Family Reunions

Don't come along all that often in our family so when they do, it is something very special!  Last summer everyone on Mr B's side of the family assembled at a farm in Alberta for 3 very quick days together.  There was more fun had than should even be legal.  And the best part?  No one died!  You'd understand how noteworthy that is if you saw some of the craziness that was got up to!!  Only moderate amounts of Tylenol 3's were required for complete recovery!

I made an apple ibook of the event for all the members of the family to look back on.  It contains the best 140 photos of the 1000+ that were taken!!  (Professional and amateur photographers abound in this family!)  But I wanted to scrap some of the photos as well...some of my favorite shots.  In the end, they didn't all fit in this album, so guess what!?  I'll still be able to scrap some more!  Phew!

The thought of running out of photos to scrap wakes me at night in a cold sweat!!

For this album, I tried Heidi Swapp's fun technique for back to back binding.  No coils or rings...it's a very sleek look because it provides you with full width pages as your canvas.  I chose the paper line Follow Your Heart, Be Happy (My Mind's Eye) from Love is in the Details.  What I especially love about this line is that the designs don't require much more added in embellishments to create a really pretty page.  And have you noticed how those papers can be cut in half horizontally without losing anything from the design above or below??  So that's what I did.  Then I scored each "page" vertically at the 4.5" or 7.5" mark, so every other page is either shorter or longer than it's mate.  Hows that for completely confusing!?

Let's take a look....

The cover has a Making Memories metal bookplate from my old stash, as well as some Jenni Bowlin hexagon stickers, a Prima butterfly and Melissa Frances star die cut.  (The Melissa Frances 5th Ave line, also available at LiitD, coordinates really beautifully with this My Mind's Eye line.)

 See how every other page is shorter than the one beside it?  The back of each page is glued to the back of the next one.  That's what holds the book together and what makes each page open flat as well.

More Melissa Frances die cuts, a Sizzex leaf die cut from book paper, and some miscellaneous bits and pieces that were laying on my desk!  Happy accidents!

Between the right hand short page and the one it's glued to, I stuck a misted fabric ruffle from Pink Paislee.

See how little I've added to each page and yet every page looks balanced and complete!

Washi tape and a Prima butterfly.

 This short page got a ruffle made of dictionary paper sewn into the edge with two tags adhered back to back to form a page tab.  Sort of.

 More My Mind's Eye chipboard goodness!

 I added some minimal colored splatters with Mr Huey spray inks.

 A few more embellishments and this mini book is almost done!!

 And we can't forget to adorn the back cover of the book too.  If it doesn't move, it gets something cute stuck to it!!

Thanks for stopping by to check out my mini, and thank you to Lori for her generosity to her design team!!