Every once in awhile, and more often than I lately have time for, I get the creative ITCH. The need, the craving to create something out of nothing. To take bits and pieces and fluff and lovlies and doodads and combine them in a pleasing way. This urge might manifest in a batch of yummy, pretty cupcakes or a little stitched blankie for my baby... It might be satisfied with a batch of new photos or a scrapbook page. The two projects I'm showing you today are directly inspired by two very creative gals who seem to make time for their creative itch more than I do. One, Jaime, is a good friend. The other, Ali Edwards, is a "scrapbooking guru" whose blog I stalk. Both blogs are fun and inspiring, so go check them out.

So today, I'm going to show you two little books. The first is inspired by Jaime's amazing hybrid books here and here. Okay, maybe "inspired" is the wrong word. How about "directly and completely copied"? *wink*
Take a look at her book:

I loved her owl book so much that I went over and got the scoop on how to make one of my own. I followed her directions to a T and voila! A lovely lil' owl book of my very own.

The digital scrapbooking kit I used is "Owl Love You Forever Boy" by MandaBean

The pages are mostly done digitally, on Photoshop. They are then printed onto photo paper.

The board book is the keyplate book by BasicGrey.
The Photoshop layouts are cut out and glued to the board book pages.

Additional scrapbook doodads, 3-D this time, are added. (Jaime used Prima flowers, sooo cute, but not very "manly", so I used "Love, Elsie" chipboard buttons)

The whole thing gets one more coat of glue and some matching ribbons from my vast and growing ribbon collection added to the ring...

And only a little while later (okay, I'm lying. MAN this took longer than Jaime made it sound. :) I slaved away on this little treasure!!! And don't look too close. There are plenty of little mistakes to remind me I'm human.) ...anyway, a bit later I have a fabulous brag book to show of some favorite Noah photos. Love it!
(Thanks, Jaime, for letting me completely steal your idea. Maybe next time I'll try to be original. Or not. You're too inspiring for me to quit the plagarism. *sigh*)

*

BOOK #2

...And this one is from Ali Edward's Weekend Creative Valentine's idea in early February, posted here. She gave a template ready to print and some excellent photo descriptions, and it seemed easy enough. So I whipped one together for my sweetie for his Valentine's card and added some little photos of our family. I wrote lots of sweet reasons he is awesome to finish the whole thing off. Cute!

...So there you go. Every so often there is time in my messy, loud, packed, stretched little life to make something out of nothing-- to fulfill that creative need. And these little books are tangible reminders that our life IS good and IS lovely, and that everything we have is everything we'll ever need. I need to remember to do this again. I need to remember that there will always be good stuff in the middle of the crazy stuff.

My life is pretty great. And I'm okay.

Gabbly Chat:

A brief note: You may have noticed the GabblyChat box to the right of my postings. This is a random, fun little widget that allows those who are currently viewing my blog to chat with each other. Fun. Weird. Random. Mostly, you'll be the sole viewer. Once in awhile, you might find another Emily's Little World blog stalker to hang with for a minute.

I may keep this widget... I may ditch it. For now, I'm terribly amused at the idea that I might get to chat with any one of you. I already have chatted with Stefanie, Cherron, Abby, and Polly... and it was delightful!

So.... long story short, I am gonna be online tonight of all nights. Friday night. I am editing photos and it is a lonely endeavor. If you decide you wanna "go gabbly" with me, just start typing in the box to your right and I'll type right back. I'll probably stay around from 8 pm to 10 pm central time.

And just for fun, I'll come back and report tomorrow if anyone took me up on my chat offer.

Ta!