Craft Hoarders Challenge #21 and Crafty Secrets December Blog Hop

Good morning and happy December! Today I am giving you a 2-for-1 post. This project is for Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge #21 and also for the Crafty Secrets December Blog Hop (otherwise known as a Linky Party)! It is not normal for me to make my projects do double duty, but I had a big load to carry the past few weeks, and also, this project was quite a large undertaking...so I thought, "Why not?!" {smile} 

The Craft Hoarders challenge:

Challenge #21 Celebrate the Season
Raise your hands if you hoard Christmas or other winter holiday items! Who has a drawer full of  "retired" holiday papers and embellishments? Who goes crazy over the candy cane ribbons or the sparkly embellishments? Share a winter or seasonal holiday project with us. We would love to see your Christmas projects, but you may also enter Hanukkah, Kwanza, New Year's, other holiday celebration projects, or any winter-themed projects. Celebrate the season with us!

Crafty Secrets is having a 30% Off Sale - and it has been extended until 12 midnight December 1st, and includes all digital and printed items, with 30% off the sale items except our Sale Packs as they are 70% Off already. The Crafty Secrets designer challenge for December is to make a project that is Recipe, or Calendar, or Holiday themed. 

With all that in mind, I created a Christmas Recipe mini album in a December Daily format. I hope you enjoy looking! This is a long, photo-heavy post, so grab some leftovers and settle in for a bit!

In true Hoarders style, I found this 6" x 6 1/2" mini album in my stash. The mini is from Rusty Pickle, so I know it's old! That company has not been around for about 5 years!

The mini has two chipboard covers and 6 tabbed pocket pages. I kept some things "blank" so that I could give this as a gift, and the receiver could per her own personalized touches on it.

I used some wonderful Spellbinders die templates to create my clusters on the front of the album. But my main inspiration was the lovely Crafty Secrets digital papers and those adorable metal cooking charms (from Karen Foster)!

The spine of the book is a metal o-ring binding, that is quite large, which allows for the book to get pretty fat! This book is not stuffed full yet, but is already over 2 inches thick!

I started the process by carefully removing the binding and painting the edges of each cover and page with red paint. I painted the tabs on each page also.

I trimmed the Crafty Secrets digital Christmas paper to size for the cover, plus I created a second layer with the Santa paper, which I matted with red cardstock. 

 I cut the smallest shape from the various Spellbinders Heirloom Ornament dies out of glitter or shimmer cardstock. I used foam squares to stack the ornaments to make a cluster on the left side of the album cover. I have been hoarding those ornament dies for ages. A few were in unopened packaging! I also added a calendar image (a FREE image from Crafty Secrets). I also added some floral elements from my stash.

I created a second cluster from the printed sentiment from the Crafty Secrets Kitchen Memories digital kit. I die cut the image with a Spellbinders circle die and added a scallop die cut from red cardstock. I added the metal measuring spoon charm and some white twine. I found the sparkly ribbon embellishment in a little make-n-take packet that I picked up a few weeks ago at a local scrapbook store. (In case you cannot read the sentiment it says: The best memories are made in the kitchen.)

All of the paper and images are digital papers and images from Crafty Secrets. See the full supply list at the end of the post. I printed everything onto ivory cardstock with my Epson printer. 

I used a lot of vintage postcards from the digital Christmas sets. I collect actual vintage postcards and some of them have recipes written onto the backs! How cool is that?! So, I decided to add the postcard art to my recipe album. This postcard is actually a flip-up page.

I added some of the recipe cards from the  Kitchen Memories digital kit to the inside of the flip page. 

Each page of the mini album contained some sort of pocket on one side of the page. I altered them to fit my needs. This one is a standard pocket, but I used a circle punch to cut a tab out of it. I decorated the pocket with some kitchen elements that I fussy cut from the digi paper. The background paper is from one of the Christmas CDs or digital sets.

Some of the printed recipe cards are something I found in my file of "hoarded digital stuff" and I have no idea where they came from. They are a pdf that I could type the recipe into and then print it off. I made sure to type up a few family favorites to include in this gift album! 

I used a lot of the amazing Crafty Secrets images from the various Kitchen and Christmas collections.

I also used the circle die cut templates to cut out images from some of the paper, like the fruit embellishment. The little cook is a sticker from the CS What's Cooking set. I made sure to include some photo mats so photos of food or of cooks can be added!

This is a side pocket which was perfect for this pretty baker from the Kitchen Memories kit. I added a sticker, which I mounted on foam squares for dimension. I stuffed the pocket with recipe and journaling cards.

I used a post card image to create a pocket on this page. The paper and image are from the Retro Christmas CD. I love the muffin tin charm!

This page had a small, sort of 3/4 pocket. I covered it with the cooking words paper and then added lots of recipe cards and a few cute cooking images.

This page contains a recipe card that can also be a journaling card or a photo mat.

This pages has a large, diagonal pocket that is perfect for stuffing full of cards! I decorated with stickers from the Heavenly Christmas collection.

Here is what the pocket looks like empty. I think the CS digital papers are spectacular!

Here is a better view of all the cards and tags that I placed in the pocket.

I created a journaling spot with the digital paper and a digital image of the silverware. That fun part about using digital products is that you can customize them!

This page is a large pocket. I added cards to the pocket and also used the little girl image to act as a recipe holder on the page.

Another photo page.

This page was a window page, which I turned into a pocket. I love the Santa images!

I used some sticker letters and a die cut deer, who is oddly wearing a spatula around his neck!

The pocket is full of recipes and journal tags!

I used some stickers to act as recipe holders for this page.

This is the inside of the back cover. A place to add a special message.

And the back of the album. Put the wire binding through the holes in the album and gently squeeze the wire closed. Be careful that you don't bend the wire out of shape. If you have a Bind-It-All or Cinch tool, you can use those to re-bind the album.

I hope you enjoyed this Christmas Recipe Album Mini. It was fun to make! Now, go an hop to the Craft Hoarders and Crafty Secrets blogs! A special thanks to Spellbinders for sponsoring the Hoarders team!!

Read the Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge Rules are HERE. LINK your project up using the Link Tool on the Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge Blog.

Make sure you visit the Craft Hoarders Anonymous Design Team and check out what they have to share! 

Amber Milone
Christy Butters
Debbie Seyer
Donna Idlet
Ginny Nemchak

Glenda Brooks
Gloria Stengel - YOU ARE HERE
Jan Marie Ennenga
Karen Zueger

Kathy Clement

Pam Bray
Wendi Robinson

One talented participant will receive this prize donated by Spellbinders. 

For more information about the design team and prize sponsor companies, and their links, please see the end of the Craft Hoarders post HERE.

Make sure you also visit the Crafty Secrets Team!

Crafty Secrets Design Team

Kathy Clement - DT Leader  

Birgit Norton - December Guest Designer
Darlene Pavlick

Diane Hover

Elizabeth Lincoln
Glenda Brooks - December Guest Designer
Gloria Stengel - YOU ARE HERE
Melody Clement

Michele Kovack

Shantaie Fowler

Sheila Rumney

Crafty Secrets Blog

Create a new project featuring a Crafty Secrets products, link it to the Crafty Secrets BLOG, and you’ll automatically receive a $6 store credit. One lucky participant will be randomly chosen to win a $50 shopping spree in the store! If you don’t have any Crafty Secrets goodies, you can download FREE images from the Crafty Secrets blog; just look in the sidebar! You have until 11:59PT,  Sunday December 14th to play!

Spellbinders products:
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Heirloom Ornaments
Classic Scalloped Circles Large
Standard Circles Large

Crafty Secrets products:
Digital: Vintage Kitchen Digital Stamp Set, Kitchen Queen Digital Stamp Set, Kitchen Memories Digital Kit, Kitchen Time Printable Sheet, Retro Kitchen Digital Kit, Christmas Mail Digital Stamps, Thanksgiving Digital Collection, Red Damask digital paper, 2015 Calendar
CDs: Vintage Christmas, Retro Christmas
Images and Journal Notes: Homemade, Vintage Christmas
Creative Scraps: Merry Christmas, Domestic Goddess
Heartwarming Vintage Stickers: Family Matters, Heavenly Christmas, What's Cooking?

Other products:
Mini Album: Rusty Pickle
Cardstock: textured red, glitter green, blue; shimmer silver, gold, red

Ribbon and twine: Really Reasonable Ribbon
Ink: Ranger Distress Vintage Photo, Aged Mahogany
Other die: Sizzix Tim Holtz deer/25
Punches: Stampin' Up circles; Martha Stewart borders; EK Success corner rounder
Paint: Ranger DIstress Barn Door; Making Memories Cranberry
Floral spray: Michaels
Charms: Karen Foster Baking
Bow tool: Zutter Bow-it-All
Adhesive: Scotch 3M ATG tape; Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L 3D Foam Squares; Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky Glue; Beacon Fabri-tac; Glue Dots; Scor-tape; Ranger Glossy Accents