i should hold onto these for the kids...

...because they love them so much and Parker has sadly lost his already without having it one day :(

I posted earlier some fun photo booth pictures (from Dave's apple notebook), for a fun project that I spotted on the amazing Ali Edwards blog...

Not only do I triple heart Ali for her simple yet brilliant work, but we also share the same name AND spelling...double awesomeness! She also has helped me learn that it's ok to take ideas and use them...like for this project, I seriously did it pretty much the same...I even scored the same paper for the outside of the book! I wanted to get all crazy but had to keep remembering what Ali Edwards says, "You don't have to re-invent the wheel..."

I accidentally ordered the wrong size backing board for my clients photos and so I have 50 8x12 6-ply backing board that I knew SOMEday I would use for SOMEthing...I almost threw it out but alas, the pack rat in me was screaming that I would regret it later...

SO...since I didn't have these pre-cut fun chipboard pieces to make my book, I just used my nifty little circle cutter and cut out my own pieces :)

Adhere some paper, sand the edges to finish and slap some paint on the other side and VOILA!

My own little mini book ready for some fun "innards."

I didn't have any cool transparencies like she had, and the Michael's AND Hobby Lobby stores let me down on that venture too...so I ended up making my own by purchasing just the clear covers for report binding and such at Office Max. Then I cut the circle pieces and then stamped them with white Opaque Staz On. A little more effort but it produced the same effect for a fraction of the price of a transparency. Are these report covers acid free??? I have no clue...but I did discover a website that had some acid free acetate for binding...

Anyhoo, so I added my photos and the love circles from Ali just like she did for her book, jotted down my love note to each kid and here we have it...a fun little interactive Valentine for each of my munchkins! I did something pretty neat for Dave too, but that will be in my next post...more of a digital scrapbook type of thing...here's some images of the final mini book :)