Pink and Black Mini Album FINALLY! (pic heavy)

 

First, I want to show you my daffodils that bloomed on March 14, 2012!  I noticed them after dusk, so it's a little dark. That is incredibly early for them to bloom around here in northern Indiana!

It's not wonder flowers are blooming right now. We broke a temperature record for this date. It was 85F degrees (29C) here beating the old record of 76F!!

And so, I know I've been teasing you all with this album for MOOOOOONTHS. In fact, it's only a couple months short of a year since I started it in May of 2011.  I hope it is worth the wait for those of you faithful enough to have been following along all this time. Bless you!

I will do a video, but I have been having issues just trying to get these pictures on here (of course I have). First, I noticed that my memory stick for my camera was down to THREE pictures left and I did not want to delete anything. So, I went to Walmart to get another one. I get it home and realize it's the wrong kind for my camera. I did not realize that Sony now sells standard SD cards for their newer cameras, while mine takes the odd sized Memory Sticks. Ugh! So I had to take it back immediately and get the right one. I had to try to get that done right away because it's supposed to be rainy the next day and the lighting would not be good. I don't want to show every hidden detail with this album just yet because I want it to have some surprises left for the recipient. After she gets it, then I will post the video, along with the photos of the hidden features.

There are still a ton of photos to look at, so here we go!

This butterfly charm helps keep the toggle clasp (for the closure) from slipping through from the other side. I saw the whole charm bracelet & charm idea on a YouTube video and I thought I saved whose it was, but now I can't find it. geeeeez... my apologies!

Each year has a pocket page on the right side to hold more photos.

Since the recipient is not a scrapbooker, or even a crafter as far as I know, so I tried to keep this mini as simple for her to fill with pictures without having to cut anything down or adhere, so I added the clear photo corners to these recipe card style photo mats.

Sorry about my lame photo skills here with the blurry shot .... this is the backside of the photo mats for journaling. I drew in pencil lines for her so she can easily erase them once they're filled in.

The pink Lips and Hearts you see throughout the album are foil patterned papers that I believe are from DCWV, but not 100% sure on that. I think it's some kind of high school paper stack.

Some of the foil detail on the paper and I used Glossy Accents on the word "Music."

This is the photo insert front. I used the Forever Young Cricut cartridge for this portion. 

Here is the backside for a little hidden fun. ;^)

I used this key that I got at Joanne's to symbolize the recipient getting her driver's license during that year (I think).

Another pocket made from some very old flocked paper I got on clearance years ago at Target. They no longer carry this stuff. The butterfly is from Making Memories a few years ago. 

I received these darling charms of a hanger and dresses from a dear sweet friend of mine, Rose, from across the big pond in the UK. I noticed that one of the pink stones has already been lost out of the hanger. bummer.

I added the graduation cap & diploma tie in blue because that was the color she wore at her graduation. At least that's what it looked like in the photos I seen. 

This was the killer portion that really set me back and it still ended up way thicker than I wanted.

This is supposed to resemble a clutch purse, and is removable from the album! It's held on by velcro. I will relinquish all the details of how I hid this after she receives the album, so there will be another posting on this mini later.

 

This is the back cover.

This is the hair band binding technique I ended up doing because I didn't want the huge opening on one side that is sometimes referred to as "gator mouth".  Here are a couple of You Tube tutorials on how to do this method. 

*Hair Band tutorial 1

*Hair Band tutorial 2

This closure was intended to take on a charm bracelet look, but it didn't turn out as nice as I had envisioned. Her first initial is on there and she played softball, so I had to add one of those too, along with lots of other cute bits & baubles. I think it ended up being a bit too much, but I'm not touching it anymore. LOL!

I had several other plans for this book, but when it came right down to it, they just didn't end up working out or I couldn't find what I was looking for and had to scrap the ideas.

I just hope she likes it. I enjoyed making it, but I'm glad it's finally done.

  
I will be linking up to the following parties, as well as the ones posted in the Left side bar- go check them out!