Our Story - A Scrapbook for Valentines Day

Valentines Day is coming up and no matter how cynical you are about romance, love and relationships, it's hard not to get sucked into the season. I have been married for 12 years and prior to that I was dating my future husband for 4.5 years so basically we have celebrated Valentines Day for almost 17 years!! I should really be suffering from Valentines Day fatigue but thanks to Crack of Dawn Crafts, I find myself getting caught up in all the lovey-dovey madness just like I did 17 years ago!!

Our most popular gift for Valentines Day is the Our Story Scrapbook. This book is a love scrapbook which measures 12 inches by 12 inches and  allows the customer to record 10 details about his or her relationship. The book usually starts with How We Met, and moves on to First Movie, Our Engagement, Our Wedding, Gifts We've Given and so on. With plenty of space provided to add photos or pen down personal notes, the Our Love Story Scrapbook is a truly meaningful Valentines Day gift.

The best part about the Our Love Story Scrapbook is that it can be customised. We don't insist on a standard set of topics because we are well aware that each relationship is unique and merits its own list of headings. So whenever we receive an order we always ask the client for their inputs. We have a list of commonly used topics, but these are by no means the only choices. Very often we get a brand new heading that we are happy to incorporate into the book.

Another other factor that can be customised is the colour scheme. Originally made in the romantic colours of red, white and black, we have received requests to do the book in softer tones of cream, pink and red as well as silver and white. Sometimes the client wants the cover changed. Other times 10 pages isn't enough to record all the details they want to include in the book. In such cases we are happy to add the extra pages to ensure the Our Story Love Scrapbook contains all the important facet of that particular Love Story!

This scrapbook is also ideal as a gift too. We have received requests to make the Our Love Story Scrapbook as a wedding gift or anniversary gift by well meaning friends or family members, who want to give something different and sentimental on such special occasions!

And if you think that this is something that is primarily ordered by women, you would be wrong. There are some SERIOUSLY romantic men out there who want to make their lady love feel truly cherished. We have even received an order from an Indian man living in the United States who wanted us to ship the scrapbook to his girlfriend here in India. How romantic is that!!!

The Hunt for the Perfect Album

One of our perennially popular products at Crack of Dawn Crafts is a handmade photo album. I think this is particularly interesting given that we are in a digital of age of storing only electronic photos. Printing photos has become so rare that presenting someone an exquisite handmade album filled with meaningful photos has become a fabulous gift solution. And fortunately we at Crack of Dawn Crafts are in the right place at the right time because we make a LOT of exquisite, handmade albums!!

We recently received a query from a client who wanted a couple of albums to collect pictures for memories. The most popular designs were shared - the rose bordered Precious Memories Albums usually hit the spot. These are available in almost any colour combination, the most popular being Red and White and Cream and White. As with all our albums, they come with 10 pages, 20 sides, 4 tags and a keepsake box.

 

Surprisingly the client was not totally satisfied. She wanted to see more designs. So we shared with her pictures of the Princess Diaries album which is also a fabulous option for young girls, best friends or sisters. Each page is decorated with a princess element making it very girly.

This too did not seem to work. We were quite stumped so we started discussing more. What is the purpose of the album? She wanted it for herself. What is her style aesthetic? She loves Shabby Chic or Vintage colours. Unfortunately we didn't have anything else to share in the album category but we had a couple of options in the scrapbook category.

One was the Diary of a Doting Mom scrapbook which is just perfect to present to a loving mother. It chronicles the life of a mom from motherhood to grand-motherhood. A tear came to the eyes of many a mom thanks to this spectacular gift.

The other option was the Lavender and Pink Baby Scrapbook. Truly muted and extremely gentle, the soft pastel combination of lavender and pink combined with all the baby features in the book, make it a perfect keepsake for a precious little baby. Originally commissioned by a grandmother for her first grandchild, it has since become a popular choice for moms of newborn baby girls.

Our client LOVED these scrapbooks. It seemed to be just what she was looking for. We were thrilled! No worries we said - we can customise your albums to look like these scrapbooks! And here is the final result.

And that's how two of the prettiest albums we have made became part of the fabulous range of Crack of Dawn Crafts albums. We have called them The Pearly Lavender Album and The English Garden Album. The designs are so versatile that they can be used as a romantic gift, a gift for a friend, a gift for a sister/ mother or even teacher perhaps! And as a designer, I must acknowledge that some of my best designs come from my fabulous clients!

Do you like the new albums that we designed? Drop a line, we would love to know what you think.

A Video Walkthrough of a Baby Scrapbook

This is a short a quick post. A few weeks ago I completed a scrapbook for a baby girl. I posted some of the pages on this blog but I didn't get a chance to publish all of them. I did however manage to capture a video of the book which view here. Hope you like it.

To see other pages of this baby book and other baby scrapbooks I have created, click here
If you would like to know the supplies used for this or any of my projects, please write to me at craftingtillthecrackofdawn@gmail.com

Recording Baby Hand and Foot Prints PRETTILY!!!

The Indian Craft Room has a fabulous new monthly scrapbook challenge. I'm so excited about it because I am an avid scrapper. Banu has come up with this fabulous sketch and I liked it so much I just wanted to get to work immediately. And here is my creation!

I've also used this weeks IBSIC color scheme for my layout. Our dear Hussena has done a guest post for it and as always her creation was so beautiful and inspiring! I'm not the only one who thinks so, Deepti too was so taken up by Hussena's card that she put her own spin on it and created something marvellous. I loved Hussena's lattice design as well and I thought, would that look awesome on a layout and here we are!

I have added some close-ups of the project. Instead of using photos, I created little pockets with tags that the new mother can pull out to get her daughter's foot and hand print. Let me tell you this is no easy feat. With my daughter, we needed three people to get her to just press her little hand uniformly on the tag. So my best wishes to the recipient of this book - she has a big job ahead!

Here's another set of close ups. The fact is the colors are so pretty and I just went all out to make the layout a really pretty page. For once I had all the correct shades of pattern paper, ribbon, buttons, pearls, flowers and so on! Love it when that happens!!

Here is the sketch from ICR and the IBSIC inspiration photo.

Thanks so much for dropping by. If you want the details of the supplies I used in this project, please write to me at craftingtillthecrackofdawn@gmail.com. I am more than happy to share!

Interactive and Fun Baby Scrapbook Pages

It's always fun to try out new arrangements and layouts. This is the fourth baby scrapbook I am working on. I did one for each of my kids, one for my friend Ashwina and this latest one is for someone in my building. As I've said once before, I just cannot bear repeating approaches I have already tried so for this latest baby scrapbook I am forcing myself to think outside the box. I think I managed to achieve that with the 2 pages I am going to showcase here. This is the first - The Birth Details page.

As you can see it's a large baby vest with the words 'Ariana is here' on the front. The vest is in fact a flap which when you open, reveals a space to record all those essential birth details. Cute isn't it!

The next page is for recording the baby's height and weight. I usually do this in tabular form but I thought why not go a little literal. So I created this oversized ruler for the height and the weighing scale for the weight and added bunch of callouts for recording the details. 

Isn't it fun! Here are a few close ups. I went with a bright yellow and blue color since I didn't the book to be too girly - it could be a little bright and happy as well right!

 

More pages are on the way, hope to finish this scrapbook by the weekend. Thanks so much for dropping by and if you want to know details about the supplies used, please mail me at craftingtillthecrackofdawn@gmail.com. 

Later folks!

More Pages of a Baby Scrapbook

I'm back with a couple more pages from the new baby scrapbook I am making. These 2 pages are dedicated to the period before delivering a little bundle of joy. The first page I've shown is the 'Waiting for You' page where the new mother can add photos of her baby belly. I went a little woody and vintage with the scheme and here's a look at the page.

Here are a few close ups of the page. I embossed each photo panel with a wood grain design since that was the scheme of the page. For the journaling section, I used a piece of rust paper cut in the shape of notebook page. Just love how it turned out. 

The next page is a layout dedicated to the ultrasound scan photo. I chose the green color scheme since that was the paper I was using and I've always loved picket fences on projects. I never got a chance to add it until now so I'm thrilled with this page. 

Here are a few close ups. I distressed the birds a little to give more dimension and added a lovely bow with some green organza ribbon. The border is done with fabric tape. Entering this one into
The Sisterhood of Crafters - Make em Green with Envy
Belli's Challenge 165 - St Patricks Day/ Green
Critter Sketch Challenge 156 - Monochromatic Green

More pages coming soon, I am feverishly working to finish this one by the weekend so will share when I can. If you would like to know the supplies used for this or any of my projects, please write to me at craftingtillthecrackofdawn@gmail.com. I will be happy to share.

A New Baby Scrapbook

After seeing the baby scrapbook I made for my friend, someone asked me to make one for her brother's new baby girl. So here I am with a fresh project and I've decided to do each page with a fresh perspective. I've already done the cover of the book which on the Itsy Bitsy blog. Here I am displaying the next 2 pages: Introducing the new baby and the Family Tree. 

For the Introduction page I went with a yellow pastel scheme. I created the titles, frames and pictures using my cameo. Each piece was cut on white card stock and then I created another piece on gold card stock to form a little border for all the designs. The cameo has an excellent offset feature so all you have to do is choose your shape and thickness of the offset and the rest is done for you. I added some lace for the border, fabric tape for the frame and a bunch of bitty yellow bows to brighten things up. Cute isn't it!

The Family Tree page is a more deeper and grungier hue if you like. The tree has branches for each member of the family up to the baby's great-grandparents and for each person I created an oval flap so that the picture can be added on the top and name inside, or vice versa. A few Itsy Bitsy flowers to touch up the corners and I was done.

Nothing is more tedious for me as a crafter than to do repetitive stuff. I'd rather do nothing at all than to do the same thing more than once. So this scrapbook is really testing me. I am forced to think of new ways to display the same things and so far I'm having a blast!!

More coming soon!

Displaying Facebook wishes on a Scrapbook

I just have one more page to share from the Baby Scrapbook I made for my friend Ashwina's little girl. Back in the day we would get congratulatory letters and cards when a new baby was born. But today most of the wishes come on Facebook and I wanted to give Ash a way of preserving all the 160 odd wishes she received when she announced Anya's birth on Facebook. So here is the page:

I captured screenshots of the actual FB post (there were 2 of them) and then I printed out all the comments that came in for them. Each comment has the date and time exactly as it appears on FB. In the picture below you can see that that the comment section is actually a little paper pad with about 10 to 12 little pages to accommodate all the comments that she received.

This may not be the most crafty page in the book but it certainly is the most special. When Ash saw it, her eyes filled up and nothing was more gratifying than that. So glad she liked it.

To see the all the other pages of this book

Celebrations Pages

Baby Growing Up Pages

Major Milestones Page

Email Wishes Page

I've also added some pages to the ItsyBitsy blog which you can view below:

Baby Shower Page

Gifts Wishes and Emails Header Page

First Words and First Teeth Page

Mama's Belly Page

Before the Baby Pages

Hope you like it. 

Baby Scrapbook Pages - Celebrations

In the first year of a baby's life, there are usually 3 to 4 occasions which are celebrated. For my kids, there was a 28th day ceremony, the Christening, first Christmas, first Easter and then first birthday. For my friend's baby, there were some special occasions she wanted to preserve and this section of my baby scrapbook was dedicated to those occasions in little Anya's life. 

Every section of my book has a header page and this was the header page for the Celebration section. A big garish and lavish cake which was embossed using some of my favorite ItsyBitsy folders. Then oodles of pearls and beads everywhere.

 This is the page for baby's first Diwali. I wanted it to be grand and festive and I was kind of at a loss for a couple of days until I found in my stash my all time favorite ItsyBitsy glitter foam sheets. Yay!! The foam sheets formed the background and the orange intricate design is cameo cut.

My friend lives in Australia but both her parents and her husbands parents have a major base in Bangalore so naturally when they came down with the baby, they had a bash to welcome Anya to Bangalore. It's difficult to see but the title is actually Welcoming Anya to Bangalore. I went with a really busy pattern paper background and just touched up with some balloons, streamers and a present border at the bottom. 

Finally this lucky baby will have the pleasure of attending weddings. Her father's sister is getting married in her first year so this page is to add all the adorable photos of Anya in wedding clothes. I cut out the heart swirly background on my cameo and added a white heart for the left side title and a blank red heart for Ash to add her notes. Gotta say this was one of my favorite pages in the book because not only did it turn out so nice, it was one of the quickest to do!

To see the all the other pages of this book click HERE and I've also added some pages to the ItsyBitsy blog which you can view below:

Baby Shower Page

Gifts Wishes and Emails Header Page

First Words and First Teeth Page

Mama's Belly Page

Before the Baby Pages

Baby is Growing Up - Scrapbook Pages

The baby scrapbook I made for Ashwina is no less than 30 pages long and when closed, it's 4 inches tall. There is no doubt I overdid it.. haha but today I gave it to her and she was delighted. So I guess no harm done. This blog post is dedicated to the 'Growing Up' section of the book. I had such fun putting it together as it's so exciting documenting the first year of a little one's life.

This is the Growing Up Header page. Love the little footprints slowly becoming larger. And of course everything is pink, lavender and pastel... for a precious baby girl.  All the embellishments are cameo cut. I've kind of mastered the software so I'm having a blast designing the details myself.

This page is the feeding record page. The image is digi stamp which I printed and colored. It formed the front page of a little booklet in which Ash could document all the foods little Anya was fed at various stage of her early life. 

This section is to track the baby's height and weight. Don't you just love the little clothes line of baby vests for the title. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

More posts to come - there were after all 30 pages. Ha Ha!

Baby Scrapbook Cover

For those who are following my work, you know I''ve been CONSUMED with a scrapbook for my friend's daughter and I am happy to say that it's finally DONE! So in the next few days you will be bombarded with pictures from the various pages I did, but today it's all about the cover. A girly, pretty, flowery cover for a lovely little baby girl. 

Here are some close-ups of the little details. Calalilies on one corner of the oval, roses on the opposite corner and some glittered hearts for the top.

       

I was working on this till the wee hours of the morning last night and I have to say I am so delighted with the outcome. But I also have to say... if I don't do a Baby Book for another 12 months, I will be one happy crafter!