"All About Babies" Blog Hop!

Hello and Happy Friday, my crafty friends! Today is the first day of the first ever JustWordz Blog Hop for which the theme is "All About Babies". The JustWordz Design Team has been busy this week crafting beautiful baby-themed projects to inspire you and we are anxious to show you what we have made. This hop will be open until 11:59 EDT on August 29th so everybody will have 4 full days to visit all the Design Team blogs and leave a comment at each stop to qualify for the prizes Kim is giving away on the JustWords blog. There may also be candy available on some of our personal blogs as well and you'll need to follow the instructions on each blog to be eligible for the giveaway.

If you have arrived here from Tara's blog, you are in the right place. If you just stopped by for a visit or if you landed here by some other means and want to hop with us, you'll want to start at the beginning by visiting the JustWordz blog first so you don't miss anything. I'll post the entire lineup below so in case you get lost along the way, you can come back here to figure out where you should be. There are only 5 stops and you should be able to make it all the way through in very little time. Even though it's a short lineup, don't let that fool you.  We have made some really cool things to give you ideas for your next baby project. I have two projects to show you today and I'll give you advance warning that there are a lot of pictures in case you want to use the restroom or grab something to drink before you go any farther! LOL

My first project is a card. I purchased this sweet digi stamp from Phindy's Place 2 or 3 months ago to use on a card to accompany the mini album I made for a friend of mine in Austin following the birth of her first child.  I featured the mini album on August 13th and you can see it here in case you missed it. The image is aptly called "Sweet One". I colored it with Copics in the same color scheme I used on the mini.

Here's my sneak peek from yesterday.

The card base is medium yellow textured card stock from Core'dinations. I love their cardstock because the core of the paper is colored so white  doesn't show through if the paper cracks at the score line after you fold it. The DP is from DCWV's Nana's Nursery stack for boys. I love the pattern on this paper because it reminds me of the ticking you used to see on mattresses and pillows not that long ago except that ticking was usually cream with black stripes. The photo mats are matching light teal and yellow glitter cardstock from DCWV.  

The ribbons I used are from Michael's. The wider ribbon is a solid light teal satin and the narrower ribbon is yellow with an organza strip between two solid strips of satin. I just layered the yellow on top of the teal.  

This pretty label is from the Spellbinders Fancy Tags Shapeability die set. I inked the edges with a light teal chalk ink.  And of course, the piece de resistance is the greeting, "Welcome Sweet Baby Boy" created using the fabulous JustWordz Everyday Sentiments stamp set, available in the JustWordz online store on Kim's blog.  

Here's a shot of the inside. I layered the light teal glitter cardstock with the DP from Nana's Nursery and some smooth white cardstock from Recollections which I punched on the corners with a Martha Stewart corner punch from one of her cool Punch Around the Page sets. I think I have 4 of those punch sets and I adore all of them! The inside sentiment was created using a stamp from a Cloud9 clear stamp set called "Simple Thoughts - Baby". This set has some really cute sentiments in it.

Now for my second project! Remember a few days ago, I showed you a layout I made for my youngest brother's niece?  Her young daughter, Aliyah, was the subject of the layout. In case you missed it, you can see it here. Well, I made a similar layout for a baby boy. I told you that I might surprise you with another layout very soon! Haha! The subject of this one is my sister's younger son when he was a little over a year old. The pictures were taken in an area park at Easter. This cute little boy is now 21 years old! His mother was the one who died from stage 4 breast cancer in May of 2010. I had promised her that I was going to make a layout for each of her boys and this is the first of the two. I am also planning to make one of the two boys together this same Easter. They were both so dapper in their Easter finery and it's so much fun to look at these pictures again after they have both grown up. The older son was married in May and is an electrical engineer living in Austin, TX. Ready to have a look?

Again, here is the sneak peek you saw yesterday.  

This closeup view shows how I used the JustWordz stamps on my layout. These stamps are so versatile they can be used on any type of project I can think of. I can even see utilizing them to stamp on glass with Stazon ink.  The possibilities are endless, in my opinion.  

Here's a view of the entire layout.  The base of the page is medium blue textured cardstock and the DP is from DCWV's All About Boys stack (the older version). The white cardstock as well as the red I used for the outline, photo mats and border at the bottom are also from Best Occasions.  

The glittered chipboard letters are Me and My Big Ideas AlphaChips. The blue border came in some blog candy I won during a hop a while back. and the puffy stickers I used for my title were from a Momenta set I got from Micheal's called Born To Be Wild Boy. I used some of these in the baby boy mini album too and they are really cute!

I made a hidden journaling tag that looks like a mini file folder and slides behind the largest photo out of the same red and white cardstock. There is room for an additional photo or some other token  as well as the journaling. I also colored some white half pearls from from Recollections with a light red Copic marker to go on the blue border and added 3 buttons in various colors and sizes from my stash and a mini banner ribbon from Imaginisce that also came in some blog candy as additional embellishments.

That's about it for me. But there's one last order of business before I send you on your way. I am giving away a new complete set of JustWordz Everyday Sentiment stamps to one lucky visitor who leaves a comment on my blog during this hop. In a crazy coincidence, Kim drew my name to win her giveaway during our Official Launch and because I already own a set of her wonderful stamps, she said I could pay it forward and give them away during the blog hop. How awesome is THAT??? I will use random.org to select the winner on the 30th and will post the winner here on the 31st. Don't forget to include in your comment a way for me to reach you so I can notify you if you're my lucky winner! I hope you'll decide to follow me but it's not required to win the stamps. Now it's time for you to hop on over to Tammy's blog to see her incredible project. The full hop lineup follows.

Kim (JustWordz) - http://www.justwordz.ca/
Doreen (Especially For You Cards) - http://www.myfirstblog-dora.blogspot.com/
Tara (Homemade Happiness) - http://www.myfirstblog-dora.blogspot.com/
Me - (Anniebee's Craft Room) - http://anniebeescraftroom.blogspot.com/
Tammy (The Purple Muse) - http://www.thepurplemuse.blogspot.com/
Corry (Free 4 Ever) - http://fancyfree4ever.blogspot.com/
Kim (JustWordz) - http://www.justwordz.ca/

I have entered my layout into the following challenge:

Quick Quotes Friday Challenge #2- Banners

I hope you enjoyed my projects and if this is your first time here, I invite you to follow me. I will do my best to ensure that you never regret that decision. Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to return to Kim's blog after you finish hopping to become eligible for her blog candy.

Tomorrow is a brand new Paper a la Mode challenge at The Outlawz so I hope you'll come back and see my project for that too. Until next time...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

Another Paper a la Mode Challenge at The Outlawz

Good morning, crafty people! It's Saturday again and that means it's time for another new challenge on The Outlawz Paper a la Mode group! This week, the theme is "Anything But a Card".

I find myself apologizing yet again for having been absent this past week but once again it was not something I could control. My sister, Melinda, was hospitalized early Monday morning for a severe kidney infection and we later found out that stones had been the underlying cause of it. I took her to the ER at approximately 5:00 AM and by 3:30 that afternoon, after having received fluids, anitbiotics, morphine and anti-inflamatory drugs, she was taken to surgery to install a stint in the kidney that was blocked by the stone. Well, not long after that, she was moved to ICU because the stint had released all the infection and bacteria into her bloodstream and she developed sepsis! She came very close to crashing and had they not started her on some very strong intravenous antibiotics, she very possible could have gone into septic shock and possibly died. But she started to improve very quickly and by the next afternoon, she was moved back to a regular room and they were able to remov the foley catheter. She was released Wednesday afternoon and will remain on antibiotics and pain meds for the next couple of weeks.  When the infection has cleared up completely, she'll go back in the hospital so they can pulverize the stones in her kidneys using either sonic waves or laser so she can pass them.  She gave us a pretty good scare there for a while and was completely unaware of the severity of her condition until the crisis had passed.

Needless to say, I haven't had any time to craft until now but that's okay because I have been promising to feature a baby mini album and as it just happened to coincide with this week's Paper a la Mode theme, I had already decided to save it until today. I made it out of empty toilet paper rollers because they made the perfect size album to carry in a purse. I created this for a friend of mine in Austin whose baby boy was born in February so the pictures represent his first 6 months. Without further delay, here it is.

The following pictures were taken before I added the ribbons so that the album would lie flat and I could photograph it more easily.

On the back of the first tag, I stamped a journaling spot for the baby's birth statistics.

The letters on the tags spell out the baby's name, Victor.  They call him Vic.

Of course, I had to include a couple of pictures of the proud parents! 

I used a piece of blue ric rac to create waves for the little sailboat to float upon.  

He's a very photogenic little guy!  I asked my friend to send me a lot of digital photos so I could choose the ones I wanted to use and also so she wouldn't know what it would look like before she receives it.

I used a few stamps to add sentiments and extra design elements and I used a C3 Copic marker to create permanent shadows on the letters.

I left one side of some of the tags blank so she can write on them or add more pictures.

I lined each flattened tube with paper as well as covering the outside to help the tags slide in and out easily.  All of the papers are from called Pressed Petals that I got from Big Lots a about a year ago but I think they were actually manufactured by DCWV.  The colors and patterns are very pretty and coordinate very well together.  The tags are made from pre-cut bookmarks cut down to fit into the flattened tube pages.  I covered front and back with the same papers.  The photo mats are cut from various solid color cardstock and the die cuts and word art are from various baby themed adhesive-backed embellishment packets purchased from Michael's and Jo-Ann's. I used larger eyelets in the holes I punched in the binding edges of the pages to prevent tearing and two yellow binder rings to bind them together.  The last step was to tie the short pieces of color coordinated ribbon onto the rings.

I am entering this mini in the following challenges:

Pretty Little Ribbons - Use pretty ribbon on your project

Thanks so much for stopping by today and thanks for your patience as I work through all these recent delays.  Like they say, life sometimes gets in the way of our crafting fun!  I hope you enjoyed this little presentation and that you'll consider trying one of these cute paper roller minis for yourself.  Until next time...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee