Hand-made Christmas- My Wish Book

Hi Christmas Lovers out there!

Keri here and I am so excited that my first blog post as an All-Star Design Team member is for the Christmas Love Campaign.

This past weekend I was honored to host a baby shower for my dear friend, Deana.

While I was planning her shower, she would occasionally send me pictures from Pinterest that she loved. 

One thing she sent me was this: 

She loved the idea that her guest would be able to share their hopes and dreams for Baby Olivia Grace, but I wanted to find a way to make it a true keepsake, instead of just a bunch of pieces of paper. 

Here is what I came up with:

I started with a black paper mache book from Hobby Lobby:

Core'dinations White wash collection was perfect to add a texture to the spine of book. I ran it through my Sizzix Big Shot using my Stampin' Up Honeycomb Embossing folder. To bring out the green, I then sanded it with Core'dinations Sand it Gadget (their Dust Buddy was such a life saver to pick up the paper dust!) My label was made using a Spellbinder's Die from Fancy Pants paper and stickers.

Here are some close-ups:

For the front, I covered it with some paper from Fancy Pant's Design's Collecting Moments Collections. I love that the collection came with TONS of stickers and 2 colors of corrugated cardboard (navy and grey.) The grey was perfect to give my book the illusion of "pages", while the navy gave fun texture to my leaves. These went perfect with my Canvas Corp white corrugated cardboard and sage and ivory patterned paper  and May Art gold ribbon to add more fun and color to my leaves.

I hand rolled flowers from my Fancy Pants paper to cluster around my title (Using Fancy Pants Alpha stickers) and snuggled a little house stamped with Susan's stamps for Unity Stamp company in with it. All of this was layered on top of a burlap tag from Canvas Corp.

I added sparkle to the whole thing by splattering and lightly painting my flowers with Tattered  Angels Glam in Golden Goddess and Old Pages and by filling in my stamped clouds and flowers (again from Susan's stamps for Unity) with Tattered Angels Glaze.

So...I bet you're wondering where the "hopes" come in right? Just untie the May Arts Ribbon on the side and....

Here is a close-up of each side:

I rolled a flower from a thick May Arts gold ribbon and layered Fancy Pants Stickers and a stamped sentiment from Susan on top of an ultra-sound picture of Baby Olivia.

The album is hanging from (2) 7Gypsies hooks that I hot glued to the inside top:

(Here's an "inside" cheat...I couldn't find 4x6 page protectors that I needed, so I took page protectors from Bo Bunny's Misc Me collection that had 2-4x6 slots and cut them apart. I punched new holes with my Crop-a-dile to accommodate my jump rings.)

The inside of the album looks like this:

I was very excited to present this gift to my friend at her shower. I think it will be a perfect edition to the nursery and will be a great keepsake for Baby Olivia for years to come.

Thanks for stopping by and joining us for Susan's Christmas Love Campaign during our Hand-Made Christmas.  I hope you will join us.

HAND-MADE CHRISTMAS CONTEST
To start off this wonderful year 5th year of the Christmas Love Campaign, we are having a Hand-made Christmas Contest.

What you have to do:

*Follow along during our Hand-made Christmas event from November 2 - November 16, 2013 at Susan K Weckesser Inc blog 
*Like the Christmas Love Campaign Facebook page ---> HERE.

*Make your own Hand-Made gift. (it can be something you designed yourself or if you want try something that the designers have created please go ahead and have fun and do that!)

*Take a picture and post it on our facebook page. Or if you have Instagram post it there and tag it #craftuplove , #christmaslovecampaign & #susankweckesserinc so I see it! You can find me @ [SUSANKWECKESSER] on Instagram, so come follow me and I would LOVE to follow you! So much fun!

*Give your gift to a neighbour or stranger to make them smile! SPREAD THE LOVE!

*Come back to our Hand-Made Christmas post and let us know that you have crafted up some love and you will be entered to win a awesome prize pack from the above sponsors. The prize will include lots of goodies so you can craft up more love! How awesome is that! You have until November 17, 2013 at midnight MST to enter. Have fun!

COME & JOIN US!

And a BIG shout-out,  "thank you" to our sponsors:

Susan K. Weckesser Designs (of course! LOL!)

Canvas Corp

Tattered Angels

7Gypsies

Fancy Pants Designs

May Arts Ribbon

Core'dinations 

Until next time...

XOXO

KERI