Monday, January 6, 2014

Gift album for a baby and a GIVEAWAY!

Before I get into the album, I have wonderful news: the author of the Owl and the Pussy Cat baby hat I blogged about on Saturday would like to give a copy of the pattern to one of my readers!  That's so sweet of her!  The instructions are written in sizes from birth to 2 years old, although I bet crafty knitters using thicker yarn and bigger needles could make it work for older children as well.  As I mentioned in my blog post, the pattern is very easy to understand, and the cabled owls are adorable.

So if you'd like the pattern for this hat:


minus the pom pom (that was my addition), all you need to do is e-mail traci@creative-pursuits.biz.  I thought about having you comment here, but then how would I get your e-mail address?  The author is from South Africa, so you'll have a pattern that has crossed the ocean.  I think that's neat!  I will keep the contest going until Friday, and I will pull the lucky winner's name out of a hat.  It won't be the baby hat, however.  That's still in my husband's office waiting for the baby's father to come back to work.



In case you're all wondering if I'm keeping to my resolution to create/work on something every day, I am.  I'm nearly done with my grown-up looking hat I've been talking about, then I'm going to work on a scarf to match.



Now on to today's event:  The album Steve made for the baby who will wear the above hat.  I'm not going to show all the pages, but you'll get a good idea of how the album looks if you'd like to make something similar for your own child or for a gift.

Steve has done this a number of times now, and he's getting really good at it.  The first thing he does is make a list of pages, such as baby's first portrait (the ultrasound), baby's room, meeting the cat or a sibling, baptism, and dinner time.

I like using 8"x8" albums for gifts like this, but 12"x12" albums work, too.  Now that I write that, I remember that I wrote a blog post with a crash course in gift album scrapping back in 2012.  The basic idea here is the same, but we're not including any pictures.

Apart from the solid colors, all of the papers are from one paper pack - DCWV's Nana's Nursery Baby Girl - to give the album a look of cohesion.  I bought 4-5 packs of embellishments, and Steve used all but one little pacifier that I used on the card I showed you yesterday.

Because of the height of most of the embellishments, I didn't try scanning the pages to show you.  I'll discuss the embellishments tomorrow.  I did take pictures, and I hope they're clear enough for you to get an idea of what he did.

Here's the front page for the album:


Steve made a mat using a corner punch specifically designed to tuck pictures underneath.  He hand wrote the size of the picture in the middle of the mat to help the parents out.  The strip at the bottom is for all the birth information: name, born on, time, weight, and length.

The next page is simple but very cute:


It's a playful page for pictures of the baby's room.

Here are a few more pages:




Steve included journaling boxes on many of the pages so the parents can write a bit about what's going on in the pictures.

He also included some wacky things, such as the stars in the Brotherly Love page, above, and the patterned paper flowers on the Let's Play page:


I think it's a really cute album!  What I really like about the papers Steve used and how he put it all together is that it's not overly girly and baby-y.  I know that's not a word, but infantile just didn't seem to work there.  While there are elements of baby items (such as a mobile, baby bottles, and pacifiers) and lots of pink, it's not overpowering.  I'm not sure I could have done as good of a job on that as Steve did.



Now I need to go finish that hat so I can blog about it on Wednesday.  Also, there's a heated blanket waiting for me, which is most appreciated on this very, very cold day.  (We're up to -14!  Woo hoo!)

Remember the giveaway... e-mail traci@creative-pursuits.biz to enter!

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