Husband and I are moving. Have I mentioned that here? It hasn’t quite sunk in for me, but we have been having “last things” with people, and I’m sort of just blocking it out. I’m not ready to really say goodbye… We have made so many wonderful friends here, and it’s going to be hard to move away.
Warning: this is going to be a LONG post with a LOT of photos!
One of the groups of friends is our Bible study. We have been meeting together for at least 5 years… This (small but fantastic) body of believers has been such a wonderful fellowship to be a part of, and it’s going to be hard to replace… Tonight, one of the couples had us all over for dinner to celebrate and say farewell to us and another couple who are also moving. It was a fantastic time (delicious food, wonderful company), and I brought these as a going away gift.
So a big part of our Bible study, besides the actual studying of Scripture, was food. We had snacks sometimes on Bible study night, or parties at the holidays, or theme dinners (Narnian food anyone?), or just plain dinners together. And the food was always good. There really is something about having food that amps up the fellowship. I wanted to somehow capture that, so I decided to make recipe mini albums for everyone. I asked each couple to give me 2-3 of the recipes they have made for Bible study, and I asked my very talented photographer friend for photos of each couple.
I’ve never made a mini-album before this one, and boy, when I decide to do something, I *do* it. I made 5 albums– one for each couple. Each album had pages for the other four couples.
I found my 6″x6″ scalloped chipboard albums in Target (at a *great* price!! I was so glad, because originally I was planning to cut out cardboard pieces by hand because I couldn’t find chipboard anywhere locally on short notice). I covered the plain chipboard with paper from My Mind’s Eye paper pad– glued on with Zig glue– and trimmed the scallops with a craft knife. (That was a job! But *so* worth it) The kraft paper pockets are sewn onto a second coordinating piece of patterned paper and adhered to the background. And I inked the bejeepers out of every edge on this whole album. My brown pigment inkpad got a workout!! But I love that antiquey look that it gives…
The tags were made using my Silhouette SD software. It has this absolutely fabulous feature called print-and-cut… You can use premade designs, or make your own, like I did. I designed the tag shapes and added the text to them. When you print the page, it prints all of the images, plus registration marks. Then you put your page onto the carrier sheet, and the optical eye finds the registration marks and cuts out the shapes. It is seriously like magic. Husband will testify that when I figured all of this out and my first sheet of tags was cutting, I was literally jumping up and down and doing a happy dance. It is *SO* cool.
I hand-made the majority of the embellishments on these albums. On each cover, there is a pink flower that I made from plain cardstock, edges inked with brown, inspired by this post at Cosmo Cricket. I added orange beads to the center for a little bit of sparkle. The aqua flower is made from a torn strip of fabric that is looped and then tied in the middle. The burlap flowers were inspired by this post at Tatertots and Jello, and these in turn inspired my ribbon flowers.
And this wouldn’t be a recipe album without the recipes. My most darling Husband did so much work on these. It should have been pretty straightforward, but when we got to Friday night (remember, I gave these as gifts on Saturday), I realized that I had just two 8.5″ by 11″ and seven 12″x12″ sheets of white cardstock. And we had eleven recipes to print four times each! And we didn’t want to buy more (remember, we’re moving, and I already have pounds and pounds of paper). Husband spent a LONG time figuring out the best configuration and even setting everything up so that we printed double-sided… and we had JUST enough cardstock. He is so wonderful. As a finishing touch, the recipes have a small punched circle glued to them that coordinates with the background paper of the page to which they belong.
These albums were a labor of love, for a Bible study that has demonstrated in word & deed the love of Christ to Husband and I. Thank you all, so very much, from the bottom of our hearts.
See a few more photos here…
Supplies:
photographs of each couple by Chantal Haas
Silhouette SD: LOVE the print & cut feature!! (all the tags are my own design; fonts CK Academia & CK Ali’s Hand, in which the “&”=”and”) and welded font “Honey Script”
chipboard albums: Colorbok
patterned paper: My Mind’s Eye Simply Delightful paper pad
solid cardstock & kraft cardstock: Paper Reflections
burlap: Canvas Home Basics fabric page from Scrapbook Circle March kit
brads: the Paper Studio
metal flowers: Colorbok
“made with love” stamped sentiment on back cover: Hero Arts Classic Messages
buttons
ribbon & fibers
crochet thread
torn fabric strips
vintage rick-rack
beads
brown pigment stamping ink
brown pen: American Crafts Slick Writer
glue pens: Zig
lots of Glossy Accents– this stuff is like magic!
foam adhesive
machine stitching
Wow! Those are gorgeous. I don’t know how you have the time to not only work on your projects, but actually finish them! 🙂
These are awesome! So much detail! Works of love, no doubt!
What a wonderful gift for your friends. It’s beautiful and I’m sure they all loved it!
What an amazing and beautiful gift to give to those friends of yours! I am sure they will be cherished always!
Blessings to you and your husband for a safe move!
XO,
Lolly
Ok, so I only have time to skim this wonderfully detailed post. They look great! And I’m glad you finally found chipboard at a good price. I was dreading for you the task of cutting out all that from my stinky old boxes.
Thank you, everyone! 🙂
Wow. I love those! If I wasn’t in the middle of moving I would start some! 🙂
These are amazing! What a huge amount of work they took, and I bet that each person who received one was so happy about it! It’s inspiring, this project. Thank you!
[…] for the bottom right, and you might remember flowers similar to the one on the top left from the recipe albums. Of course, I used a Sharing Memories journaling spot from the “warm” […]
[…] Food of Fellowship mini albums (made in June) — first-ever mini albums… and now I want to make more! […]
Awww what a great little gift this is so cute!