cpz designs Digital scrapbooking. Life. All mixed together

Ali Edwards Evolution – CKU Peeks

Okay, here is the cover and first section from my Ali Edwards' Evolution album.

We were given paint in two colors - black asphalt and parchment. I could not get my head around a black album so I painted mine parchment. The black albums were beautiful so it would have been a fantastic choice but I'm happy with my parchment. I'm not a dark black kind of gal, at the moment. The Open is an actual drawer pull, very cool, very vintage modern, if there is such a thing. Love that thing, bought an extra one from Freckle Friends online for future use...

I'm not going to talk about HOW we made this cover look so cool, suffice it to say it is no longer a plain jane chipboard album. And I did it all by myself, and so can you.

This is the opening page - a Heidi Swapp transparent overlay and then an enlarged photo. BRING YOUR PHOTOS! I was missing two and it was such a downer to not be able to put them in, they look so cool when this thing is put together.

So when you flip over the cover page, you get this on the back. The middle section is a handy little badge holder pocket and when you open it, it has journaling blocks with some very nice Scenic Route paper. All the papers were really cool and neutral and would work with any time period of photos. You are not told which papers to use where, you pick one and adhere it and move on. Its very liberating to have a structure handed to you with supplies but then told to just do it. Loved this class. Would pay major bucks to take classes with Ali anywhere, any time.

The opposite page is a Hambly transparency. We got several of these to choose from and we were given various ideas for cutting them down. We adhered a photo on the front and another on the back in the same place. We stamped on the front. We were also given some nice stickers and other embellishments, I didn't use many of them, I thought it looked busy enough with the varying page sizes.

This was very new to me and a bit disconcerting but I must say, this is my favorite album ever. I wish I could copy this album for every person in my family but I think that would get a bit old... maybe with different paper? Not sure, but am going to try something similar with a vacation album soon.

Then we used these mini coin albums, which I have seen before and had no clue what the hell I would ever do with them. Now I know, if I could only find them, dammit. Anyway, mini photos and embellishments on the front, solid page of paper and photos on the back, shown below, across from another enlarged photo.

Then the process starts all over again for the next phase of your story. There are three sections all together. A couple of people I met actually used this format and class to do travel abums, one was very cool with some fabulous photos of Rome. I never got to see the other one finished but the Rome album was absolutely gorgeous. Carol G - you did great, let me know how Dr G likes it!

Overall, this is a gorgeous album. SO far out of my comfort zone but by the end of the day, I think I got it. I threw in some individual photos here and there, just hole punched them, adhered journaling paper on the back and wrote my journaling. Oh such the rebel am I.

Okay, enough blogging for today. I have to go create something for the evening. Having withdrawal from my paper trimmer...

June 14 – Creativity Every Day and Rusty Pickle

Okay, so I finished the Rusty Pickle album from CKU. First of all, this was an ala carte class on the first day of CKU. We paid extra for this. I do love the album now that it is done, but the instructions were terrible, the kits were a mess with most of the paper pre-cut WRONG, and the teacher was a bit flustered and disorganized, presumably because of the kits. This was a very BAD way to start CKU and had a bunch of people upset. I, however, just laughed it off... okay, not really. I was as upset as everyone else but really, folks, whatcha gonna do? So each night at the crops, I would do a little more, and get a little more upset, but I finally finished the pages at about 11:30pm on Saturday night. So for the past several days, I have been printing photos, adding journaling, etc. and I am DONE. So very DONE. I must say, despite the fact that I really really love this album, I will never voluntarily pay to take a Rusty Pickle class ever again. Throw it in for free and I'm there, but not for extra bucks. Sorry Kristen, but this was a mess.

This is the cover. It is supposed to have a giant E cutout on the front. Why an E you might ask? Well so did we. E is short for mE. Now come on people. Do you really think we're that stupid? Just tell us you had overruns on the letter E and had to get rid of them. Or tell us it is E for Embrace Life and change the name of the class. Anything. But do NOT try to tell me E is short for mE. I'm just not that dumb.

This is what you see when you lift the S (or the E if you followed the Rusty Pickle guidelines, sheesh)... these flowers took forever. Seriously people. Cover the wooden tag with cardstock. Turn it over. Trim it with your craft knife. Ink the edges. Ink the chipboard circle. Attach all of it with a brad to the flower. Tie the tiniest piece of twine you can find around the brad so that your fingers cramp. Repeat 5 times. I'm telling you, never again. I'm just not this detail oriented. I need instant gratification people.

The backs of the pages were all left blank. No explanations, no suggestions, just blank. I decided to print enlargements of favorite photos and use those. THEN I decided I should have printed the quotes at the same time but it was too late so I printed them on vellum and fake attached them with brads. It will just have to do.

June 13: Creativity Every Day