Mimi's Brag Book

Hi everyone, if you were waiting for my post last Friday it obviously didn't happen and believe me you didn't want me blogging either. Not a good day. :( But enough of that, I'm back to share a brag book I made to celebrate the grandbaby we have on the way. It was inspired by Annette Green and it features the Graphic 45 Mother Goose 8x8 paper pad, coordinating embellishments and G45 kraft tag album. 

Before we get to photos of my brag book I'd like to share how our son and DIL announced the wonderful news to my hubby, daughter and me. We met them for dinner and after the waitress took our drink orders they slid this box over to our side of the table and said it was a belated Christmas present. Now last September they celebrated their 3rd anniversary and originally our son wanted to wait until they were married 5 yrs before starting a family. He's been pretty adamant about it while our DIL was ready when they married lol.  
So imagine our surprise...

when we opened this box and read the note below

When we opened the box only the note was on top so we were looking at each other and then we lifted the tissue paper to see the cutest pair of baby sneakers ever. I remember thinking my DIL had a glow about her that night when she walked in. It was a precious way to make this announcement and we'll never forget it, thanks for making it so special B & J. We love you!!! Also thanks for sending me these photos because once I learned the news I didn't have sense enough to snap a photo lol. It's a wonder I didn't scream out loud in the restaurant and embarrass everyone. ;)

So what are our names going to be? We decided on Mimi, Pop and our daughter is going to be Aunt Gigi. Neither of us wanted to use a name that our children called their grandparents. All of them, except my mom, have passed away and we just wanted to start fresh with names that haven't been used before. My daughter thought Mimi sounded French so she laughingly suggested Gigi and we all loved it. Let me tell you, this Mimi, Pop and Aunt Gigi can not wait for September to get here!

Thanks for letting me share that with you! As I mentioned my brag book was inspired by a DT project that Annette Green made for G45 and if you click the link above it will take you directly to that post. She did a video tutorial on this project and she also includes instructions for creating the accordion binding in case you're interested. 

Thought I'd share what the front cover looked like before I embellished it with ephemera, die cut stars, foam alpha's and Tim's (?) alpha's.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, The Cow jumped over the Moon, The Dish ran away with the Spoon, Mary had a little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star are all childhood nursery rhymes we remember from Mother Goose. :)

I used Annette's layout style using 2 patterned dp's and one solid color cardstock. She shared how she made her template in the video tut so you can check that out. Ephemera and cardstock pockets slip under the checkered band. I used a cardstock slide buckle and 2 floral circles plus a cardstock sticker from the collection. My book differs in that I added liquid pearls on every page...I just have a soft spot for them.

A large photo mat and more ephemera from the collection. I lucked up and found the cardstock flowers and pocket sheets at a Tuesday Morning recently. I didn't use the flowers on this book because we don't know the sex of the baby yet and I'll most likely use them to decorate an altered photo frame if it's a girl.

The little pockets are so cute and I filled this one with ephemera that I can journal on and place a small photo on the back. I used a border strip to connect the two pages from the 8x8 pad.

This is a fun little page, it has an accordion style booklet that folds out with ephemera and photo mats. Behind it is another piece of ephemera where I can record special memories.

Ephemera and 2 photo mats on each side.

A piece of ephemera for recording precious memories and you can see the cute little banners on the left. This collection has all of my favorite colors and it just makes me happy.

The next page spread has a large photo mat on the left surrounded by stamp cut outs from the 8x8 paper pad. They'll help hold the photo in place and I added a Twinkle Twinkle little star cardstock sticker.

The opposite side has a Mother Goose pocket which is holding 3 pieces of double sided ephemera for journaling and photos.

The Humpty Dumpty images are so cute and I love the background paper as well. This is another adorable pocket and I placed it on top of a mini polka dot dp and added a cardstock sticker to the upper left.

I liked Annette's idea to create a tri-fold booklet and a Basic Grey magnet helps keep it closed. I added  Humpty Dumpty and photo corner cardstock stickers, fussy cut a border from the paper collection and popped a cardstock flower on top of the magnet to hide it. 

When you open it you can see a postage stamp cardstock sticker and another flower cardstock piece hiding the other magnet. I cut several postage stamps from the 8x8 pad to use throughout this book.

Three photo mats with the outer ones having a checkered border which I pieced by cutting strips from a dp in the 8x8 paper pad.

The back cover features a Mother Goose cardstock sticker with a border. The row of flowers on the edge of the spine is also from the cardstock sticker sheet.

This was such a fun project! Like Annette, I use a gingham ribbon from May Arts to keep it closed and I simply can't wait to fill it with pictures. It'll be a while though so in the meantime I am also going to make a few things for my DIL. They've certainly made a lot of folks happy and our prayers now are for a healthy pregnancy and delivery.  

Thanks for looking at my brag book! I'm going to try and schedule some posts and share some of my outgoing and incoming pocket letters that haven't made it to my blog yet. Also my apologies for being a terrible blog buddy as far as commenting goes. I'm pulled in a lot of directions these days but I promise to drop by and visit all of you very soon.

Take care,

Lisa xx