My Favorite Pumpkin Recipes: Crafty Secrets October Challenge and Blog Hop

Hello, Friends!  Welcome to the Crafty Secrets October Challenge and Blog Hop.  You should be coming here from the Crafty Secrets Heartwarming Vintage Blog. If so, you are right on track!

This month we are focusing on our blessings with a “Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart!” theme. The design team was challenged to share ideas for Thanksgiving table decor, place cards, wall hangings, thank you notes, hostess gifts, gratitude journals, layouts, mixed media canvases…anything that has to do with counting our blessings, showing gratitude and being thankful.

I come from a long line of phenomenal cooks.  My earliest childhood memories are centered around family gatherings at my grandmother’s house.  Everyone brought a dish, my grandmother roasted the turkey and made dozens of pies…and let me tell you, those ladies could cook!  I am so thankful for these warm memories of  being surrounded by a loving family and good food that I decided to create a Thanksgiving  album, filled with my favorite pumpkin recipes.

I love these Wood Clipboard Albums from Crafty Secrets.  They can be altered in dozens of different ways and are such a unique presentation for mini albums.  Measuring 6″ x 9″ the size is just right, and they even come with little silver binding rings, sample photos, a star template, basic instructions and cut out pieces you can add to your album if you desire.

I decided to do a little mixed media cover on this particular album, and used Tea Dye, Wild Honey, and Ground Espresso Distress Stains directly on the cover.  I just “painted” the outer 1/2 inch of the album, as I knew I would be covering most of it with paper.  I spritzed the stains with a little water to blend the colors, then sponged on Walnut Brown Viva Decor 3-D Stamp Paint to add some shimmer.

Next, I printed out my papers on 8.5″ x 11″ primitive white cardstock from My Favorite Things.  I wanted a really heavy duty cardstock for the pages, and the Primitive Cardstock adds a nice vintage base.  Here’s a list with product links for the papers I used in this album:

• Digital Thanksgiving Collection Kit: Pie Kids, Wheat, Thanksgiving Hymn
• Kitchen Memories Collection Kit: Kitchen Memories Labels, Recipe Notes, Aged Recipe Labels, Recipe Mix, Yellow Apples, Pie Lady
• Blue Paisley Stripe Papers
• Brown Paisley Papers

I added stickers and embellies from my stash along with Petaloo Royal Blue Sugared Blossoms and gorgeous Blue/Gold/Ivory Plaid Ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon. 

Each page was cut to measure 5 7/8″ x 8 1/8″.  Corners were rounded, edges were inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and lightly distressed.  This gives the album the look and feel of a vintage treasure, and I like that a lot.  Stitching the Pie Kids paper to the Blue Paisley paper added a wonderful homespun touch.  Then I just layered on the other elements until I was happy.  This sounds so quick and easy, doesn’t it?  While it’s not hard, it does take me some time to make up my mind about what goes where.

The inner pages are made from heavy weight teal cardstock, cut to be slightly smaller than the album covers.  When making an album like this, it’s important to remember two things:

1. Leave a margin at the top of each page so you can punch your binding rings through without disturbing the images.
2. Double check your pages to make sure you’re not gluing anything in upside down!  With a flip top album like this one, it’s easy to get top and bottom confused.  I always double check the page orientation before I glue anything down.  (And even then, I still sometimes glue upside down.  Sigh….)

For the inside cover, I used the Thanksgiving hymn paper.  The illustration was colored with alcohol markers.  I’m not much of a colorist, but I felt the page looked too plain just cream and black.  The sticker was mounted on burlap to give it presence on the page.  You could also mount a Thanksgiving Day photo here, and it would fit right in.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love these vintage Recipe Note Cards from the Kitchen Memories Digital kit.  They look like they came right out of my Mom’s recipe file!  I downloaded a free vintage typewriter font from the internet.  After sizing my note card to measure 4.25″ wide, I used my text tool to type the recipes onto the cards, saved them, then printed them out.  The border was created with the Yellow Apples paper and mounted on the teal.  It just kind of defines the page,and also serves to strengthen the area where the binding rings are inserted.

This pie lady paper is so beautiful.  I wrote the little poem on this page (really, I did!) and then just added some little leaves and a matted label from the Kitchen Memories Labels paper.  I have loads of ideas for these Kitchen memories papers running through my mind, and with any luck, I’ll get to make some of them soon.

Are you familiar with Whoopie Pies?  They are small, moist, round cakes that are sandwiched together with frosting of some sort.  I make these every year for our daughter-in-law, as they are her favorites.  When the grand girls asked me why they are called whoopie pies, I told them, “Because they taste so good you’ll holler ‘Whoopie!’ when you taste them! ”  (And they did…in fact, we all did! )  For this page, I created a little pocket space where the cream cheese icing could be tucked in for safe keeping.

Here I’ve cut out one of the cute vintage clips that comes with the album.  I just inked the edges and glued it down to the page.  I love the way it looks.

This page is actually the inside back cover. and I’ve used the Thanksgiving “Wheat” paper here.  The cute vintage ruler is a sticker from our Little Boy Sticker Sheet.  I used one on the cover, too because I like the rustic feel of it, and it creates a great border.

I love the idea of preserving cherished family recipes in an album like this.  I really should make one for each of our kids so they can carry on the tradition.

I hope you’ll join the fun at this month’s challenge and hop.  You don’t have to follow our theme (but it’s always fun if you do!)  Just create any project of your choice that uses Crafty Secrets goodies.  You can find all the rules, details and free downloads on the Crafty Secrets BLOG.

From here, you will hop over and visit Ginny at Polly’s Paper Studio.

Thanks for stopping by!  I am so thankful for each and every one of you!

Cheerio,

kathy