For the Boys

Along with all my wooden creations and glass etching, I've also been working on several name albums lately. Many of the albums I've made recently have been for little boys. Each one has been in standard boy colors with a little different theme for each one.

This first one is for Brock and his is all boy. Reds, greens and blues for colors and trucks, trains and airplanes for embellishments.

The second album is for Jaxon. Jaxon's is a mix of standard boy and jungle baby. Jaxon's room is decorated in a jungle theme, so his aunt wanted to add a few jungle babies in the book as well.

This Legoland book was a lot of fun to make. I've purchased a few Ninjago items for our nephew's before, but never made a scrapbook with them before. It was fun creating all the papers and embellishments for this book!

Now that I have all the boy books done, it's time to get to work on a special wedding album!

Name Albums - Rethinking Pricing

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my Custom Name Albums lately. I enjoy making them and they are what got my business off the ground. The down side is, they're very time-consuming. Over Christmas I had a large order for them and I got a little burnt out making them. So they've remained out of my shop until I could do some contemplating about how I wanted to reintroduce them.

Over the weekend I sat down and ran some numbers. I knew if I was going to bring the albums back, I had to raise my prices. At first I wasn't going to offer the smaller albums as they take about the same amount of time as the larger albums, but I make a lot smaller profit. But at the same time, I wanted to offer options. So I did some calculations and decided to add both sizes (along with the Double Name Albums) back to my shop.

Before, I just had two price points for my albums...up to 6 letters and 7-9 letters. I decided it made more sense to charge per letter. This does make it a little tricky when listing them in my shop as I didn't want 16 listings of basically the same item. So for now, I'm just adding a few different letter quantity options and people can contact me if they need a different amount of letters.

Eventually I'd like to sort through all my photos and file them by size and letter quantity so the listing photos represent the right amount of letters. But this will be quite time-consuming as well, so it will have to be done in intervals.

I feel pretty good about the prices I have on the albums for both the buyer and myself.

 Have you had to do any price increases lately? Pricing is one of the hardest things I find about running a business!

Red and Turquoise - BBA Challenge Piece

I purchased this paper set several years ago. I'm a bit of a paper collector rather than a paper user...LOL :) When I saw this month's challenge at the BBA Blog I knew it was time to dig out this paper and finally put it to good use!

Rose of RandomCreative is this month's challenge leader and one of her all time favorite color combinations is Red and Turquoise. After putting this album together, I can see why!

I am always looking for more color combinations for my Premade Albums, so I was happy to add this combination to my selections. And I've gotten it added in my shop as well!

Stop by the BBA Blog to see all the other entries.

Albums, Albums and More Albums

This past weekend and this week, I've been working on lots of Name and Word Albums! I have four Custom Name Albums on order and I also need to get inventory built up for my up-coming Spring shows. The albums are starting to take over my craft room...and part of the living room too!

Here is one on my craft table cut to size, covered in cardstock and ready for the patterned paper to be applied.

Here is a stack with the patterned paper already on them ready to be cut.

And this stack has been cut and just needs bound and decorated.

These here have been cut, but need cleaned. Then they can also be bound and decorated.

~~~~~~

What taking over your craft room right now?

Disney Adventures

I was able to get a couple of pre-made albums listed in my shop over the weekend! I still have a whole list of things I'd like to get listed, but I'll do them a little here and there and may wait on some until after the first of the year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This weekend it was all about DISNEY! I made this 6.5"x12" Disney Word Album in both a Mickey and Friends theme as well as a Disney Princess theme.

I know I would have loved to have one of these when I went to Disney World when I was 16! I may just have to go back and make one now :)

Survivor-Think Pink

Gosh, is it already the last part of October! I had hoped to have this album listed at the beginning of October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But better late than never, right.

This album has lots of fun embellishments perfect for documenting the journey of beating cancer! Think Pink, Fight Like a Girl, Courage, Hope...and many more :)

I've taken this album to a few craft shows and got a custom order from it. A little girl had just gotten her final check up after her cancer scare and loved this album :) She decided on pink and black with survivor and butterfly embellishments. They released butterflies the day she got her clean bill of health...what a cool idea :) And what a special scrapbook for to remember how lucky she is and how much life she has to live :) I really enjoyed making her album!

And these can be made in any theme. Just let me know what colors and what type of embellishments you would like and I can make a special album for you as well :)

Treasuries for Tuesday

My Aqua and Lime Green Friends Album has been featured in quite a few treasuries lately! I think people are trying not to let go of summer and are searching out cool, beachy colors to hold on to summer as long as they can :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wanna know the best part? I sold this album over the weekend!!! And even better, it's already relisted :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thank you to both curators for featuring my album :) Click away and stop by and leave a comment on the treasury page!

Almost Wordless Wednesday - Back in Stock

As promised...these are all back in stock :)

Click each photo to be taken to the listing.

Adoption Album

Another fun album! This one is for a couple who are in the process of finding a birth mother for their adoption journey :) They want an album to document their process and to have when their baby arrives. I think this is a great idea and a very special album!

I looked high and low for adoption embellishments and only found a couple of options. I ended up making a lot of the embellishments for this album myself. This could be a huge opportunity for a scrapbook company!

What do you think of the ones I made?

The colors of the album will match their home decor so they can leave the album out on their coffee table :)

Go Big This Summer

Go Big This Summer...With a Big Word Album!

I've started making my Premade Word Albums in the larger 6.5"x12" size and they are turning out great! I'm so glad I started offering these in a bigger size as they are so much easier to add photo to and really pack a visual punch!

Pick out your favorites from this summer and keep them all together in this fun pink and aqua Summer Album!

Going on a trip? Store your photos and memorabilia in this Travel Album!

And coming soon...a teal and aqua Vacation Album as well!

(If you're interested in this album before it hits my shop, just let me know!)

All in the Family

I hope all the dad's out there had a great Father's Day on Sunday! We took Jesse's dad air boating and had a great time! You can also see the card I sent my dad here :)

One thing I've noticed selling well lately are my Mother and Father Word Albums. I sold 2 Father Albums and a Daddy Album as well as 4 Mother Albums this year. I've also had good luck with my Grandma and Grandpa Albums as well! I love finding a new theme of album that people love :)

I would also like to add Sister or Sisters Albums and possibly Brother Albums. (Not sure if Brother would sell as well or not. I'd love your thoughts on this.) I know I want to add other variations to my current albums like Mommy, Mom, Dad, Nana, etc. I love giving people options :)

What have you made lately that's been a hit? Link to it in the comments and tell us about it!

Going Vertical

I've been making my Mr. & Mrs. Custom Name Albums for a while now. Having the laser sure does make it a lot easier to cut them! I can't imagine going back to using an xacto knife on those! The laser has opened so many doors for me especially in my albums! Along with Mr. & Mrs., I have also recently done other albums with vertical pages. PennState2011

Sweet16 The larger albums work great for vertical words and numbers. And vertical pages can save on the # of pages you need as well. Of course I have tons of ideas for other albums with vertical pages now as well! Graduation Albums: Class of 2011 (Grand) Parents (God) Mother (Big) Brother/Sister And the list goes on! What new ideas have you been working on?

Two Cute

Okay, I'll apologize right off the bat for the poor pun in my title! But this album really did turn out too cute! This was a special request for lower case letters. I hadn't even thought to use lower case letters before and I think it turned out great. It is for a little girl's birthday party that she'll be having in a frozen yogurt shop. I love the colors and the fun embellishments! Every time I get a new request for my Custom Albums, my mind starts racing with new ideas that I can take from the request! This is no exception! I love the idea of lower case letters :) What requests have got your mind racing lately?

Favorite Colors Back Again

As you already know, my favorite color combo is Pink Purple and Teal/Aqua! These are my go-to colors for just about anything! And I love it when customers request these colors. These colors make me happy when I work with them :)

Pink and Silver

Teal Black and White

Purple and Gold And this last album actually gave me the idea to use this color combo on other albums. I've added this Family Word Album to my shop with these beautiful colors! The gold cardstock has a shimmer to it that just makes the album look so classy...I love it!

What favorite color combos have you been working with lately?