Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

Hey there Sweet Shoppers! Jen Tapler here to talk about the 10-point hybrid challenge in this month’s Scrapper’s Portfolio. These 10-point hybrid challenges are a FABULOUS way to quickly and easily rack up a ton of Sweet Rewards points, and I want to show you just how easy it really is to participate!

In case you need a refresher, this month’s 10-point Hybrid Challenge is to create a “Shaped Mini Album – think outside the box for this month’s mini album hybrid challenge and create a uniquely shaped album that’s at least 5 double sided pages. Birds, butterflies, hearts, ice cream cones, mittens, surfboards, and more – the sky is the limit for this month’s mini memory keeper. Don’t skip this challenge because you’re afraid of hybrid – you can do it!”.  So how about a sample?

I created a fun heart-shaped album for my 3-yr-old son, Dean, to remember some of his favorite things right now (like Cupcakes from Whole Foods, going to the beach, hiking in Iao Valley, Playing at Keopuolani Park, etc) using some chipboard hearts, a jump ring, some Mod Podge, and a piece of ribbon. Oh, and don’t forget a fabulous digi kit!! I worked mostly with the Momma’s Boy kit by Melissa Bennet for this project.

The first thing I did was gather my physical supplies, then design my photo clusters in Photoshop. I printed out my background papers to about the size of the hearts so I could trace around the heart and cut it out of each paper.  I also printed out each photo / embellishment cluster using papers and elements from the Momma’s Boy kit, then cut them out (as one big cluster) with my hobby knife.

I was then ready to start assembling the album. I started with the front cover / title page, which reads “a few of the things I {heart} at age 3”. I used several different alphas to design the title, including the alpha from the Momma’s Boy kit, the “i” is from He’s the Man by Dani Mogstad & Traci Reed, the “{heart}” is from Love This Boy by Traci Reed, the “3” is from She’s Got Game by Dani Mogstad, and finally the red heart element is from Layered Up in You: Mixed Shapes by Lauren Grier. I also used a couple of altered Brag Book templates to help with the designing of a few of my photo clusters for the inside pages. Full credits for the entire project can be found here in the gallery.

I glued on each background paper and photo cluster along with a brightly colored patterned paper to the back side of each album page. Here’s a look at a few of the other pages of the album:

I just love how this little album turned out and Dean has had lots of fun with it as well! It will make a wonderful keepsake to remember some of his favorite activities as a 3-yr-old.

So you see? Creating one of these shaped albums is super easy! I used a chipboard album that I happened to have in my stash, but you could easily use a resized element shape from your favorite digi kit as a clipping mask to create a traceable paper template and make your own album pages out of heavy cardstock or even recycled cardboard (think cereal boxes, shoe boxes, etc).  We’ve already given you several ideas for shaped album in the challenge details, but you could also also do an apple for a school days album, a car shape for a little boy album, a baby bottle for a baby album (or any other baby shaped item), a fish shape for a swimming or lake vacation album, the possibilities really are endless!!

So what do you think you’ll try? Any other ideas that we haven’t mentioned? I’d love to hear your thoughts!