Young Crafters Unite! :)

Welcome Welcome Welcome to the Young Crafters Unite Blog Hop! Isn't this exciting? :)

If you're here from Jess Larsen's blog, then you're in the right place! If you've come across my blog by another way, I highly suggest you head on over to the Young Crafters Unite homepage and start at the beginning. This hop is huge and it's jam-packed with amazing talent. Plus, every comment you leave on the participating blogs (through July 4th) will increase your chances to win prizes from Lawn Fawn, Simon Says Stamp, and Paper Smooches. Sweet!

What makes me a Young Crafter is pretty much the obvious: I'm young, and I'm a crafter. I'm also still (yes, still) relatively new to the world of contemporary paper crafting, and I like to think of myself as something of an apprentice (in that I'm learning from them, not that I aspire to take over for them!) to "the greats," which, in my opinion, includes amazing ladies like Kristina Werner, Jennifer McGuire, Stephanie Howell, and Lisa Spangler (just to name a few!). 

For my hop project, I wanted to do something really exciting. (Well, ok, at least it's exciting to me. I hope you agree. lol.) The theme of the hop is My Favorite Things, and I have to admit I was a little bit stumped by this at first. My original plan was to wander around my craft space and choose, say, 10 of the items I'm loving the most lately, and then make a card with them. But I thought that might be too risky. So I decided to interpret the theme a little differently...

Let me be honest with you here for a moment. Lately, there have been a lot of things in my life that I'm not so thrilled about. But I'm working on it. I'm working on being happier, being more motivated, and enjoying my journey. And along with that theme, two of my favorite things right now are challenging myself and setting goals. So here are the challenges I set out to accomplish with this project:
     1. Document more of my everday life.
     2. Try out more scrapbooking.
     3. Use my Studio Calico kits.
     4. Allow a project to take more than one sitting. Don't feel the need to finish now, or rush through
         things.

So, without further ado (aka my propensity for blah blah blah), here's my project...

I'd seen a few of these accordion envelope mini-albums in various places online (most recently this beyond-amazing one that was featured on the October Afternoon blog), but I couldn't find a tutorial for them. So I decided to challenge myself to figure it out :)

Each "page" is an envelope where you can tuck photos, journaling, and memorabilia. The envelopes themselves are decorated, giving space to glue things in a more traditional scrapbook fashion.

I also made some little inserts to make more room for journaling, making lists, and gluing treasures.

Now, because I couldn't find a tutorial for this type of book, I decided to make one! Ok, two actually :) But since this has already been a very long post, and I'm sure you're anxious to get back a-hoppin', I'll let you know that the next stop on the hop is Brittney Baker's blog. I can't wait to see what she's created! And don't forget to comment along the way!

For those of you interested in how I made this mini-album, you can watch my videos below. Part 1 is about the inside, and Part 2 shows how I made the covers. Thanks for stopping by!