Pocket pages for a baby album

Hi everyone!
Salut tout le monde!

Today I'd like to show you the beginning of a baby album I made using some pocket page protectors. In 2008, I made a classic baby album for my first born daughter, but last year I was challenged to do this project and I must say that if it was to be redone, I'd choose this style of album!!
Aujourd'hui j'aimerais vous montrer le début d'un album de bébé que j'ai fait "style Project life". En 2008, quand ma première fille est née, j'ai fait un album plus classic, mais l'année passée j'ai été mise au défi de faire un album de bébé en utilisant les pages protectrices divisées et je dois avouer que si c'était à recommencer, je ferais mon album de cette façon là. Voilà, pour les jeunes mamans, laissez-vous inspirer. ;)

First of all, it's not because we choose to use divided page protectors that we can't mix things up. Here, for my first page, and to add an explanation of why I was re-doing her baby album, I used an 8x8 page protector and made a "traditional" scrapbook page.
Tout d'abord, ce n'est pas parce qu'on décide de faire un album "à la Project Life" qu'on doit être super rigide. Ici, pour ma première page, celle qui explique pourquoi j,ai décidé de refaire les premières pages de son album de bébé, j'ai utilisé un protecteur 8x8 et j'y ai inséré une page de scrap plus traditionnelle.

On the back of that first page, another 8x8 layout.
Au dos de cette première page, une autre page 8x8 plus traditionnelle.

All products are Pretty Little Studio.
Tous les produits sont de Pretty Little Studio.

I added some stitching. And some gold foil.
J,ai ajouté de la couture. Et du doré.

And I selected only the best pictures. This was taken in 2008. The technology (and our camera) was not the same as today. Also, by selecting fewer photos, the ones selected have more place to breathe.
J'ai sélectionné seulement les plus belles photos. Premièrement, mes photos ont été prises en 2008. À ce moment-là, la technologie (et notre caméra) n'était pas ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui. Aussi, en choisissant peu de photos, les photos choisies ont plus de place pour respirer.

Here: gold rub-on and stitching. And a piece of patterned paper.
Ici: transfert doré et couture. Et un peu de papier à motifs.

Some cork accents, more stitching and patterned paper from the baby Claire collection (Pretty Little Studio).
Quelques accents de liège, encore de la couture et du papier à motifs de la collection Baby Claire (Pretty Little Studio).

Some journaling cards and large tags that fit right into the pocket.
Des cartes de journaling et des étiquettes qui rentrent juste dans les pochettes.

I'm melting for the motives of that collection. Look at the moon. For little boys there's also the Baby Jack collection with greens and oranges.
Je craque pour les motifs de cette collection. Regardez la belle lune! Pour les garçons il y a la collection Baby Jack avec du vert et du orangé.

Here I opted for some gold glitter and vellum.
Ici j'ai opté pour des paillettes et du vélin doré.

And some more golden rub-ons.
Et d'autres transferts dorés.

4x6 pockets are perfect to hold a 3x4 photo (that I cut down a little bit). Backed with a 4x6 cards, it creates some nice space for some journaling.
Les pochettes 4x6 peuvent très bien contenir une photo 3x4 (que j'ai découpé un peu plus petite). Avec une carte 4x6 en arrière-plan, on crée de la place pour du texte.

A little word sticker. So cute. Perfect little accent. Notice the white frame I added to my photo that I down sized, once again and that I mated on a 3x4 card.
Un petit collant "I love you" tellement cute comme petit accent. Et j'ai laissé un petit cadre blanc autour de ma photo que j'ai montée sur une carte 3x4.

I dressed this picture a little bit more up and added some color to break the softness of the page.
J'ai habillé cette photo un petit peu plus et j'ai ajouté de la couleur plus vive pour briser la douceur de la page.

The little lamb…. no words!
Le petit agneau…sans mots!

Rub-ons are probably my favorite to add a little something special to a photo!! Way better than writing on it!! :)
Les transferts sont ma façon favorite d'ajouter un petit quelque chose de spécial a une photo. Tellement mieux que d'écrire sur la photo avec un marqueur ou avec l'ordi!!

Here some Cosmo Cricket gold glittery vellum. Yum!!!
Ici un peu de vélin doré et pailletté Cosmo Cricket! J'adore!

I covered the pink heart that was on the card with a gold one. :)
Ici j'ai couvert le coeur rose qui était imprimé sur la carte avec un coeur doré. Ca donne de la brillance et de la texture. :)

I love 4x6 cards that have lines like this one!! It makes it so easy to write! And with the incorporated label, it's easy to make a detail stand out.
J'adore les cartes 4x6 qui sont lignées comme celle-ci. Ca rend la tâche tellement plus facile quand on veut écrire beaucoup! Et avec la petite étiquette intégrée sur la carte, c'est facile de faire ressortir un petit détail.

The golden vellum that was used to back my photo in another pocket was used here as washi tape. It's not sticky, I simply stitched through it. An easy way to add some journaling to a card that it very colorful and busy like this one is to use some strips of paper like I did here.
Le vélin doré que j'ai utilisé pour mater ma photo dans une autre pochette a servi ici de washi tape. Il n'est pas collant, je l'ai simplement cousu. Une bonne façon d'ajouter un peu de texte sur des cartes très colorées est en utilisant des bandelettes comme celles-ci.

And of course, I use labels ALL THE TIME!
Et bien sûr j'utilise des étiquettes tout le temps!!!

Vellum mixed with rub-ons.
Vélin et transferts.

Vellum again with a cute die cut.
Encore du vélin, cette fois avec un petit die cut.

And a cute flair to end the story in a beautiful and precious way. :)
Et un beau petit badge pour terminer ces pages en beauté. :)

I hope I could inspire you a little.
Looking back at these times that are so far behind although they are just 6 years ago replace things in perspective… Have a nice day!!
J'espère que j'ai pu vous inspirer un peu. 
Regarder ces photos et relire tout ça et me dire que ça ne fait que 6 and que c'est arrivé, ça remet les choses en perspective. 
Passez une belle journée mes amies!

Marie-Pierre

Pretty Little Studio | Journaling Cards

Hi everyone! 

If you're like me, you love Journaling Cards!!

Who doesn't? That you are doing Project life or not, you can find many ways to use journaling cards on your layouts. Did you know that Pretty Little Studio had TONS of FABULOUS Journaling Cards to choose from??! You should go check it out.

But first, I'd like to show you with journaling cards. 

Usually, when I think doing a baby Project Life album, I think about my babies. I started Maya's Project Life baby album with Ruby Rock it's collection. (You can see it here.) And I did Arielle's project Life baby album for a project I'll talk about later, when I'll be allowed to talk about it. But why not make a Project Life style baby album about ME???!! Right?! 

Yeah, that's right! When I first learned about Project life, I wasn't expecting to use it as I use it now (actually, I'm quite behind on that right now), but I had seen the potential of that system to tuck in all these baby pictures I have for which I don't really have a story. Here's the beginning of this album which is FINALLY seeing the light of day. :)

It's a double spread. You can see the details of my journaling cards right here:

I added quite a bit of details and played with stitching and die cuts and sequins. And every single thing you see here is from Pretty Little Studio. And I'm quite happy with he result. :)

Talk to you soon!!

Marie

Ruby-Rock-It | April's Guest Designer

Hi everyone!

I am so happy and proud to announce that I am the April's guest designer over at Ruby-Rock-It!!
I met the Ruby-Rock-It team at CHA in California back in January and they are such fun and nice people!! :) So I was more than happy to create with their beautiful new line: Empire Bebe!

Here's what I came up with.

(If you come from the Ruby-Rock-It website, scroll down to the bottom of the post to see some bonus Pocket Pages layouts!!) 

Traditional Scrapbooking:

The colors of the line are all neutral. There is lots of white and grey and there's an old pink and a blue grey. This makes it easy to pair with very colorful photos, or with black and white photos like I did here.

To create my starry sky, I used my beloved Silhouette and some silver cardstock. I cut out some stars in various sizes. (The ones I didn't use went straight to my stash!!) :)

I place them on my background, making sure none of them were in line with the others and I adhered them down. After that I just used my sewing machine to stitch right over each star. Easy peasy!! :)

Under my photo, I layered several cards from the Pocket Pages kits I had. I played with the colors and the motives. Look, there are even some clear cards.

I used the lines of the cards to write my journaling. Using the prompts given.

Look at this Twinkle Twinkle card. So lovely!!!

And I cut out my title in the same silver yardstick i used for the stars. The #untilshefallsasleep was already printed on my photo. I made it with the A Beautiful Mess application on my iPhone.

A little white ink for the date and voilà!. :)

Cards:

Whit the collection you can find two sets of stamps. I'm telling you, they are Soooooo cute!!! I decided to choose one and to make three different cards of three different colors.

Head over to the Ruby-Rock-It blog for a tutorial on how I achieved this background.

I already know who's going to get the pink card. :)

BONUS:

Pocket Pages:

The biggest part of the collection are 3x4 and 4x6 cards. Slip them in, add pictures and maybe some embellishments/stamping and you're done! You can create a baby book in (almost) no time!

My daughter is now 3 years old and for the first 2 years of her life I religiously took monthly notes of everything that was happening in her life, thinking that some day, these informations would go in her scrapbook, but until now, I had done nothing with them. She does have an album with traditional 12x12 pages recording snippets of memories here and there, but nothing chronological showing all the little details as I had taken note of them. When Ruby Rock It asked me to be guest designing with this line, I new that I would finally get to do my daughter's baby album. I must say that I'm not done at all, but at least I have put a couple of pages together and I am now motivated to go forth with my project.

My original plan with the pocket pages was to file them in an album of their own, but when I finally got started, I figured it would make more sense to only incorporate them to my daughter's actual traditional album and so they start right next to the imprint of her little feet.

This first page is dedicated to my daughter's very first moments of life.

Here are some detail shots of what I did.

I played with the colors of the cards to create interest and I added some small and fun details to the cards. Here I drew a string and a added a heart (that I punched out into some glittery cardstock I had in my stash) to the beak of the stork. I used the gold glittery alphas from the collection to write the name of my daughter and I added the date with an office roller date stamp.

I used two of the stamps from the stamp sets to create a cute design (the stamps are clear and are easy to position) and I stamped and embossed with black embossing powder directly on my photo. I was careful with the embossing. I made sure that my heat gun was warm enough before I started heating my powder so that it would go quicker and I didn't leave the heat very long in one spot so that I don't burn the photo. It worked out perfectly. 

Pocket page scrapbooking is the ideal way of adding ephemera to an album. Here I added my daughter's hospital bracelet.

I stitched a 3x4 card to a square photo. It's a great way so add some extra journaling. I also cut out the word "moments" from another journaling card to add an home made embellishment. 

The second spread is dedicated to the week we spent at the hospital. 

I loved that the journaling cards prompted me to write not only about events, but also about my feelings.

Here on the card "this moment" I started every line of my journaling with these words. I used a second card without title to continue my thoughts. 

The collection has some very cute glittery stickers, perfect for a subtle embellishing touch.

Here I sewed a square picture directly onto a 4x6 card and I added a small label on which I stamped the word "precious".

This is an embellishment I created with a simple polaroid frame die and two of the journaling cards and a label sticker and I added some sequins from my stash.

I love that the cards are perfect to write basic and important informations.

The next spread is dedicated to the moment we went home. 

Here again, the cards prompted me perfectly to write not only facts, but also my feelings.

The last page I would like to show you is a summary of my daughter's first month of life. It contains mainly photos. I use one journaling card.

I ended my spread with the sheet I used to write down all the dates and details that happened during the first month. I simply slipped it into a 12x12 page protector and on the other side I have my traditional scrapbook pages.

I hope I could inspire you to use the new Essence Empire Bebe collection in many ways and that you feel motivated to start this baby album you always wanted to make!!

Thank you so much for stopping by!! 

I hope to see you again. :)

Marie