Whimsy Stamps ~ 21st Photo Album Cover

Hey friends, there have been some big celebrations these past few months in our family, so I've been doing lots of 'celebration crafting'. This special photo album I've created for my Godson who just celebrated his 21st. My kiddos adore him and he is very much the 'big brother' in our family. He came and celebrated a low key, fun 21st on his actual birthday here with us and I snapped a pic of the fun 'doughnut cake' we created for him. So I've used this as the focal point of this layout.

I decorated a plain 12 x 12 spiral bound black page photo album which I bought at a local craft store with a lovely Maja Design page from their Skärgårdsliv ~ Life By The Sea 12 x 12 papers. This particular page is called Bottle Message and has some lovely nautical themed white designs on the paper. The edges have white distressed finishes and as I had to trim one side down to fit the front of the album cover, I used some white pigment ink along that edge so it matched the other three sides. I cut the frame around the photo with deckle edged scissors I've had from Fiskars forever. An original crafty purchase and still work great.

I wanted to embellish this beautiful paper and create an elegant layout, but didn't want to cover too much of it, as I love this Maja paper, so wanted to have a lot of it still showing. I added some Texture Paste through a Whimsy Stencil called Star Galaxy. I added this centrally, as I wanted it to flank the photo. I wanted when I added the photo, for the stars to peep out from either side.

Once I'd stencilled that central area, I realised the stars didn't extend quite as far as I wanted. I decided to use the Twinkle Cluster Stencil from Whimsy which has a great selection of star shapes, one little set of which, worked perfectly with the Star Galaxy Stencil, so I added this little cluster of stars in random spots  around the design, trying to ensure there was a point of interest in all four quadrants of the layout. Using Walnut Stain Distress Oxide Ink I added some random stamping with some memory themed sentiments and also the word 'family', which had such a lovely font, from the DoveArt stamp set called Seasonal Trees Clear Stamps.

I initially had not added anything to the top right of the layout and I realised it looked a little bare there, so I diecut a corner embellishment from a Whimsy Stamps Box Die Set and inked it with Walnut Stain Distress Oxide to match the stamping that I'd done. I used a lovely and rather perfect stamp set for the rest of the sentiments, called Enjoy The Journey. I used this same set for my nephews 21st Birthday card, so this was a nice symmetry. 

The final touch to this design, was to add the 21st key, which I tied to the ribbon that closes the album. I used a ribbon that toned with the stamping to add this cute embellishment and glued it in place after tying it, so it didn't fly off every-time the album is opened. I discovered this was necessary when it did exactly that the first time I tried it. A spot of glue ensured this didn't happen again. This key charm has been in my stash forever and was one I bought from the lovely Sandy of Live and Love Crafts way back in the day. Still so sad they're not trading any longer. 

Thanks for popping in to visit today, I hope you enjoyed seeing this album cover layout I created for my nephew. I really enjoyed creating something a little different to what I usually do and it was a special keepsake for my gorgeous nephew. I'll be back soon with another crafty adventure, until then, have a wonderful weekend and happy crafting! xoxo

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Challenge Entry:

As You Like It: Favourite Stencil or Freestyle Background ~ I haven't been overly confident using stencils until recently and I find I'm liking them more and more. I've used two to create this 21st Photo Album Layout for my lovely nephew and Godson and really enjoyed the detail and texture this added to this creation.