special day...

 
Last month, I was lucky enough to make it onto the design team for Scrapbook Island. Yay!!!
We got our first project box and had this past month to complete it. The interesting thing about this design team is that at the end of the year, the store holds a huge crop and auction to benefit breast cancer. The projects from the team are the auction items! 

My box had the latest birthday collection from Crate Paper, all the embellies that went with it, a chipboard binder plus the pages that fit it.
I was nervous, nervous, nervous! The deal with the projects is this: you don't add photos (simplest rule in the world for me to follow since I rarely take any!) BUT... you also don't add anything else to the project. Now that is a heart-stopper for me. No book paper, no sheet music, no vintage images (say it ain't sooooo) and most likely, no layers on top of layers on top of more layers.

The 'what' of the project was a no-brainer... duh, it's going to be a birthday book.

The 'how' was a little trickier for me.

I machine stitched on photo mats I had cut from the decorative papers.

The interior sleeves that were included were all the same size. Too dull. I ended up cutting them into different widths so that the book would have some movement.

Cute little vellum pockets got some washi tape and die cuts.

I did my best to create layers where I could.

With the manufacturer bar code strip cut off of each sheet of paper, I realized I had the perfect little piece that could be added along the edge of the pages. It was kinda fun stitching these on, although I was definitely holding my breath until I could flip each one over to make sure I'd caught the strip on the opposite side. whew!

The orange birthday sheet music paper was my hands-down favorite of the entire stack.

Another vellum bag just begging for some photos to be slipped into it.

My stitching was far from perfect as you can clearly see!

It's ready for someone to add their birthday memories...

It was a challenge that really made me stop and think... way out of my comfort zone style-wise (and paper-wise too) and definitely a larger scale than I am used to working in. At the end, it all came together and I was eager to turn it in and see what was in my next box!

xo,