Summer Mini Album: Part 1

Hello Friends!

Today I am sharing my summer mini album. This summer we went to France to visit my sister and her family and it was a.maz.ing. A trip that was absolutely worthy of the goregeous We R Memory Keepers 4x4 gold album.

Isn't it lovely? The chipboard piece is from My Mind's Eye Market Street Nob Hill collection.

I was pleasantly surprised with how many pages I could fit in the album. There's room for everything and yet it's not too heavy or overwhelming because of the 4x4 size. I love it!

My friend, Cathy Caines, gave me this little Eiffel Tower chipboard sticker and I stamped on it using my favorite Hero Arts Friend Definition stamp. I used that stamp a lot in this album.

I'm not sure which collection this Project Life card is from but it's perfect for my album. I found 2 in my stash filled them in as we went so I didn't forget anything.

I prepped the album before we left.  I started with the 4x4 page protectors and counted out one for each day of our trip. Then I stamped the date on a 3x4 Project Life grid card and stapled it to each page protector. This made it really easy to journal during our trip.

When we got home, I printed pictures and added embellishments.

Our first stop was New York City. We had a 7 hour layover which was enough for some fab pizza and a little sightseeing but definitely not enough time to really see the city.

Then on to France.

I took almost 1000 photos on this trip - for reals! France is so photogenic it was hard to choose pictures.

I didn't put pictures behind the journaling cards so I used squares of patterned paper from Basic Grey's Persimmon collection. I had the 6x6 pad and used almost the whole thing in this album.



And sometimes I just used photos for the whole page.

Left: Nathaniel and Ben. Right: Antiquing in the rain with my sister.



 Mini albums are a great opportunity to use up supplies. I had lots of the Prima wood veneer globes when I started but not anymore. I used them all in this album.

Left: Maple - 4 months old. She is such a sweetie.



Our first big trip was to visit Versailles. Oh. My. Word. It was amazing. I would happily go back right now. This is the first page with the grid page protector. I didn't use them a whole lot but they are a great way to add ephemera to a project.

Left: A snack break in Versailles. Right: The golden gates and me walking around in my gold Sperrys.



Here is the flip side of the page protector. I love how the camera paperclip and the globe work on either side.

Right: Me and Ben in front of a random set of gold doors.




To add some variety, I opted to add pattern paper pages in with all the page protectors. The paper from the page on the left is from Basic Grey's Persimmon line. I stamped on it with the Hero Arts Friends Definition stamp and embellished on top.

Left: The boys making faces in front of the fireplace in the Hercules room. Right: Me and Miss K and Michelle in the courtyard.



Some more pattern paper pages using the Persimmon collection (left) and Studio Calico Printshop (right). I chose papers based on the motifs I noticed in the chateaus we visited namely: flowers, gold and stars,

Right: A selfie in the Le Grande Gallerie also known as the Hall of Mirrors.

And that's it for today. I still have plenty of pictures to share so I hope you'll stop back tomorrow for Part 2 of my Summer Mini Album.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cathie