Happy Stars and Stripes Blog Hop!!

Welcome, EVERYONE!  This is my first blog hop as an official member, one of the newest Cubs, of the JUST A FEW FRIENDS PRIDE!!!  WOOOO HOOOOOO!!!

I am joining Elsa and all of the other awesomely talented folks from Just A Few Friends with this 4th of July Spectacular!  I hope that you all have enjoyed pouncing all through this blog hop.  You should have reached me after seeing what RJ came up with, but incase you are out of order,  you should have started with Elsa, and have come to me from RJ's site, here.  

For this hop, the theme was stars and stripes.  I was feeling super patriotic, and came up with three projects, I couldn't stop.  You will see...I went a little crazy!

 For a mini warm up project, I made a bunting for my fireplace.  I punched the red and blue "doilies" with a Fiskars and Martha Stewart punch, and used paper doilies as well.  I also used up a bunch of star brads that I have been hoarding for some time now.

 This is Herbert, my 3 foot tall gnome that sits in my front yard and guards the house.  He loves to dress up for the holidays, so  created this hat out of paper for him!  I used my Cricut to cut the stars for his hat!  He is STYLIN!!!

 This is the MAIN ATTRACTION!!!!!  I made this mini album for the hop, and I love, LOVE, LOVE how it turned out.  I created a cute little page fold, and I will do a tutorial on how I made it in a post in the near future.  The album pages are 4 1/4" x 4 1/2", the covers are a little bit bigger, and the spine is 3" wide!  I used a metal star plant poke for the cover, putting some streamers on it to resemble fireworks.  The title of the book is "Having a Blast".

 The spine is made of ribbons and lace and the flower ribbon that I was hoarding.   I added blue roses and the pinwheel that I attached with a Tim Holtz photo pin, and then I created little fireworks with leftover scraps and some twine!

 The closure is a simple ribbon and a hitch post.  I had everything in my stash except for the metal star!

 There are stars and stripes all over the place!  I made 5 "pages", and each page holds at least 4 tags.

 Some of the mats I punched fancy, some I just rounded corners.

 The two large tags in each page I thought of like Polaroids, so I left the bottoms to write on.  The tags are double sided.

I created the little pinwheels for the tag pulls.

 The pages are sewn in with a pamphlet stitch.

 The pages are spaced 1/2" apart to allow for the embellishments and pictures.

 More of my little fireworks.

 I had to add a butterfly!

 Almost there, I packed a lot into this little book!

Last page!  I really loved how this turned out, and I hope you did too.  It was a blast to make (yes, PUN INTENDED!)  Now, pounce on over to my fellow cub Sherence's blog and see what she has prepared for you to feast your eyes on!  Thanks for prowling on over here to my blog!  I am full of PRIDE!!!  (Can you hear the roars from us all??!!)

Stay Crafty, My Friends!

If you got lost, or found this by happenstance, here is the lineup for this hop (or pounce!) so start with Elsa, and see what we all have for you!

Elsa http://justafewdesigns.blogspot.com/
Krystal http://krystalsnight.blogspot.com/
Kimi http://uniquescrappiness.blogspot.com/
Suzie http://scrappingsuzieqtt.blogspot.com/
Linda http://simpleandsassycreations.blogspot.com/
Margaret http://auntmargaretdesigns.blogspot.com/
Bon http://tootiebeeblebugcreations.blogspot.com/
Rj http://thriftycrafterdude.blogspot.com/
Michelle http://www.creativeoperation.blogspot.com/
Sherence http://proudmommy702.blogspot.com/