Monthly Archives: March 2010

Don’t miss the April Kit! It’s going to be shipped out in the next week. If you haven’t yet subscribed…get on the ball, baby! Here are a few pics to tease you. Check out the full list of items included in the kit below the picture!

The Little Black Dress April Kit

• 12 coordinating papers from Sassafras Lass, Graphic 45, Pink Paislee and Basic Grey
• Glitz Design Calendar Stamp
• Prima Marketing Yellow Alpha Stickers
• Making Memories Poolside Brad Combo
• GCD Studios Chipboard Shapes Flourishes
• October Afternoon Report Card Wild Cards
• Pink Paislee RubOns
• An assortment of buttons
• Jenni Bowlin Bingo Card
• Assortment of 5 trims (cream, yellow, teal, red, green)
• Vintage Touring Card
• Vintage stamp
• Giant 5×7 playing card
• Black and White Graphic Novel page
• JBS stick pins, pearl
• Large dictionary page
• Small dictionary page
• Yellow tulle circle
• Tape measure strip
• Vintage metal emblem

Little Black Dress April Kit: Gettin' Close to the Tinies

Anybody out there call themselves a “green” scrapbooker? I got a newsletter discussing a manufacturer’s use of recycled paper for their products and it got me thinking…am I a “green” type of person?

I’ve decided that I absolutely am a “green” scrapbooker. I reuse tons of stuff rather than throw it away. I very carefully save my extra rubons and stickers so I don’t waste any. I never throw out a good pen until the ink is absolutely drained. I use every last bit of paper.

And then there’s the fact that I absolutely reuse things for my projects and scrapbooking that other people would put straight in the rubbish bin. Take the yellow pages. I made a perfectly adorable paper flower out of a sheet pulled from the yellow pages the other day. (Most of the book will end up in my recycling bin because who needs THAT many yellow book page flowers? But I’m still recycling, right?)

I think we can all do this kind of thing quite easily. You know that sheet of “thumbnail” pics meant to act as an index when you get your pictures printed? Don’t just throw it away. Use it. I once made my son a mini mini album using the index pictures. He thought it was the coolest thing since string cheese. (Sliced bread is totally old news).

I am also a great fan of incorporating real life items into scrapbooking. I add in ticket stubs, programs, flyers, etc. to lots of my projects and it just makes it more memorable and more fun. And that’s all stuff that would normally get tossed in the garbage. That’s totally “green,” don’t you think?

And the way I see it…”green” scrapbooking is just fun. We should all do it. I bet ya’ll have even better ideas than I do!

Are you ready to put together your very own version of the Little Black Dress “A Colorful Life” mini album? Let’s get started.

We started off with a children’s board book about colors. You know the kind we’re talking about. They’re often titled Colors and feature one color on each page. Get your old children’s board book (raid your elementary school age kids’ bookshelf for books they no longer look at or check out the local thrift store). Cut the book apart at the binding. So  you now have separate pages.

Now get out your Little Black Dress March Kit!

Take your Pink Paislee Beloved paper. It will become the background for the cover. Use your favorite adhesive to glue it securely to the front cover. Take your red circle mirrors and add them to the front cover as accents (we used them as flower centers). Use your chocolate alpha tiles to place the word colorful across the center of the cover. We placed them haphazardly to give it a fun, jumbled look. Next take a different alpha (your favorite leftovers or your favorite pen and your own handwriting) to add “A” above the colorful and “life” below the colorful. You’ve got your title.

Now take your owl (this is my FAVORITE vintage addition to the kit this month) and place him in a place of importance on the cover. He’s just too cute to go anywhere else. You’ll also be making a flower. We made this version out of Graphic 45′s Fashionista. You put that on the cover as well. Now ink your edges (we inked with Ranger Dabbers in gold and green throughout  the book unless otherwise specified) and sand your alpha letters making up your title and you can set the cover aside.

THE COVER...for Colorful Life Mini Board Book Album

Now the rest can get a little tricky because it depends upon the layout of the board book that you are working with, but we’ll work with the general concepts and you can adjust as necessary for your book. Remember that while we actually incorporated the “colors” and bits of the illustrations of our color board book you don’t need to. You can recover the entire board book as necessary to make it work for you and your Colorful story.

RED PAGE...A Colorful Life Mini Board Book Album

On the red page we used Graphic 45 Homemaker on the top 1/3 of the page. The board book stated the word Red and we accented the board book’s red hat illustration with JBS pearlized flower. We trimmed the crooked edge of the Homemaker paper along the top with red ric rac and then placed another paper flower we made from Pink Paislee’s Beloved paper on the left edge of the ric rac.

Our “red” picture was of a night out with the girls so we journaled on the bottom of the page, “Roses are red…Violets are blue…Girls’ night just wouldn’t be the same without YOU!” We used a basic distressing clear stamp (polka dots) along the bottom of the page and then inked the edges. The right hand side of the Red layout started with a full cover of the page by Graphic 45 Homemaker. We then made a pocket along the bottom half using Graphic 45 Fashionista. We took the edge of the Fashionista paper and made a trim along the left hand side of the navy with dots. To accentuate the RED of the papers we took some Glassy Accents and covered several of the small red details in the Fashionista paper. It really makes the colors pop out! In the pocket we placed a photo of girls’ night, a small program (we took our daughter’s to see High School Musical on stage), and a Guest Check where we journaled the details of the outing. We inked the edges again and set Red aside.

WHITE PAGE...A Colorful Life Mini Boardbook Album

The White page is a lot of fun. On the left we used the Glitz I’m Feeling stamp in the left hand corner. Mark the box appropriate for your picture…our’s was happy! Then we used the Glitz Kismet rubon and applied the delight definition in the center of the page above the board book’s “white” and the white hat illustration. We let the definition run from the center to the edge of the page with a little bit running off. We used the Glitz Kismet journaling stickers and applied a favorite to the bottom left hand corner (and then journaled on it, of course). We used a favorite distress stamp along the bottom edge and then inked the edges.

On the right side we used our vintage song sheet. (LOVE THOSE!) It creates the entire background. We then cut our picture into a circle and placed it on a circle cut piece of the Graphic 45 black, large dots paper and clipped the edges to give the “flower” a bit of texture and depth. We crinkled up the edges after we glued our pic in the center of the big dots paper circle with fringed edges.

SEQUIN STRIP FLOWER for the White Page

Next you take your sequin strip (colors may vary per kit) and make a flower. Don’t worry if yours isn’t white. It can add a pop of color to the page and make the white backgrounds more obvious. We just pleated one side of the strip over and over until the flower shape was in place. Then we stapled it to hold it and trimmed the edges to make the flower size work for our page. Then take one of your JBS self adhesive buttons with the yellow rhinestone centers and place it over the staples. Ink your edges and set this page aside.

YELLOW PAGE...A Colorful Life Mini Boardbook Album

The left side of the yellow page was left almost entirely alone. You see the entire board book page. We just used our favorite distress stamp along the left and bottom edges (it was a graph distress stamp) and inked the edges. We cut a piece of our corrugated cardboard to create a divider in between the two sides of the yellow layout. We pulled out some old yellow craft paint and sponged it over the corrugated cardboard. We created a tag out of the Pink Paislee Tender paper, punched a hole in the top and knotted trim through it (we used navy trim and cream tulle). We cut our picture along the edges of the backed it so the paper showing off the top of the divider from the backside coalesced with the project look.

The right side of the yellow page layout is created using the Graphic 45 Fashionista as the background. We backed out photo using the Black, big dots paper and made a journaling title with the Pink Paislee Tender to place at an angle under the picture. We used Glass accents along the edges on each dot of the Fashionista’s trim and inked the edges of the page.

BROWN PAGE...A Colorful Life Mini Boardbook Album

The Brown Page left side is accented using the Glitz Kismet rubons. We used the numbers because it went along with our journaling. And we used the red/blue flower. Our journaling is along the bottom of the page in addition to the cute title/journaling at the top. The top says “1 Little Lady + 2 Big mud puddles” and at the bottom we put the more specific name, date, location type of info. Ink your edges and set the left page aside.

The right side is covered with Pink Paislee Lovely paper. Then cut a piece of your corrugated cardboard to place on the page slightly crooked. Trim the edges that fall of the right, left and top sides of the page. Back your photo using Graphic 45 Homemaker newsprint side and glue it right on top of the cardboard. Take your Brown flourish embellishment and tuck it under the top of our backed photo and glue it well.

Take your cream tulle and make a loose knot to glue under the photo on the cardboard. Then pick a button (we used a cream button) to glue on top of the knot portion of your tulle. Ink your edges and set it aside.

GREEN PAGE...A Colorful Life Mini Boardbook Album

For the Green page you start with some Glitz Kismet stickers. Use the circular brown with stars border in your top left corner. Place your photo over the top overlapping the edges of your circle border and journal along the edges. In the bottom left corner use your red scalloped square border sticker. Place the round, brown, lined journaling spot inside the red box sticker. And then place the red centered, blue flower sticker on the right, top corner of the red scalloped frame. Journaling for the picture on the right side of the page layout will go in this area.

On the right side of the page use your Graphic 45 Fashionista paper to provide your background. Place your photo diagonally on the page. Use your red ric rac to trim the top and bottom of the photo starting at the left edges and running it all the way to the right side of your page.

Use the back side of your large dots paper to create a round for a paper flower. The second round for the paper flower is made from the Pink Paislee orange paper in your March kit. Cut the second round smaller than the first and glue it on top. then glue a button in the center. Cut the outside edges of the rounds fringe style and you’ve got your paper flower to glue at the left side of your photo near the top. Ink your edges and set your page aside.

ORANGE PAGE...A Colorful Life Mini Boardbook Album

For the Orange page you  use the Glitz Kismet journaling sticker sideways on the top left corner of the left page of the layout. Glue a wallet sized picture on the right hand side of the journaling sticker diagonally. Cut varying sizes of rounds out of the Pink Paislee Tender, Pink Paislee orange paper, and the Graphic 45 Fashionista (backside polkas). Arrange them in layers in the bottom left corner of the left page. On the right side of your layered rounds place the Glitz Kismet sticker, “If found please return to…”. Cut the edges that fall off the page to fit the page size. Ink your edges and your finished.

On the right side of the Orange page layout you use the Pink Paislee orange paper to provide your orange background. Cut a strip of your Fashionista paper to run (backside showing) along the bottom edge of your page under the photo. Place your photo above the navy polka strip and then glue orange trim along the bottom of the photo at the top of the navy polka paper strip. use rubons, stickers and your vintage 25 cent tickets to embellish the bottom of the page. Journal around the edges of your photo. Ink your edges and your Orange page is complete.

If you have additional pages to work with (depending upon the boardbook you chose to use) keep going in the same style and have fun!

One more thing we want to remind you not to forget is the back of the book. Make it adorable! Everyone looks at the back. And it makes them feel stupid when there’s nothing there. So keep it simple, but make it cute. We covered it in Fashionista’s backside (the navy with polkas). Then we took a strip of the Pink Paislee orange paper and glued it on diagonally. We wrote down the names of the colors featured in our little board book one by one in order of appearance along the strip of orange paper. Then we inked all the edges to match the rest of the book.

BACK COVER...A Colorful Life Mini Boardbook Album

To finish it off punch holes through your pages (we used the Crocodile tool…so handy dandy). Make sure that you check to make sure there won’t be any layout issues where you are punching holes. For instance it’s problematic to run into trim when punching holes for your book. It will probably pull it out of place and mess up your page design. Once you have your three holes punched insert your key rings to hold the book together and tie a grouping of fun trims in a knot around the top key ring.

Final touch on the Colorful Life Mini Boardbook Album

Now you’re all set. That’s about as much info as there is to give…the rest of the fun is for you to have on your own! Enjoy!

My husband has often asked me, “What is it about that little black dress that makes you love it so much?”

And after I reprimanded him for his lack of reverence regarding the matter I told him that it was the color.

Now I know that the traditional “little black dress” is actually void any actual color; it’s black, after all. Don’t think I don’t understand that. But what I love about it is that it can accentuate even the smallest splash of color and make it look more bold, more beautiful, more classy, more elegant, more lush, more….ANYTHING! It’s the perfect backdrop for any and all colors.

It makes it the loveliest accent for fabulous jewelry, fabulous shoes and fabulous, dramatic hair. You’ve gotta’ love that!

So that’s the idea we’re presenting with the Little Black Dress Kit Club. We’ve got the “little black dress” of scrapbooking supplies coming to subscribers each month. And they’re exactly what scrappers and crafters need to provide the “Fabulous” for every project! Throw your favorite frosting and bling in with your monthly kit’s products and send in pics. We love to see what subscribers come up with!

P.S. Don’t forget to check back soon for pics of the April Kit…they’ll be posted shortly! Don’t be sad I’m teasing you. I’ll totally follow through. That’s the kind of girl I am.

I absolutely love that Bazzill matches their cardstock with the recent paper releases from most of the manufacturers. It makes it oh, so easy to color coordinate when someone else is doing it for you, don’t you think? They know their paper and they offer a courtesy paper match for all the manufacturers. They send paper samples in and provide a color match for them to provide to customers. Nice, right?

It makes it extra nice that the basic cardstocks from Bazzill are among our favorite staples here at Little Black Dress. They’ve got all the colors we’ve ever needed and the paper is top notch. There’s no slightly too bendy quality. It’s a solid paper and it’s typically available at an affordable price. So that’s our plug for our favorite cardstock manufacturer.

We just received a notification from Sassafras Lass that the Bazzill matches were now available for their recent releases and it reminded me how nice Bazzill is to offer such a convenient service for the rest of us out here who so enjoy one less step in the process of making the perfect project. Especially when that one less step typically involves purchasing several variations of a colored cardstock in order to find the one that works. Bazzill’s color match is not only convenient, it’s financially advantageous. And that’s almost as important.

Bazzill Cardstock Matching...Fabulous!