Anabelle's Album

I went to my first scrapbooking retreat this past weekend. It was amazing! I will blog about my experience later. First, I like to share one of the projects I worked on while there.

A little history:
My good friend Andréanne and I share similar philosophies on many things including family and friends. She and I both believe that friends are the family you choose. So when Andréanne and her husband Martin, after difficulties, celebrated the birth of their beautiful and very-much wanted daughter Anabelle, I had a new niece to love and spoil.

I wanted to celebrate Anabelle's birth in my own way. I decided to do so by making her (and her parents) an album. I decided to go with a Close to My Heart 6x6 chipboard album. I was so excited to make this album! Yes, I really wanted to give my friend's daughter a beautiful heartfelt gift blah blah blah...Really, I just wanted to have an excuse to use pink and sparkles and flower and frilly ribbon! I know, selfish reasons but my heart was in the right place!

I used the same paper collection throughout the project: Echo Park This & That Graceful.

Here is the cover page:

I made the rosette flower myself and used a Big Shot to cut the small flowers. The bling is from Close to My Heart. I used pop-up tape to add dimension to the stickers from the This & That collection. I finished it off with a beautiful picture of Anabelle.

The first double-page layout features pictures of the happy new family/parents:

"Famille comblée" means a family completed. On this page, I layered a sticker from the collection, die-cut flowers, a hand-made rosette, a pearl swirl, a crocheted flower, a chipboard heart that I embossed with chestnut embossing powder, and the 'Love' metal accent.

The second double-page layout features Anabelle with her papa and with her maman:

Andréanne gave me so many great pictures! I had such a hard time picking which ones to use. To increase the number of pictures I could use, I used tags to make a mini-layout within the layout.

Andréanne and Martin are surrogate parents to Martin's 13 year-old cousin Mégane. Mégane was so excited to have the opportunity to be a big sister. She is such an important part of Andréanne, Martin and now Anabelle's life that she had to be in the album.

I used the Big Shot to cut the butterfly and I added a little pearls for some sparkle. I traced the 'Beautiful' sticker with a brown pen to make it stand out.

The next page features Anabelle and her furry siblings: the family cats!

Since Andréanne puts so much importance in her friendships, I decided to create a double-page layout featuring the friends who came to meet Anabelle shortly after her birth.

Since I once again had so many great pictures, I used another tag to create a mini-layout within the layout. I used small letter stickers to add the names of Anabelle's visitors to the page.

On the next page, I used pictures of Sam (my son) and I meeting Anabelle at the hospital. Sam loves babies and he was so intrigued by Anabelle. All he wanted to do was kiss her! Luckily, my husband was able to get a shot of Sam kissing Anabelle.

 

I used pictures from Anabelle's baptism on the last double-page layout of the album.  Didn't Anabelle look so cute in his baptism dress?!

My favourite items used on this page are the pearls (I have no clue where I bought them or which company makes them!) and the cork scallop piece from Close to My Heart.

I used another tag to add more pictures to the second page:

I made a flower using beautiful pink ribbon and a paper circle and glue. I put glue on one side of the circle and I wrapped the ribbon around it, starting on the edge towards the middle. I finished it off with the great piece of bling in the middle. I love the sparkles!

Last but not least is the final page of the album. I used a die cut cork piece from Close to My Heart and stamped the words 'Handcrafted with love'. I didn't know this before but cork takes ink really well!

On this page, I decided to write a message to Anabelle that was from the heart. I said that she was wanted and that her parents and her extended family had been waiting for her. I wished her a life full of joy and love. I told her that she was surrounded with people who love her, including me.

And there it is folks, Anabelle's album. This album personifies what scrapbooking is for me:  showcasing beautiful pictures and telling a story. I have to confess that I am VERY proud of this album. I think it's the best work I've ever done.

I came back from the scrapbooking retreat on Sunday. On Monday evening, I couldn't wait anymore and I went to visit Andréanne and Anabelle to give them the album. Andréanne loved it. She even cried. I'm happy that she loved it so much and I hope she sees it as a testament to how much I value our friendship. But, I really made it for Anabelle. She might be too young to appreciate it now...but my hope is that she treasures it when she is a bit older. Who knows, she might look at it later on in her life and be inspired to start scrapbooking herself.

And the addiction gets passed on to another generation!

Happy scrappin'!