My Once Upon A Time Chipboard Album

I am so happy that I finally finished my Once Upon A Time chipboard album. This has been an 8-month process and I almost gave up and didn’t finish the album. After putting it away for a few months, I decided to start on it again and somehow found the inspiration to finish it.

The album is 9.5 x 11 inches and it is very heavy. It will be kept in a keepsake box to protect the decoration on the album. I used a lot of Tim Holtz and Stampin’ Up! dies to decorate the pages. It was too difficult for me to cover the DCWV paper that I used in the whole album, because the designs were just too pretty.

I know that compared to some of the albums that you see on the internet, mine is not even as beautiful as what the others have posted on YouTube; but I am quite happy and proud of what I have achieved in the whole process of putting it together.

I hope you all check it out and see if you like my album. Hopefully it will give you some ideas on how to decorate yours.

Do some crafting with your kids, grandkids, etc. and create some great memories! XO!

Screen/Panel Card

I am so happy to be chosen as one of the many talented monthly contributors for Diecut Crazy Magazine and this screen panel card below, is my first project submission. Our theme for the month of July is “Summer”. I have to admit that I was just a bit perplexed. I didn’t have any stamp sets with a summer theme. The majority of my dies are for Halloween, fall, Christmas and spring. I had to look back at some of my past projects and for some reason I couldn’t find any inspiration that would perfectly describe summer.

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In my opinion, summer is all about spending quality time with my husband and kids, traveling around, barbecues, loving the longer daylight, playing with pinwheels, kites, picking flowers, bird-watching and just generally enjoying the great outdoors! So I decided to capture these moments and showcase it through this Screen/Panel Card. The sentiment that I used for this card is exactly what summer is all about ~ it doesn’t have to be perfect to be WONDERFUL!

Supplies and Tools I used:

Screen/Panel Card – 6 x 12 Card Stock (on the 12-inch side, score at 3 inches, 6 and 9). This will create the screen.

All Four Panels (Card Stock)

Bottom Layer: 2 3/4″ x 4 1/2″
Middle Layer: 2 1/2″ x 4 1/4″
Top Layer: 2 1/4″ x 4″

Stamp Sets – Perfect Pennants Stamp set, For the Birds Stamp set, Sweetie Pie Stamp set

Pinwheel sizzlit die
Decorative Punch (I used this punch to create the “legs” of the screen)
Petite petals punch
Banner Punch
Spellbinders Cherry Blossom Die
Fanciful Wings embosslits
Banners Framelits Dies
Grass Die (taken from the Garden Bench Pop it Ups Die)
Rhinestones
Brown Embossing Powder
Copic Markers
Bahama Breeze Memento Ink
Victorian Velvet Distress Ink
Xyron Sticker Maker (I used this to adhere the branch and grass die cuts to my project ~ it makes my life a lot easier!)
Glue dots and stampin dimensionals

Blog: http://www.mariarusselldesigns.wordpress.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mariarusselldesigns
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/rprmlr772