
Is there a place you went this summer that you love? Tell us about it, we want to hear. Better yet, scrap about it and then send us some pictures of your finished pages to kimberly@crazydaisykits.com.
Every time I think my life might slow down, it doesn’t. It only seems to get crazier! But, as my husband reminded me last night, I have to find the good in it all and be thankful.
As I give thanks for the blessed life I live … I do daydream of a few thinks I want, but certainly don’t need. Come on, we all do this.
1. A quick trip to Malta.
A killer view off the coast of Malta
I have a trip to Europe planned for August. It’s a business trip, but my husband is coming along for the ride, so it mill be a bit more entertaining than normal. As we plan our trip we are trying to figure out if we can fit a short trip to Malta into our plans. Why Malta? Why not?
2. Hair extensions.
I cut my hair about 8 weeks ago. I chopped quite a bit off. I instantly had regret. Every picture I look out with my previously long, flowing hair … I’m sad. I don’t want to wait for my hair to grow out. I want long, long hair. Now. I’m dreaming of hair extensions, but they aren’t practical and are pretty much a waste of money in my mind. I mean, come on, should I really be spending $400 to $500 on hair extensions? That pretty much ends that daydream!
3. Fall mini kits
Vintage Old Maid cards purchased on Etsy
Normally, most of the kit designing for Crazy Daisy is done by Jennifer. She is the one who pulls everything together. I make suggestions and if we’re together (like at CHA) we make major decisions as a team. However, she really is the one who is repsonsible for making the kits happen. But, for the fall I’m working on some fun mini kits and I can’t stop thinging about all the faulous things I could put in them. For starters? I scoured Etsy and found some yummy vintage paper ephemra. I can’t wait to use it myself and I know you all will love it.
4. CHA Summer Show Releases
Have you seen some of the CHA goodies from this summer’s show? There are a few things I’m really excited about and I can share a few lines that will be making their way into kits this fall. My Mind’s Eye “Lost and Found” collection and Crate Paper’s “Restoration” line. Love ‘em. I’m also looking forward to getting my hands on some of the House of 3 goodies from Pink Paislee.
Check out what Grace did with the July 2010 Main Kit:
Layout #1 Beautiful Friend
In this layout, I used a bunch of the products in the kit. You will find rub ons, embellishments, paper and stickers in this layout. I because I ran out of the maroon “f”. I punched out a circle from a paper with the same color and layered the white/beige sticker on their. This technique still kept the word in the same color scheme. I punched out decorative borders from pattern papers and created a frame for my photo with it.
Layout#2 Cream Puff Heaven
This layout is pretty symmetrical. Everything was assembled in a “lined up” fashion. To break all the lines, I added some buttons, used a scallop edged journaling block sticker and added a cardstock strip with a border punch. I also liked the sugar/flour pattern paper. I thought it was the perfect thing to add to my cream puff layout.
Layout #3 Food trip
This is by far my favorite of all the layouts I made with this kit. I love it because I was able to play with the round scallop piece cut from the pattern paper. I was also inspired by the definitions rub on that I used it to describe our fun food “activity”. I added a strip of pattern paper to point to the title so that it’ll be connected to the rest of the layout.
Layout #4 Kindergarten Buddies
In this page I used the stars and the ruler ribbon to emphasize the “school” theme. I also used the a lot of “three” in the layout like the number of kids in my picture, the three stars in the bottom and the rub on three.
Layout #5 Swing me silly
In this page, I layered a lot of pattern papers. I added about four in this page. I also used the two sets of letter stickers and added a rubon bird. The journaling block sticker had some vintage edge that didn’t match really well with my page, so I cut out the unwanted frame before adding the block sticker to my page.
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For more photos of Grace’s work, visit our Gallery.
There’s lots to make me happy. I mean, it’s summer for Pete’s sake, how can you not be happy? But, if I were to narrow it down to four things I’d go with these things:
1. Our garden (and our huge harvest)
This monster-sized zucchini came from our garden. We have been taking great care of our garden. And we’ve started to reap the benefits. There are baby apples on one tree. Sweet basil that smells so good. Little cherry tomatoes starting to pop up. And zucchini … oh the zucchini. We harvest our very first zucchini this week and it was huge. Seriously. It was 3 pounds and half as tall as Cooper. How’s that for our first try at growing zucchini?
It’s important to note that we did nothing special with our garden. No fertilizer. No special tricks. Just water and sunshine. Shelby carried this sucker around the house like a baby until Daddy got home so she could show him our very fist zucchini.
2. Cooper’s curls
Does it get cuter than this? Cooper just hit 15 months and he’s so sweet and precious. I love his curls. I don’t think a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask me, “When are you going to cut his hair?” And every time some asks, I think, “Never!” But seriously, how long does he get to be a baby and have precious curls? Not longing enough, so for now I’ll just leave his curls. There is a very good chance I’ll cry when I end up cutting them off and giving him a “big” boy haircut.
3. Layouts.
I have producing about 4 layouts a week for the last month or so. Mostly thanks to the online class I’m taking with Shimelle. I feel more productive than I have in years. It’s actually quite therapeutic. I’ve been able to use a ton of photos and I feel like I am making a dent in my overflowing stack of photos! And, I’ve been learning all such of fun digi tricks, which makes my digi adventures so much easier.
4. Vacation.
Just before school starts again, I have a business trip to Europe planned. My hubby is going to come with me and we’re going to have one of our first “adults” only vacation in a very long time. Even though I have to work during part of the time, we’ll get to stay in a nice hotel, eat good food and hang out together. I’m looking forward to showing him all the things I do whenever I go to Denmark, since this will be his first trip there (with me). My daughter is going on a vacation of her own, all the way to Papa’s ranch in Idaho. She gets to fly on an airplane by herself for the very fist time and she is beyond thrilled. I’m sure both of us will have great stories at the end of our adventures.
What’s making you happy?
I love to look at layouts. I could browse galleries for hours. When I look at layouts others have created; I read the journaling; I check out all the materials they used; I deconstruct the pages … it’s a whole process for me. I always feel recharged and inspired when I’ve allowed myself to just pour over the creative talents of others.
Here’s a little treat for you, some layouts I think are worthy of your time and made me drool! Thanks Miss Amy for sharing. You rock.
Enjoy.
I have been sitting at my computer most of the day.
My kids are at the pool. Thank goodness for great weather and an adventurous nanny.
I have had so much to do. And I have had meetings out the wazoo. But I can’t stop thinking about this blog, what i want to say and just being creative.
As I was trying to figure out what I wanted to blog about today, I stumbled on this video when I stopped at the Spark web site to see if there was anything new there. I’m sitting in a Starbucks right now and as I watched the video below, I had to fight back tears (mostly because I am in public, so I didn’t want to look like a crazy nut as I sobbed). It inspires me and makes me feel like though some times I have no idea what I’m doing, how I’ll get it all done or what’s next for me … being a mother to Shelby and Cooper makes me great.
I have been working on a piece of art. I have been working on it for more than a week now. I’m a little obsessed with it. I have a whole blog post planned about it, since I learned a valuable lesson during this whole process, but I’m not ready to share that lesson yet! But until then, here’s a little peek at what I’m working on.
I have some big plans for the weekend. I really want to scrap and finish the art piece above. I want to do the House of 3 summer scrapbook challenge (three pages a week) and I was also thinking about singing up for May Flaum’s class at Big Picture Scrapbooking.
Though May is almost over, I’m sure there are lots of you out there who have yet to use that May Kit that’s sitting on your desk. Right? Well, here’s another look at what you can do with the May Mini. And don’t worry, you have a few more days before the June kits ship, so get to work!
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May Mini
By Amber Zimmerman
I chose to paint the scallops with crackle antique white paint. It seemed to go well with the vintage patterns on the paper for this kit. I loved the black and white scroll stickers and wanted them to stand out on their own. I also love the raw look of chipboard, so I simply painted over the back of each “page” and wrote a sister quote on top of the dry paint and added a scroll sticker. I loved the deep, rich colors with the black ribbons for this kit and thought the black and white photos contrasted nicely with the papers. I loved all of the different shapes of each page and having all the embellies peeking out made me happy. 
To see more photos from Amber’s mini book, visit our gallery.
Is this not the cutest, funnest mini book you have ever seen? It’s all about sushi and it was created by Katie Turner using our May 2010 Main Kit. Love it.
Now go get some sushi!
Have you ever heard of the site/group Sketch Inspiration?
It’s a cool community that posts a weekly scrapbooking sketch to inspire its users. If you are in a slump, or just want to check out some very talented scrappers, this is a fun place to start. After looking at tons of great layouts, I was seriously motivated to get crafting.
This week, Crazy Daisy is the sponsor and you can enter for a chance to win a May 2010 Mini Kit.
Using our May Kits, the Crazy Daisy Design Team created a bunch of layouts using this week’s sketch … look at what they did:
Created by Amber Zimmerman
Created by Amy Kingsford
Created by Grace Tolman
Close up of layout created by Grace Tolman
Close up of layout created by Grace Tolman
Created by Katie Turner
Created by Kelly Hansen
Close up of layout created by Kelly Hansen
For more information on Sketch Inspiration or to join (I did!), go here.
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