My Mom's Mother's Day present! She LOVED it!

Well, I hope that everyone had a great Mother's Day and weekend!  It seemed rushed for me with my nephew's birthday party on Saturday and then all the visiting as well as church yesterday!  But I managed to finish my mom's present which by the way......was NOT a framed layout as I told you all a few days ago! 

Well, here's the story of how all that changed.......I hung out with my friend Robin (aka Diva) on Friday with anticipation of crafting in her craftroom that for some reason I had NEVER seen!!  OMGoodness why had I not seen this heavenly place before????  LOL  I guess because I've only been crafting/scrapbooking since last fall and well, I just had never ventured to her upstairs before!  Wow, I had so much fun and learned so much while being there.  (I know Robin you're probably giggling at me while reading this, but really I did have a great time and learned so much from you! Thank you!) 

So back to the how her framed layout didn't happen....haha.  So Robin had an idea of something to make her mother and well, yep, you guessed it....I copied her.  But not exactly of course. :)  She gave me the idea as well as the supplies needed mostly to created a mini chipboard album.  I had NEVER made one of these and was so excited about making one!!  Of course, I had no pictures with me to put in this album so it was a little challenging for me to begin creating something without having the pictures to put in/on it.  The really neat thing with this album is that she had these circular metal tins with clear lids that she suggested putting the albums in, then we attached magnets to the back of the tins so "MOM" could put it on her fridge to see at all times!  Great, cool idea! 

So I cut the circles, then picked out patterned papers and coordinating solids (because color coordinating is how I roll of course!  I do get a little OCD sometimes when it comes to that!), and glued them on.  Then she showed me how to use her HUGE hole punch :) and then I had a pretty little stack of circles for my album.  Well by this time, Robin was finished with her album, made her a card, and had already packaged it all up in a USPS box to be ready to send!  Ugh.  I had so much more work to do!!  I had to pick out pics, embellishments, ribbon/string to attach it all together, so that's what I did on Saturday evening. 

Well, I decided to print random mini pics of Carley from this year and cut them out.  Then started laying them all out onto the circles and deciding where to put what....pics, ribbon, string, buttons, brads, eyelets, rhinestones and so on.  Well, Robin did warn me that once you decorate them, the stack would get thicker and well my "pretty little stack" of 8 circles wasn't so "little" anymore by the time I finished.  :(  I think I got a little happy in the embellishing department!  Seriously, this stack was now WAYYYY to tall to fit into the cute little magnetized tin!  OMGoodness what was I to do with it now!!  I was seriously stressed until I found a nice little (but not as little as the tin obviously! lol) box that my hubby had gotten me some jewelry in.  So I thought....A-ha!  I can decorate this box to be the home of this very much decorated mini album!  Is calling it a mini album politically correct when it is ever so tall?? 

And don't worry....I didn't over-decorate the box either.  I just wrapped it in matching paper of course!  :)  And added a butterfly and rhinestones to the top of it as well as a matching bow!  Ok, I know, I know....enough talking about it already.  So here are the pics of it all!  And of course, I took a lot of pics because there were a lot of pages!!!  :)
 

Album and box

Creative Memories butterfly shaped paper button with rhinestones that I added to the box (after I took the above picture.)  :)

Cover of mini album

First two pages...

And so on...

The "C" monogram sticker I added intentionally for my mom's name "Cherie" but realized that it could be for "Carley" too!  :)

I know.....there's a lot of buttons....but I have so many of them and they are so cute!

Carley says "Peek-a-boo" from under the flower! :)

And so on...

Some of the buttons I have are old and I believe these buttons my mom actually gave me and she recognized them!  Cool!

The End....I guess I should have took a pic of how tall the "pretty stack" of circles was, but Mom didn't care how tall it was really......she loved every bit of it and said that she wouldn't take a million dollars for it!  So I think that meant she loved it, you think?  ;)

Have a great week!

PS.....that layout I did for my hubby's friend's wife....well, I heard she loved it too!  Whoo hoo!  :)  Oh, and last week when I was supposed to have Carley's pics made....well, there apparently was some miscommunication on dates and it's THIS Wednesday the 11th, so as soon as I get any sneak peaks (hopefully), I'll try to post them.

Shelley (Carley's mom)