New beginnings and a little bit of love.

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Hello 2015 and hello to a new Project Life album.
At the beginning of my project life albums I like to make an opening spread, which basically fills in those pockets behind what will become the left half of Week 1’s double page spread. I always include the year, the dates this album will cover (I use two albums per year), our surname, a photo of us and a little bit of detail about us for example our ages as we start a fresh new year.
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With Week 1 starting half way through on a Thursday I knew I wouldn’t need to use all of the pockets on the reverse side which meant I could get a little creative with the opening spread. I like having see through elements especially in mini albums but I don’t often get the chance to use them in my Project Life spreads. So I made the most of the short week and used a vellum dictionary print from the DIY Shop 2 collection by American Crafts and two different polka dot acetate sheets by WRMK from their Clearly Bold collection.
I am loving the Crate Paper collections and I know they will feature heavily again in this years album so I used a few of the insert cards from an older Maggie Holmes Project Life Mini kit, a cute ribbon tag and stickers from Maggie’s ‘Open Book’ collection. I used woodgrain thickers from Pebbles and gold thickers from Studio Calico for the letters, numbers and asterisk.
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I added some little details about our family on to a tag from American Crafts DIY Shop 2 collections (love these, so handy!) and yes, I even included the age of our cat! I added the perfect pop of colour to the insert in the form of this lovely flair from Gossamer Blue and stapled the tag to the vellum. Finally I added a Hey Little Magpie flair to the blue polka dot acetate and a glitter heart from American Crafts DIY Shop 2 collection to the white polka dot acetate. It’s worth remembering when using see through elements in albums what will be seen from the reverse side. With this in mind I have already added a second glitter heart to cover the back of the other and I shall add an appropriate flair to the reverse side of the other one too. Want to see?
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I added a ‘hello’ flair and you can see the additional glitter heart I added on the back of the acetate too.
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Again I used one of those ribbon tags by Maggie Holmes and an older Notes & Things 4×6 insert which was begging to be used with the ‘No. 1’ already attached to it as the weekly opener. I then just added some vellum word strips from Maggie Holmes ‘Open Book’ collection and letter stickers by Elle’s Studios (the grey ones I’ve used are old ones, but others in different colours can be found here). The cream 3×4 journaling cards are by Becky Higgins, love them.
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Here’s the right hand side of the spread. I trimmed down ‘Darling’ paper from Crate Papers new Kiss Kiss collection for some of the 4×6 inserts (arrows on one side and pink and cream strips on the other side – versatile!). I used 4×6 cards from the Project Life ‘Love Notes’ value kit for the others and a cute heart 3×4 card from the same kit. Who says Valentines kits can only be used to document Valentines Day?
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I even used four of the 4×6 insert cards as week openers in December, along with some more of the 3×4 cards!
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Love, love, love it. Plus it will be super handy for making valentines cards and layouts.
Finally I’ll leave you with a look at my Week 51 from 2014, another weekly opener from the Love Notes value kit, mixed with woodgrain patterned paper inserts (Pebbles have a good one here), more Maggie Holmes Project Life inserts, DIY Collection value kit inserts and white grid journaling cards which I’ve cut down. I again embellished the spread with those gorgeous glitter hearts from American Crafts and more exclusive flairs from Hey Little Magpie, seriously can’t get enough of those!
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I’ve decided to stick to 12×12 spreads using the Design A page protectors again this year and I’ll continue to round the corners of the inserts with the Becky Higgins Corner Rounder. (These two items are currently out of stock but you can register to be notified when they come back into stock).
As you may know Sarah and Lianne are off to CHA this week to look at all the lovely new collections being released, how jealous am I? Anyway, from the comfort of my home with the rain pouring outside I have been drooling over the new releases from Crate Paper. They have three coming out and they are all fantastic; Craft Market, Journey and my favourite Confetti, Maggie Holmes new collection. Wow, Crate Paper just keep pulling it out fantastic collections! Very excited for these collections to arrive in the Hey Little Magpie shop, I’d better get saving my pennies!

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