Another Paper a la Mode Challenge at The Outlawz

Good morning, crafty people! It's Saturday again and that means it's time for another new challenge on The Outlawz Paper a la Mode group! This week, the theme is "Anything But a Card".

I find myself apologizing yet again for having been absent this past week but once again it was not something I could control. My sister, Melinda, was hospitalized early Monday morning for a severe kidney infection and we later found out that stones had been the underlying cause of it. I took her to the ER at approximately 5:00 AM and by 3:30 that afternoon, after having received fluids, anitbiotics, morphine and anti-inflamatory drugs, she was taken to surgery to install a stint in the kidney that was blocked by the stone. Well, not long after that, she was moved to ICU because the stint had released all the infection and bacteria into her bloodstream and she developed sepsis! She came very close to crashing and had they not started her on some very strong intravenous antibiotics, she very possible could have gone into septic shock and possibly died. But she started to improve very quickly and by the next afternoon, she was moved back to a regular room and they were able to remov the foley catheter. She was released Wednesday afternoon and will remain on antibiotics and pain meds for the next couple of weeks.  When the infection has cleared up completely, she'll go back in the hospital so they can pulverize the stones in her kidneys using either sonic waves or laser so she can pass them.  She gave us a pretty good scare there for a while and was completely unaware of the severity of her condition until the crisis had passed.

Needless to say, I haven't had any time to craft until now but that's okay because I have been promising to feature a baby mini album and as it just happened to coincide with this week's Paper a la Mode theme, I had already decided to save it until today. I made it out of empty toilet paper rollers because they made the perfect size album to carry in a purse. I created this for a friend of mine in Austin whose baby boy was born in February so the pictures represent his first 6 months. Without further delay, here it is.

The following pictures were taken before I added the ribbons so that the album would lie flat and I could photograph it more easily.

On the back of the first tag, I stamped a journaling spot for the baby's birth statistics.

The letters on the tags spell out the baby's name, Victor.  They call him Vic.

Of course, I had to include a couple of pictures of the proud parents! 

I used a piece of blue ric rac to create waves for the little sailboat to float upon.  

He's a very photogenic little guy!  I asked my friend to send me a lot of digital photos so I could choose the ones I wanted to use and also so she wouldn't know what it would look like before she receives it.

I used a few stamps to add sentiments and extra design elements and I used a C3 Copic marker to create permanent shadows on the letters.

I left one side of some of the tags blank so she can write on them or add more pictures.

I lined each flattened tube with paper as well as covering the outside to help the tags slide in and out easily.  All of the papers are from called Pressed Petals that I got from Big Lots a about a year ago but I think they were actually manufactured by DCWV.  The colors and patterns are very pretty and coordinate very well together.  The tags are made from pre-cut bookmarks cut down to fit into the flattened tube pages.  I covered front and back with the same papers.  The photo mats are cut from various solid color cardstock and the die cuts and word art are from various baby themed adhesive-backed embellishment packets purchased from Michael's and Jo-Ann's. I used larger eyelets in the holes I punched in the binding edges of the pages to prevent tearing and two yellow binder rings to bind them together.  The last step was to tie the short pieces of color coordinated ribbon onto the rings.

I am entering this mini in the following challenges:

Pretty Little Ribbons - Use pretty ribbon on your project

Thanks so much for stopping by today and thanks for your patience as I work through all these recent delays.  Like they say, life sometimes gets in the way of our crafting fun!  I hope you enjoyed this little presentation and that you'll consider trying one of these cute paper roller minis for yourself.  Until next time...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee