How to make a Smash Book the Upcycled way Part 1

I am sorry for disappearing for the past two days. I was busy ripping out the smudged photographs from my 2011 Smash Folio. I am finally done and have replaced all 130 pictures :). That is such a relief. The smudges on the pictures were really bothering me and despite telling myself again and again that the project was supposed to capture memories and did not have to be perfect, the slight smudges still bothered me and there was no way out but to replace them. So replace them I did. Now I am free to move on to my Upcycled smash folio for next year.

How do you make an Upcycled smash folio? First you identify what you love about the current smash books and set out to mimic that

The Smash Books craze and how to start a smashing upcycling adventure! Part 5

So the book is finally coming together 🙂 The pictures, journalling etc are all on the pages now, all smashed in my folio. That makes me happy for I feel like I have the base of the book all done. Now I am building on the base, adding layers and layers, of journalling, embellishments, memorabilia and stickers.

Most of this work was done last night and early this morning but the day has been spent meeting friends and family and writing all my little short stories 🙂 I picked 7-8 themes and wrote little stories that revolved around these themes. I printed the stories out on vellum and have stuck them in my book with some glue. The titles were also printed on vellum and some of them I just smashed in, others received a little more love 🙂

Here are some pages that have been worked on. This book will never be a perfect work of art. I am

The Smash Books craze and how to start a smashing upcycling adventure! – Back on Track Part 4

Yes! I am back on track. After coming back to my Pretty Pink Smash Folio armed with an action plan, I did much better. I still feel bad about some of the pictures that are smudged, but I have decided that once the book is done I will go back and reprint and replace the ones that are really bothering me. That way I will be happy with the finished result 🙂

I did make some progress today. First like I said I would, I made a rough plan on paper and wrote down all the different things that I

The Smash Books craze and how to start a smashing upcycling adventure! – A bit of a detour Part 3

Ok. So yesterday didn’t go according to plan at all. I had all my pictures printed and ready and like I shared with y’all I was going to make piles according to the month and then stick all the memorabilia and all the pictures and then build on that base. Well…like I said the plan didn’t quite work out…at ALL! 😦

First I figured it would be good to go with themes instead of months. And so I started making a list of all the major themes, all the major events that took place in 2011. Here is my list so far: Weddings, Birthdays, Dinners, Out to Lunch, Picnics, Life at Work, Travel and

The Smash Books craze and how to start a smashing upcycling adventure! Part 2

So finally all my pictures have been printed. I had made a folder for all the pictures I wanted printed for the year 2011 and was astounded to see that I had over 120 pictures that HAD to be included in my Smash folio. This is after I went through the folder again and again and deleted anything extra. Geez! Talk about a busy year! 🙂

2011 has been a year of decisions, mixed feeling and health, ups and downs and some major happenings. I am really looking forward to going over the year through this craft project and to enter the new year, hopefully wiser for all my experiences.

The Smash Books craze and how to start a smashing upcycling adventure! Part 1

Hi Y’all! Hope you had a lovely lovely Christmas, full of laughter and joy and fun times with family and friends. Did you get all the crafting goodies you asked Santa for?  If so, do share pictures with us and tell us what you got and if you have started playing with your ‘stash’ yet.

I recently went to visit family in Boston and of course no ‘holiday’ is complete without several trips to art stores and book stores. I did manage to collect quite a few wonderful paper packs and some handmade paper sheets. I also got a Cinch