Tag Archives: mini-book

Grace Place: October Mini

Posted on October 28, 2010 by crazydaisy

 

Halloween Checklist Mini

By Grace Tolman

This mini was inspired by one of the papers in the kit. It was the MME kraft paper that had fun things noted about Halloween. One part there was the Halloween checklist. I decided to cut them off and use that as the spring board for the mini.

Of course I used the wonderful Basic Grey mini. I covered the more part of it with pattern paper. I used the Pink Paislee paper for the front page because I loved the tree and tombstone designs on it. With that on my front page, I knew that I didn’t have to dress the cover too much just to emphasize the theme.

I added some orange glitter glue around the front and back covers and placed the title block on the cover.

For the inside pages, I visualized it to be simple and repetitive. I feel there’s nothing wrong with the inside pages being the same basic design. It actually brings all of the pages together.

 

This book will most likely be for this year’s Halloween’s activities so I left lots of spaces for pictures with precut white cardstock. These cardstock will also act as matting for my photos when I’m ready to print and add them to the book. It’ll save me time in the future.
I also sprinkled the JBS buttons in there. The acted as my one constant embellishment all through out the book.

And for the back (above), the Pink Paislee paper again and added a simple strip of paper to add my signature.

Hope you like it!

-Grace

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DT: Be Prepared

Posted on October 27, 2010 by crazydaisy

Be Prepared!
By Amy Kingsford

   
Though many of you may have children that aren’t quite in school yet, you can still put all of those beautiful school-themed chipboard elements and papers in September’s Main Kit to good use…by building a pre-made mini album for your child’s first year of school!

 

I put together this 1st Year of School album for my son Caleb, who is currently 2! Now some might call this a little over zealous, but I choose to call it “being prepared!” Something every parent longs to be, but rarely is…lol! So here is a peak at some of my pages and some ideas for creating your very own premade 1s Year if School Album for you little one!

 

Now every child’s school experience will be different, but here are a few ideas for generic pages to include before hand and then when the time is right you can tailor the album to your child’s specific school experience!

• A My School Page-perfect for a picture of your new academic in front of his school’s flagpole!
• An Introduction Page-Include your child’s name, school name,their grade and their teacher’s name.
• Projects Page- to chronicle your child’s assignments, creations, and projects.
• A Report Card/Grades-to keep track of grades or report cards.
• A Friends/Children at Play-perfect for pictures of friends or fun school photos.
• A Fieldtrips Page- to showcase some of the places your child visited in school.
• A Sports Page- pages for sports team photos and memorabilia.
• An Awards and Certificates Page-to showcase your child’s achievements

Note: The idea of creating a book BEFORE the event is super cool and takes some of the stress out of recording your memories. You could do this for Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas …. Amy used the September Main kit for this project, but you could use anything in your stash.

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DT: Making of a mini

Posted on September 21, 2010 by crazydaisy

 

 

September Mini Tutorial

Katie here! If you’re a Crazy Daisy regular, I think you know by now that I love making supplies my own. One of the best ways to do this, I’ve found, is to challenge myself to look at the monthly mini in a new way. This time, I thought, “What haven’t I done before? What would look cute with this album?” Pair those questions with the desire to use a piece of cork board I had laying around, and you get an idea!

 

To create the two mini cork boards found in my album, follow the steps below:

1. Separate your pages. Order them all by size. For the cork boards, we’ll only be using three medium bracket and three large bracket pages. So: Not the front and back cover, nor the two little bracket pages.
2. Decide what shapes you want your boards to be and draw them in with pencil. One of my cork boards is a thick, rectangular shape, while the other is thin and much smaller. You’ll want to use the heaviest of each set of pages to be the backing of the cork board (the chipboard won’t buckle under the glue and you won’t have problems with pushing thumbtacks completely through). Take one of the two lighter pages of each set and draw rectangles on them. You can either freehand — which is what I did before straightening my edges up with a ruler where I needed to — or you can trace a template. Then, using an X-Acto knife, cut the shapes out so that you are left with two frames. Use the frames as a guide to trace onto the remaining light pages, leaving the heavy pages intact (they’ll only provide backing).

3. Use the center blocks which you cut out with your craft knife as a guide to determine how big the pieces of cork need to be. Tracing around them with a Sharpie works best for this part. Then, cut the cork to size.

4. Adhere the two cardstock frame pages from each set together, and then back them with their respective chipboard pages. Double sided tape works best, but you could also use liquid glue — if you do, make sure to allow the glue to set properly by placing the boards underneath a stack of heavy books; otherwise, they’ll warp.

5. Using strong liquid glue — Elmer’s Craft Bond is awesome, but Aleene’s Tacky Glue would also work very well — adhere the cork in place. The pieces should fit right into their little frames.

6. Seal the edges of the boards by using Mod Podge. This is optional, but I feel it makes things look more cohesive!

7. Next, I decorated my pages by using foam stamps and yellow acrylic paint, stamping words which remind me of fall.

8. Decorate the rest of your pages to follow suit, and there you have it! Your own, customized, spiffy fall mini. :) Now all you need to is embellish! Have fun.

 

 

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DT: July Mini Books

Posted on July 17, 2010 by crazydaisy

Now that you’re diving into your July Kits,  I wanted to share some of the great mini book creations from our design team to spark your creativity.

Here’s what Amber Zimmerman did with the July mini book:


 

Here are a few more pictures of what Amber did with the book.

 

 

 

  

 

 

********************************** 

 

Here’s a look at what Katie Turner did with her mini book. She based her book on Effer Dares’ Dare 119 and created a book of graphs and charts that correspond with random bits of my life!

 





For more photos of Katie’s mini book, visit our gallery.



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Grace’s Place: Daydream Journal

Posted on June 24, 2010 by crazydaisy

  

Daydreaming Journal

By Grace Tolman

I’ve been really impressed at the Kaiser mini books that has been featured in the May and now in the June kit. I love that they’re so versatile and that the chipboard covers can be covered with so many different mediums- paper, paint, pen, ink, etc.

With this journal book, I kept some of the raw chipboard showing and then adding my pattern paper inside of the covers. I also inked the edges a bit.



I used the thick lace, some cut out flowers and die cut to complete the cover. Since I cut out the leaf portion of the cover, I added a pattern paper on the first page so you wouldn’t see the white from the front side.

It was so easy to personalize this journal book and I can’t wait to start writing my “daydreams” in this book.



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DT: Mini Book Tutorial

Posted on June 16, 2010 by crazydaisy

 

Go Vintage: A Mini Book Tutorial

By Katie Turner



 

Step 1:

Gather your materials.

You’ll need the following from the kit:

* Kaisercraft Journal
* Kaisercraft Devonshire Collection Victorian Rose patterned paper
* Pink Paislee 365 Degrees Collection Daydream patterned paper
* Scenic Route Providence Collection Cottage Street patterned paper
* Lace trim

Other materials you’ll need include:

* Corrugated cardboard for the journal’s spine
* Wood grain contact paper
* Craft Bond or PVC glue
* Mod Podge
* Acrylic paint
* A couple paint brushes
* Binder clips or clamps
* An interesting vintage image to use for your cover — I chose a peacock illustration from a vintage book

 

Step 2:

Cut your cardboard. Depending on thickness, cut one or two 1 cm x 21.5 cm strips; to match the thickness of my journal cover, I glued two strips together, one on top of the other. Once the spine is finished, cut your contact paper into one 12 cm x 21.5 cm piece, two strips of 3 cm x 21.5 cm, and one 32 cm x 21.5 cm piece.

 

Step 3:

Take your 12 cm x 21.5 cm piece and center the covers of your journal on it just like in the above picture, leaving approximately 1.5 cm between them. Be sure that the front cover is facing outward instead of inward (the leaf design should be on the lower left). Place the cardboard spine in the space between the covers, centering it so that there is a sliver of space between either side of the spine and the covers.

 

Step 4:

Next, either place the covers and spine (which should now be connected by the contact paper behind them) on a large sheet of contact paper and trace around to determine the size you’ll need to cover the inside completely (which may be more exact if your journal doesn’t match my dimensions number for number), or use the 32 cm x 21.5 cm piece you cut earlier.

 

 

Step 5:

Adhere it on top of your covers just as they are, being sure to round the corners if you used the pre-cut piece of contact paper. Set aside.

 

Step 6:

We’re now dealing with the paper block, which includes lined pages and two cardstock end sheets. Use those end sheets as templates to trace on the Kaisercraft and Pink Paislee pages; you’ll end up with four end sheets total, two of them containing the orange Kaisercraft pattern and the other two containing the blue Pink Paislee pattern. Adhere the two orange sheets over the outside of the end sheets; one will have punched holes on the left, and one will have them on the right.

 

Step 7:

Stack your pages together using the end sheets to sandwich the lined pages. Use binder clips or clamps on either side of the stack to keep your pages firmly in place once you have jogged them and made sure they are all lined up. Next, brush Craft Bond or PVC glue on the spine of the paper stack, being sure to fan the pages out (the way you would when shuffling a deck of cards) so that the glue will stick to every page. This is important as it prevents your book from falling apart later on!

 

Step 8:

After smoothing out the journal’s spine (and making sure the contact paper sticks together in the spaces on either side of it), use an X-Acto knife to cut the newly formed wood grain leaves and stem out of the design so that you will be able to see through them again.

 

 

Step 9:

Adhere the blue end sheets onto the inside covers, centering them and making sure that you can see the front sheet’s orange back through all leaves on the front of the journal. Then, slide your dried paper block into the journal, centering it.

 

Step 10:

Using your remaining 3 cm x 21.5 cm wood grain contact paper strips, adhere the covers to the end sheets of the paper block… And the basic structure of your journal is complete! Now, embellish to your heart’s content. I used blue acrylic paint, the Scenic Route patterned paper, lace trim, and the image of the peacock to make the cover pretty. :)



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Fun Mini: Sushi

Posted on May 27, 2010 by crazydaisy

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!

 

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DT: Mini Book Tutorial

Posted on April 30, 2010 by crazydaisy

April 2010 Main Kit
Spring Mini Book Tutorial

By Katie Turner

1. Take your mini book apart. Needle-nose pliers will help with bending the coils back enough so that you can twist the wire out of the binding holes.

2. Set aside the back chipboard cover and three sheets of the cardstock pages. On the front chipboard cover, draw a line 6 cm (2.4 in) from the bottom. Do the same with the remaining pages after clamping them to ensure they don’t slip. Set the front cover aside.

3. Grab the American Crafts Remarks journaling stickers and cut out the bottom sticker (right below the cloud sticker). It should have a caterpillar and a branch on it. You’ll want to leave the backing on for now; just cut around the outside of the sticker, being sure to snip into the corners.

4. Center the sticker (with the backing still on it) on the lower part of the clamped stack of pages, below the line you drew earlier. Trace around it. You’ll notice that the leaves from the branch extend below where the bottom edge of the sticker should be – don’t worry about it! We’ll fix this in the next step.

5. Flip the journaling sticker around and finishing tracing.

6. You’ll end up with a slightly bigger, fancy rectangle, which is exactly what we want.

7. Now for the most time consuming part – you’ll need to cut out the window from each page in the stack, except the last two, which will be the base to make sure everything is nice and sturdy at the end of the project. You can use an X-Acto knife (which is why the pages are clamped) or trace the window on all the remaining pages and cut them out with sharp, detail-oriented scissors, like Cutterbees. It’s up to you! It doesn’t have to be perfect, so don’t fret.

8. Here’s what it should look like – don’t forget to leave those bottom two pages alone! Set the stack aside.

9. Pick up the chipboard cover, which is the one that should have the line drawn on it. An X-Acto knife is pretty helpful for the next step.

10. Gently cut along the line until the bottom piece of chipboard falls away. You won’t be needing it anymore for this project.

11. Grab the sheet of October Afternoon Thrift Shop paper – with the floral design on the front – and flip it over. Adhere the chipboard cover to the back.

12. Cut around the cover using your X-Acto knife, and you’ll end up with the base of your front cover!

13. I like to re-punch covered holes right away to make sure I know exactly where the holes are. The Crop-A-Dile is perfect for this!

14. Take your beautiful Hambly overlay with the elephants on it and adhere it on top of the floral paper. I used the top left corner of the transparency for this part, so that I’d end up with an elephant on the lower right of my chipboard cover. Remember to re-punch your holes!

15. Turn your cover over and adhere the floral paper to the back of it as well. Once again, punch, punch, punch. I also used a sanding block to sand the edges of the paper to smooth everything out, but you don’t have to.

16. Remember those three pages we set aside earlier? Grab those and trim them 6 cm (2.4 in) from the bottom. They’ll end up being the same height as your cover. Set them aside again.

17. Pick up your back cover and mark which side is the inside of it and which side is the outside; this is important because the punched holes of the front and back covers will need to match up in the end.

18. Adhere the Little Yellow Bicycle Sky Blue Check paper to both the inside and outside of the back cover. Mark the inside and outside again to help you to remember how to put things back together; if you use a pencil to do this, you can just erase the marks after you’re all done.

19. So, this is what you should have in front of you: The back cover, the stack of pages with two whole sheets on the very bottom and the rest containing windows, the cover-length pages (three in total), and the cover.

20. Bind it all back together! Twist the coil back in and then use your pliers to bend the two end wires back so that your book won’t come undone.

21. Decide which photo you want showing through the window and trim it accordingly. I left a little of the scenery to the left of mine because I’ll be embellishing that area later.

22. Adhere your photo to the back of the last page containing a window; you could also adhere it to the front of the first whole page on the very bottom of the stack.

23. Before we adhere everything together, let’s embellish the edges of the book so that we’ll have some cute edges sticking out , creating visual interest and something fun to look at. Take some of your Melody Ross cards and cut the edges off them (many are scalloped) and adhere those edges on random pages. Stagger them for more variety! I even cut one edge into small strips and adhered them along the bottom of my book.

24. Once you’re satisfied with how things look, adhere the pages together, except for the following: Leave the three shorter pages free – I just flipped them up and out of the way along with the cover – as well as the very first page with a window; we’ll be gluing the latter down later. For this step, I used Mod Podge, but you could also use dry adhesive like a tape runner. Just be aware that if you keep applying adhesive in the same places (i.e.: the edges), you’re going to create some bulk. That is okay! We’ll be decorating the edges of the pages later on. If the bulk bothers you, though, you’ll want to vary where you apply your adhesive. For example, on one page it’ll be on the very outside edge, the next an inch to the right, the next two inches to the right, etc.

25. I cut a rectangle slightly bigger than the window out of the American Crafts Remarks packaging – for this step you could use anything clear, though. Think acetate, a sheet of transparency, etc. I then adhered it to the bottom of the very top window page.

26. Afterwards, I decided to embellish the open area to the left of my photo with a Flair badge, so I lifted the outermost page and stuck the badge down inside the window. Once you’re satisfied with how things look, go ahead and glue the top page down. Your basic window is complete – aside from the embellishing, of course!

27. Next, I painted the edges of the window, as well as painting vines down the sides of the stack of pages that were adhered together. I painted the edges of my album completely green. This complements the roses I made out of thin strips of the pink cardstock also found in the kit. To create the roses, I simply distressed the edges of the strips and then coiled them together. Wrapping them around a toothpick is helpful!

28. If you have any imperfections you’re not happy with on the sides of your book, gluing the roses down over them will fix that! I also added some of the Little Yellow Bicycle Border Stickers to the bottom of the window and on the cover before I embellished it with the Prima letters. Embellish to your heart’s content!

If you end up using this tutorial, or are inspired by any part of it, please let me and the other Crazy Daisy girls see what you did with it! We can’t wait to check out your projects. :)


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Grace’s Place

Posted on March 17, 2010 by crazydaisy

 

Sweet Baby minibook

By Grace Tolman

The gorgeous MME mini that came in the kit was indeed like the the packaging said- luscious! I definitely had a hard time adding anything to the front because I didn’t want to take away the beauty of the flocking design on it, so I opted with a simple title and a few layered pieces.

I decided to make a baby mini with it because, well, it’s been a while since I’ve made one and there’s a couple of friends of mine that are due in the near future so I’m making this for one of them. *smile*

In the inside, I decided to stick with one design and covered the bottom half of the pages with the pattern papers from the kit. Yes, there’s enough paper in the kit to finish 5 layouts AND this book. I still can’t get enough of how wonderful that is!



I used my trusty border punch to add design to the papers. Since this is a gift, I just cut out some green cardstock that will house the pictures. I also added the great journaling stickers from Crate paper on this project. Adding ready made journaling for the parents to write things down just makes sense. I did make sure I added them with pop up dots so that parts of the pictures can go underneath the journaling blocks.

After I was done, I couldn’t believe how thick it became!

So there you have it. Now go make something “luscious” with your mini book!

Signing off,
Grace

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DT: Katie creates

Posted on March 12, 2010 by crazydaisy

Creating a  mini book

By Katie Turner


Hi everyone, Katie here. I hope you’ve all ordered your kits and are super excited to play with them! I know I was beyond stoked to receive the kit in the mail and sift through all the goodies. Wow, that’s all I can say. Did you know my favorite colors are green and brown? I’m really on a yellow kick lately, too, so needless to say, the March 2010 kit had me covered! I’m particularly fond of the mini from My Mind’s Eye (green flocking? Check. Swirls galore? Check. An awesome silhouette of a bird? Check. Cream chipboard pages? Check!!!), Crate Paper’s fun, doodled journaling spots, the printed ribbon, the shimmery cardstock … Wait, if I list everything, I’ll be here forever. Instead, allow me to stop rambling and share a more visual post with you.

I have a certain approach to my mini albums and how I create each page in them. I’m sure most of you do, too, but I thought it might be fun if I gave you a peek at my process/a tutorial of sorts to ponder over. Here goes:




With this particular mini, I thought it’d be fun to use lace cardstock that I had sitting around in my stash as a base for my pages. I really love paint and it adds such a gorgeous, handmade feel to whatever project I’m working on, so I couldn’t resist it. As you can see, my stenciling wasn’t perfect — I like being able to see little brush strokes here and there, but if you don’t, no worries: You can always use some removable/temporary adhesive (tape runners are nice) to hold your cardstock down while you paint over it. I chose to mix brown, green, and yellow together to form a color that’s similar to the flocking. I don’t like to mix my paint completely; I have always liked to see the individual colors in different places, but to each her own! Anything goes. :)

Notice the slight tear and the yellow spot? That was me experimenting. I do that a lot and if something doesn’t work out or I decide against it (like I did here), I just cover it up. It’s a great way to stretch your creativity.



Next, I made a stencil out of an old label sticker I had by sticking the outline of it (or the “waste” — the part that’s left after the actual sticker is gone!) to a piece of cardstock and cutting out the middle. I used this shape throughout the album to help create a flow from page to page. You can use any shape you’d like; I just happen to like brackets and like using homemade stencils as well. I then grabbed a sheet of paper and traced the shape on it four times before cutting it out and then hand stitching just inside the edges with brown thread to create a nice accent for each embellishment.



Then, I laid the embellishments out as shown above. I turned the center shape on its side for visual interest — everything lined up straight in a row can get boring. I attached the embellishments with glue dots once I was satisfied with their placement.



For this particular page, I used two mock photo booth strips to display photos of one of my favorite houses in the city where I live. (By the way — the photo booth strip is from here).

I just manipulated it in PhotoShop and cropped out the existing photos.) Visual interest played another role in my decision to slightly overlap the strips. I feel they look better that way than when placed side by side.

Finally, the only thing left to do was embellish! I slid part of the printed transparency with the blue design on it underneath one of the paper shapes, plucked a teal pearl from the Prima swirls and glued it to the center of the pretty green button, made a paper flower and embellished it with some blue trim I had on my desk, cut the “One of a kind” sentiment off one end of the journaling card included in the kit, and added the journaling stickers. Voila! That’s my process in a nutshell, although I switch things up here and there.

If you’re interested in seeing the rest of the mini… Here you go:








It’s all about the city I live in and the love I have for the beautiful, old buildings downtown. I am definitely a city girl! The last page features lyrics by Adele, whose song of the same name inspired my mini. If you haven’t heard the song yet… Well, you must! Click here to watch her music video on YouTube!

Well, that’s it for me. I hope you enjoyed my post as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you! Please let me know what you think in the comments. Till next time, have fun creating!


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