more Monthly Moments: March...

I'm back with my third and last project working with the Monthly Moments collection for March by Papertrey Ink! Today I'm going to be using the new Journal Accessories stamp set and A Few Pointers stamp set and dies as well.

When thinking of what to make, immediately my mind went to the journaling cards in the kit (oh, how I love color and pattern!). Then inspiration struck! A mini album with these as my pages would be so neat. It's not really spring here yet (no flower blooms here yet, mostly snow!), but I used the March stamps with photos from my recent trip home to South Dakota see my parents and brother's family.

The front cover base is a Monthly Moments: March journaling card. I made my own background on the front by die cutting a Journal Card 1 and stamping it with  all of the cute sayings from A Few Pointers. The little squares are Moda fabrics I found at a scrap store, but you could easily replicate this look with Aqua Mist cardstock and some flower stamps and dies!

I made some of my own pages with the stamps also. These notebook journaling cards below were made from scratch. I cut them out with the Journal card 1 die and then stamped them with this set, the Journal Accessories stamps, and I'm going to use them with the March Monthly Moments journaling cards!

And some of the little cards you'll see throughout the mini album were die cut with the March dies and A Few Pointers dies.

OK, let's get to the inside! 

First, a little journaling card I made from scratch telling about our trip home. Same as the above card I made, but here I added a Tropical Teal back to it with the Journal Card 2 die. Isn't it cute how the two journal card dies layer so well together? Washi tape and a little enamel dot add a tiny bit of color and pattern.

On the birthday pic of my dad, I used the March dies with the Birthday Classics: March stamp set. He turned 63 while we were there visiting!

I cut the March with the March die collection and layered it - one cut with white and one cut from a journaling card in the March Monthly Moments collection.

Next, some pics of my girls playing with their cousins outside at my parents' home! Here's one of these accent cards I cut out with the A Few Pointers die. You can use it for journaling or simply as a neat embellishment to accent your photo! The tag is cut with Tremendous Tags from a journaling card.

At the top of some of these cards, I added a few little fabrics to jazz them up, just wrapped them around and stapled them on. The spring circle was stamped with the March stamps.

Another pic of the kids playing. They get along so well and always have a blast together! My brother has two boys right around the same ages as my girls. As you can see, it's been a really snowy year, so I wasn't able to scrap flower buds and springy things with this kit like I wanted to, but it worked out just fine!

And here is one more handmade card created with the Journal Accessories stamps. "Sunday" is from A Few Pointers. I added a few pics of the day we went bowling.

Another fun thing that I captured was when all the kids went out to play was when my dad was showing the girls how to shoot BB guns. They loooved it! I love this pic of my dad helping Kati. She was good too - hit the target right away!

Here she is standing proudly in front of her target. :) I stapled a journaling card to the edge of the photo with one I stamped myself with all the fun sayings from A Few Pointers. Then I covered the staple with washi tape that coordinated with her shirt.

Here is my other daughter shooting BB's with my older nephew. The kids always do cool stuff when we go to visit! My dad let them drive his golf cart around one night. lol (I was gone, but would have loved to get pictures of that!)

Seeing all of the patterns and colors together makes me happy. I have a couple more things I still want to add...a few more pics of some sight seeing we did together to Mt. Rushmore, etc. Then I'm just going to punch holes and assemble it all together on a binder ring. I think I might insert it into my monthly moments album after the Feb. page, just to keep all the months together in one place.

Mini albums are kind of like one big layered card with lots of little cards inside. Cards for me are easier than scrapbook pages, because it's a smaller palette to work with, a smaller space to fill. So when you begin a mini album, think of each page as a little card palette and how you could add interest to each page. Also when you stack the cards, look at them as layers and choose ones that look good next to each other or on top of each other (which is quite easy with these kits, because they all coordinate)! I wanted to add just a little more color to mine, so I laid out a bunch of goodies from my stash that I thought would work well together before I started. I've got some washi tapes and little fabric swatches from Moda that I picked up the other day. For inks, I grabbed the ink colors in the kit: Spring Moss, Harvest Gold, Hawaiian Shores and Aqua Mist. Then I added a few more inks to my palette: Melon Berry, Tropical Teal and Berry Sorbet. Just to add a tiny bit of warmth to the color palette. At this point, I'm not sure if I'm going to use ALL of these items in my mini album, but it's inspiring to see them all laid out together and have so many choices.

There you have it. My mini album process. I hope some of these tips inspire you to try one. Visit Heather Nichols and Melissa Phillips for more Monthly Moments inspiration for March!