Japan vacation scrapbook part 3.

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You can view part 1 and part 2 of this Japan vacation scrapbook series here and here.  Part 4 (the end) is here.

left side 

Those red things at the top are octopus.  I learned while making this book that the Japanese word for octopus is TACO.

I thought food photos were very important while documenting her trip for her so I was sure to include them in the album.  I LOVE the top photo.  Eating whale is prohibited in Japan, but this sign shows all the whale parts that the restaurant serves.  The middle photo shows rice with baby fish that Ashley said was really nasty and the bottom photo is her inside a McDonald’s where they have a double Big Mac.

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right side

These girls went to Tokyo with no place to stay and there were no rooms to rent apparently so they ended up sleeping on the floor of an internet cafe.  These young folks nowadays……..there is NO WAY you’d have caught me doing that in my 20’s. 

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In that photo at the top of the boxes, there were people sleeping in those.

right side  (Tokyo at night–isn’t it beautiful?)

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It’s hard to see them, but I love the colorful balloons in these photos.  I guess at their baseball games balloons take the place of pom poms or things like that.  She said there’s no 7th inning stretch.  Everybody sings a song and then releases the balloons.

right side        (new city, new title page)

left side

I thought it was a wonderful thing that her caption for the bottom photo was about how it was the first temple she had gone into and she cried because it was so amazing.  I was glad that being a young adult she wasn’t too embarrassed to admit that. 

right side

More to come tomorrow!

P.S.  I do take custom orders for vacation albums.  This particular book has 45 pages and with all of the supplies that I used cost $400.00.  Each book I make is different, of course, and supplies are different so cost would change with each custom design, but that is the general range of cost for this one. 

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Japan vacation scrapbook part 2.

This is a continuation of the Japan vacation album I was hired to make as a gift.  You can see the part where I showed the first 10 pages here.  You can also go to part 3 here and part 4 here.

She captioned this photo “pinching nips around the world.”  This girl is so funny.  I thought it was very interesting how their parking garages are built in the right hand side photo so that there is more room.

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right side

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She captioned this photo “ass cheeks” — as if we couldn’t tell what was in the photo! And by the way, yuck.

right side  (photos of the beautiful Himeji Castle).

left side (various signs that have terrible English and/or make no sense)

right side

More funny signs.  I love the Chicago sign with PALM TREES.  Cracks me up.

I think my favorite is Condomania, though. 

left side (filler page)  I split the photos up into sections of the different cities she visited.  In this particular city, I had no more photos left but I needed to fill a page so I gave her a journaling area to jot down her memories and thoughts.

right side

This is a title page (another filler).  I made a new title page for each city that she visited.  Each title page looks different also. 

More to come tomorrow!

P.S.  I do take custom orders for vacation albums.  This particular book has 45 pages and with all of the supplies that I used cost $400.00.  Each book I make is different, of course, and supplies are different so cost would change with each custom design, but that is the general range of cost for this one. 

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Journey to Japan vacation scrapbook.

Last year my husband’s granddaughter took a week’s trip to Japan to visit a friend of hers who was over there teaching English.  It really was a wonderful experience for her, and it changed her outlook on life in different ways.  So my husband’s daughter (yes, hubby is much older than me) hired me to make a scrapbook for HER daughter as a Christmas gift.  The granddaughter had been uploading her photos to snapfish (or some other online place — I can’t remember) for the family members to view, and lucky me she had been typing in captions for each one so the family members would know what the picture WAS, so I just ordered all her photos she had uploaded and typed up all her captions that she had provided for me without even knowing it!  ha!  Unfortunately, there were like 200+ photos of this trip I think, and I couldn’t possibly fit them all into a 9×9 scrapbook.  I picked out the best ones that I thought meant the most to her, got rid of duplicates or pictures that looked almost alike, and then tried to squeeze as many photos as I could onto each page!  I will share the results with you here. 

P.S.  I do take custom orders for vacation albums.  This particular book has 45 pages and with all of the supplies that I used cost $400.00.  Each book I make is different, of course, and supplies are different so cost would change with each custom design, but that is the general range of cost for this one. 

Here are pages 1-10 (and the cover page is first).

cover page 

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right side

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(this is one of my favorite photos because the name of the bar is “Moe’s” and the friend in the layout is also named Moe.  What are the odds, seriously?  Cracks me up.

left side   (I used paper label holders from Walmart to accent the different cities she had visited while in Japan)

right side

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right side

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right side   (Karaoke is a big deal in Japan)

*edited to add:   Okay, finally finished getting it all on the blog, so if you want to view parts 2, 3, and 4 (each in their separate blog post) you can click the links below.

part 2        http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-2/

part 3       http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-3/

part 4       http://www.myscrapbooklife.com/japan-vacation-scrapbook-part-4-the-end/

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Pazzles Inspiration on sale!

I decided to run a sale on the Pazzles Inspiration machine.  Do your Christmas shopping early!  For the month of October the machine will be priced at only $520.00.   This is $79.00 off the suggested retail price!  Shipping is still $35.00 and the machine is shipped to you straight from the company. 

You can purchase by clicking the photo in my Paypal store widget just to the right ——————————————>

over there.  That will let you securely pay through Paypal with no worries.  I do accept credit cards, and you do not have to have a Paypal account to use it to pay me.

If you have any questions, just click on CONTACT ME at the top right of the page and fill out the form and I’ll get back to you quickly.

You can also go to my store at www.summerrosescrapbooks.etsy.com and it’s listed right at the top.  You can purchase it through there securely also.

If you have questions about the Pazzles Inspiration, read my previous post about all the cool materials it will cut.  You can see some beautiful scrapbook pages that have utilized the Pazzles in my previous post here where I showed some pages my friend Erm made. 

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Pazzles Inspiration Creative Cutter

I have a resale license to sell scrapbooking supplies, and this is my newest inventory item.  This machine is my new happy thing in my scrapbook world.  Last weekend I traveled to St. Charles, Illinois near Chicago to the Scrapbook Expo at the Pheasant Run Resort and spent 2 days with my buddies Thea and Klo (Pazzles guru) learning how to use the Pazzles Inspiration machine and demoing and selling it to scrapbookers.

Frankly, it’s freaking awesome.  People kept coming up and saying, “Okay, what does this thing do?” And we’d have to say, “Everything!”  You can cut out your own titles, design and cut out your own die cuts, window clings, vinyl quotes for the wall or other items, make your own rubber stamps, make iron ons for shirts.  This machine will cut through chipboard and acrylic and fabric.  I don’t even know how to use it well enough to know how to do everything, and I can already say it rocks.  We made me a window cling for the back of my car to advertise my website.  I think I showed the cool T-shirt that Klo made me a while back here on my blog.  Here are some things I made while learning how to use it at the expo.

Here’s a cool title guru Klo made for my daughter (Klo hurt her feelings once and made her cry so she was trying to make it up to her).  Their newest CD just out has a lot of Disney-ish princess images and fairies and dragons and castles and cool stuff.  I love it.  Tinkerbell is from that.  (By the way Klo, Summer says thank you and she loves it, but she’s still mad at you!) hehe

If you’re a good drawing artist (not me!), then you can freehand draw pictures on the software and cut them out.  You can download clip art from the internet or scan pictures from books or coloring books or your kids drawings or whatever and it will cut them out.  You can even scan photographs and cut them out.  I’m a font person and I have a lot of them, and this software will use any true type font you have on your computer (or download free off the internet) so you don’t have to go out and buy cartridges or disks or whatever like some of the other cutters on the market.  You CAN buy CDs if you want.  Pazzles has some pretty cool ones, like the one with Tinkerbell, but with a little more time you could just make your own.  Personally I like the convenience of not having to make my own!

I also love it because you can “weld” your letters together for a title and cut it all out in 1 single piece all hooked together instead of each letter individually and then trying to line them up straight (can’t do it).  You CAN cut them out individually if you want, but you’d have to be crazy!  haha

My friend Klo (Pazzles design team and demo person) has a blog here where she shows free video tutorials teaching people how to use it, and she has a great way of explaining things.  The videos are great for people who tend to be visual learners and want to SEE how to do it. 

So the machine sells for $599.00 plus $35.00 shipping.  What saves you money in the long run is that you don’t have to buy the cartridges or disks or anything else to go with it.  You also don’t have to buy diecuts anymore!  Make your own!  It comes with a cutting mat and a cutting blade, so you will need to replace those eventually and they inexpensive.  The blade goes through 1,000 cuts and the mat lasts for 70-100 cuts.  Included is also 60 fonts already on there and 300 images already on it to get you started.  They also offer a 90-day phone support and a 1-year limited warranty.  It is shipped directly to you from the Pazzles company.  If you’re interested, contact me.  You can purchase one from me through my Paypal widget just to the right up there at the top of my blog securely.  I also have it available on my website at www.summerrosescrapbooks.com but to purchase it you would have to fill out the contact form and let me send you a Paypal invoice (don’t have a shopping cart yet).  I do accept credit cards and you don’t have to have an account with Paypal to use it.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.  I can also provide you with a brochure by mail if you’d like. 

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Altered Dog Treat Container

Here’s a cute little (big) peanut can (could also use coffee cans) that I altered with dog print patterned paper and some ribbon and turned it into a dog treat container.  It sits on our piano by the back door so that when we bring the dogs in they can have a treat if they behave.  Wish it was that easy with kids! 

and here’s the lid

What do you think?  Cute?

I think I’ll use some kitty papers next and make a smaller one for the cat treats.  Have I mentioned my hubby taught one of the cats to catch?  No, I’m not kidding. 

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Altered Notebook

My daughter had her tonsils and adenoids removed on Wednesday.  Wow, was that a long day.  Beforehand they told her she wouldn’t be able to talk for a few days because her throat would hurt too much, so I altered a regular size school notebook for her to write notes to us in, with the ulterior motive of course that I could copy the pages and include them later in a scrapbook!  The wheels are always turning, people! 

I must say, my 8-year-old girl was VERY impressed with my craftiness! 

I might even put one of these in the etsy shop www.summerrosescrapbooks.etsy.com. 

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Father’s Day accordian scrapbook in a box.

I showed a sneak peak of this right before Father’s Day, but I couldn’t show the whole project or any of the photos inside the album cause my dad reads my blog!  (Hi Pops)  I must say, from his reaction I think he rather liked my little Father’s Day scrapbook.  It’s a little Petaloo accordian scrapbook that came in a little box for gift giving, but I altered the outside of the box also to be the album cover and used adhesive to attach the book inside so it unfolds out of the box when you open it.  Here’s what it looks like lying flat on my counter. 

Here are a few views of the pages closer up while lying flat.

Here it is standing up and opened on display.

Here it is just opened and unfolding out of the box.

and a little more….

and the last bit unfolding out of the book.

 Here are closer views of the individual pages.  These were so hard to do because they’re only 4 x 4 inches.  So really your photo takes up the whole space and there’s not much room for a lot of “scrap crap.”  I tried to keep it as simple as I could so the focus would stay on the photos.

The book cover and spine can be seen in my previous post in the link at the beginning of this post.  I think I’ll put these up for sale for $20 as a custom order in different themes in my etsy shop at www.summerrosescrapbooks.etsy.com. 

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Father accordian scrapbook.

Summer and I made this for her daddy for Father’s Day this year.  I let her pick out all the photos, and she also chose what the cover would say.  I’ve never heard her SAY this phrase, so I’m not sure why she wanted it on the front of the book!  haha  She wanted me to draw guitars and drums on the front for a “rock” theme, but I’m not artist and I said no way so she settled for drawing her own dance floor under her and Daddy.  Daddy loved it.

This is an accordian book with only 6 photos and the photos took up most of the space, so I had to really work at adding things on top of the pictures like rubons and tiny Prima flowers and I really like how it turned out.

There were 2 horizontal photos that Summer picked to go in the book, so I put those at the end so that when someone is looking at it they only have to turn the book one time to see those last 2 pages instead of going back and forth. 

Here’s what the book looks like opened up like an accordian.  Ken’s going to display it on his desk.

This is the type of book that I will selling in my etsy store for around $20 at www.summerrosescrapbooks.etsy.com.  I enjoy making little mini books of memories like this one and they’re more affordable for people.  This can be done in any theme such as baby or wedding or school, etc.  Lots of possibilites. 

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Pazzles Inspiration machine.

I’ve been so inspired by my friends Klo and Jill and Edie and what they can create with their Pazzles machines that I knew I had to own one someday.  Since I have a resale license for my store, I opened up a retail account with Pazzles so I could sell the machines to other people, and I sold my first machine.  Woo hoo!  My friend Thea bought it from me and I’m so excited for her cause I can drive a few hours to her house and play on the Pazzles with her! 

My friend Klo is a member of Pazzles design team and has a blog where she gives tutorials about the different fun stuff you can do and make with the Pazzles.  She has also created a CD of cutting files that you can buy.  She offers some for free in her store and also some  for sale.  (If you have a Pazzles or are thinking about it, go check it out.  She has some great stuff on there.)  I wrote previously about how Jill made me a cool Cupcake title at the St. Louis convention and showed on my blog another time a couple of neat layouts Klo had made with her Pazzles.  I think my favorite thing so far was the iron-on for a T-shirt that Klo made me with my business logo.  LOVE IT.

If you’d like to place an order with me for a Pazzles, you can do a custom request at my etsy store at www.summerrosescrapbooks.etsy.com.  My ebay store has other scrapbooking supplies at http://stores.ebay.com/Summer-Rose-Scrapbooks

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