Memory making

Every now and then I give you an update on my photo 365 project where I aim to take one photo everyday. I decided to mount mine on a page for each month, with a corresponding script page to remind me what each one is, so that next year I can look back and see how I spent my year. I am enjoying doing it, though not every day is a 'big event' day and sometimes it is challenging to find a subject. But there are always flowers, wild life and our own pets to fill the gaps on quieter days. Anyway, we are just passed the halfway mark now so I thought it was time I published a few more pages.

May was a special month because we had our UK visit, and within the space of one short week we attended our youngest son's Civil partnership ceremony, visited all four of his brothers, spent some time with our little great grandson, and managed some retail therapy in, and around our home town, so, of course, one photo a day just wasn't enough! So May has an extra page that is a random array of photos taken during that week.

For the 'proper' May page I chose two toning papers from a Stampin' Up pad, and as I had chosen to use a large photo board for the pictures, very little of this showed around the edges, so I decided to simply add some some pretty sparkly green and gold braid, bought that day from a Chinese bazaar shop. I cut the letters for the month name in a matching green card and edged them with a green and gold glitter that has lurked at the back of a drawer since my years as a Nursery manager.

Next came the extra page for May, and for this I started with two sheets of the plain cream card that come in the page protectors, with the album I bought for this project. I knew the centres would be covered so I just painted a wide strip around each side with a mixture of white mixer acrylic, with dabs of blue and a little silver. Paints dry as soon as they hit the paper in this heat, so I used water to spread them, but wasn't concerned about being neat or blending carefully. Next I took one of my new Crafter's Workshop 12"x12" templates. 

I had intended to spray  glimmer mist through this, but as soon as I started I realised it was a mistake, as it simply spread across the acrylic paint without soaking in, and the design was lost. So I quickly wiped this mess up with a kitchen roll and instead I used a sponge and applied ink from my favourite Memento ink pad -Paris Dusk. I kept moving the template around until I had some element of the design on every edge of my paper. (The coloured dots in these photos are the mixture of magnets I use to pin work to my metal filing cabinet while it dries, and to take photos).

I simply edged the script page with a little of the same memento ink, and for the photo page I used my Silhouette machine to cut the lettering from a small scrap of card that had again been coloured with Paris Dusk ink. These didn't show very well against the paper so I cut them a fairly wide mat from silver card, and to finish this page I cut two swirls with a new die-namics die, one from the blue card and one from the silver, and layered them across the top left hand corner.

That just left June to do and for these pages I used some pretty aqua paper, again from Stampin'Up I think. I edged the script page with a pearlescent jade Brillance pad. For the letters and embellishments I took a small piece of white card and sprayed it with Crafty Notions lustre aqua spray. This was a bit too blue so I added some green apples perfect pearls mist. I then used silhouette to cut the letters and edged each one with a copic marker to make them stand out from the background.

For the finishing touches I used the same sprayed card and cut two bird, swirl corners using a new Crafty Individuals cutting die, and a similar bird swirl using a silhouette file.

And while we are on the subject of memory making, this little book is full of special memories. I bought it from a street vendor in Bangkok, and I used it to keep a fairly detailed diary of the three months we spent, (June -August 2008), rambling around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Along with a huge file of some 4.000+ photos, it is the basis of a set of scrapbooks that will be made one day. So watch this space!