Because I Miss Texas...

...I decided to put together a little Texas-themed mini book so I could look at my babies in the bluebonnets from previous years, and feel happy! And... it worked! Getting my fingers inky was pretty darn good for the spirit, too. :-)


I used Texana Designs stamps for all of the fun Texas-themed images. The bold bluebonnet on the front is one of my favorite Texana stamps - it's so unique with the curly stem, and so completely FAB. Inside I have three little pockets that hold wallet-sized photos, and all pockets are stamped with more Texana images.


I love this wildflower border below, created by Joyce Meyer. I have been a fan of her art for many, many years - my stamp says copyright 2001 on it! So I was THRILLED when Joyce joined forces with my sweet friend Jimmye Sue at Texana Designs a while back! The Texana store is filled with wonderful wildflowers drawn by Joyce. If you look closely, many of Joyce's drawing are done in one single continuous line. How cool is that?


Here's another one of my very first Texana images - I looooove this little longhorn, he is the cutest! And I added a few little bluebonnets to his pasture, just because. For a fun little embellishment, I ran some hemp cord through my Xyron X to stickify it, then stuck it to the pocket in a fun little rope design.


And finally, some Texas flag hearts, because I *heart* Texas in the spring. I added star gems for a little bling!


I printed some wallet-sized photos of my babies and added them to the pockets with a little tab saying what year they are from. Can you believe how little Carter & Courtney were? How'd they grow so fast?


I made this project for this week's Catered Crop Recipe Swap!
This time we are playing with stitching, and the sponsor is Whisker Graphics. They have offered up a SERIOUSLY fab prize of twine, so I highly recommend you play along!! And they provided these super adorable Bitty Bags for the DT to play with. I got the idea to use them for little pockets in a book from this Dear Lizzy post (thanks Linda for sharing!!). To make my book, I just stacked & glued the bags at the edge, and then created a cardstock cover, scoring to make it open easier.


The featured ingredient for the Recipe Swap is stitching, so I used it in a couple ways. In addition to the stitching embellishment on the cover (which is severely sad so don't look closely because I used my big sewing machine for the first time on a card since my Janome Sew Mini has gone to sewing machine heaven *sniff*, after many many great years of use, and I need to figure out where to line things up on my big machine to I don't sew off the edge, hahaha!), I also used my sewing machine to help ensure the book will not fall apart! :-)


Now head on over to the Catered Crop blog and find out all of the details for this week's Recipe Swap challenge, and join us!!

Thanks for stopping by,

• Stamps: All Stamps from Texana Designs
• Paper: Hero Arts Kraft, GP white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Other: Whisker Graphics Bitty Bags, Making Memories gingham ribbon & rickrack, Hemptique hemp (purchased at Studio Calico), old AMuse dots, old Hero Arts star gems, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder