Making Memories

Note : This was first featured as Guest Designer Feature on 28 Sept 2011 in Making Memories Blog.

A good friend of mine is getting married very soon and I won't be able to attend his wedding due to work commitment.  I wanted to create a small memento that would be meaningful to him and special to her.  As I love altering items, this is when  I gave a new lease of life to a simple diskette box.  I made a mini album to fit the box, with space in the box to spare for them to keep additional notes or photos.

For this project, I hunted down all the remainder stock of Je T'adore in Singapore and used a total of three 12x12 papers from the Je T'adore paper - Tres Jolie Collage , French Dictionary and Floral Ledger and the brads and accoutrement pack.  Je T'adore is such a gorgeous collection.  The box was covered with French Dictionary trellis pattern paper on the sides,  with Tres Jolie paper in front.  The mini's pages are made from a single sheet of Floral Ledger paper and the covers from Tres Jolie paper.

In any project, a slight alteration can make a big difference in the end results.  I will share a few from this project over here.

1) The box is upcycled from an old diskette box, covered in double sided patterned paper. As the box is transclucent, you can see the pattern inside and the other pattern outside.

  

2) This pair of kissing swallows are from the Je T'adore accoutrement pack. They are originally light pale pink and I covered them in a thin layer of bronze crackle paint.  After the crackle dried, it broke nicely to show the pale pink under the bronze, giving it a bit of the vintage look.

3) Don't be afraid to mix and match. I have here 3 types of roses - a brad, a resin flatback and a paper rose.  See how well they go together?

4) Use words on patterened paper as highlights by boxing them or matting them.  This was from a phrase in the French Dictionary paper.

5) Give dimension to your fussy paper cuttings by painting them with a layer of glitter glue and distressing and curling the edges of the cut.

Hope you enjoyed the tips I shared!

FOLLOW on the right hand side if you want to be notified when the tutorial on how to make the mini album comes up in a few days' time!