I am going to start this class today with an apology. I’ve got a little carried away and it’s gone from being a pretty dashboard class to a full on mega class. I’m talking…dashboard, pockets, page marker and mini book. There are ALOT of photos. But I had so much fun and I hope you will enjoy this too. Feel free to go and pop the kettle on first and get yourself cozy….

Are you ready??? This all comes form me being a scrapbooker. I record memories. I do it without thinking. I keep notes, I take photos and I save memorabilia. It’s a way of life. So it seems only natural that my planner should overlap a little now and then with my scrapbooking.

We recently took a trip to the beach for a few days. It’s a place we used to go most years when the kids were little, but it’s been over 4 years since we last went. I wanted to create a fun dashboard using some older photos from our previous trips. Then I thought a page marker would be fun too. I started printing off some photos in various sizes.

I had quite a lot. I made a start on my dashboard first and I had already decided at this point that I was going to create a really fun and hands on interactive dashboard. I had so many photos that I wanted to include so the only way forward was to include a pocket to pop them in to….I’ll come back to that soon.

So, dashboard first….

I used my November dashboard as my template. I needed some larger paper, so I took this sheet from my Cocoa Daisy November scrapbooking kit. This piece actually came from the paper addon here.I decided to use the red strip as my tab. I didn’t draw around the tab until right at the end though. I didn’t want my new dashboard’s tab to be in the same place as it wouldn’t be seen in my planner. So I drew around the outside and then moved the dashboard up and drew around the tab at the top.

Now both tabs can be seen in my planner.

I went on to create a page marker next that would sit in front of this dashboard. I had already cropped and printed off a long thin photo ready for this on a 5×7 piece of photo paper. There was some photo paper spare at the bottom. I decided to leave this and not trim it off and I would stamp on it instead.

The stamps did really stick hard to the photo paper, but they did pull off and they did stamp well. I stuck the photo then to another piece of 12 x12 Cocoa Daisy paper from the main scrapbooking kit and trimmed accordingly leaving some extra paper at the bottom like this.

I wanted to trim it with my border punch to give it a nice scalloped edge. I then took some of the thin washi tape and edged the photo using this. Not for adhesive purposes, just for the extra colour.

I then went on to start decorating my dashboard. I took some yellow alphas from my scrapbooking kit. I wanted to read the whole word and didn’t want any of it being covered up, so I staggered it. I worked backwards making sure I’d allowed enough space. I always like to write the word I’m spelling out in front of me. Even the most basic words I’ve managed to miss spell when doing this before!

Now when the layers are closed it reads like this.

I added some of the puffy stickers to the scalloped edge for some added colour and decoration.

I now started work on my pocket to hold the photos. I decided this would fit in the space on the dashboard but would become an additional page. I took one of the glassine envelopes that hold the planner kit pieces. These are so handy.

It was slightly too long, so I just folded it up and later stuck this down with double sided sticky.

I cut some of the ‘Simon’ (bunny) paper to the same size as the envelope, only slightly wider. I matched it up with the holes of my planner and punched them out so they it could be added on top of my dashboard page. I stuck the glassine envelope to the Simon Paper. I now have my pocket page.

I decorated the glassine envelope a little with a photo, some scraps of the papers that I’d previously used and some of the planner stickers too, layering these up.

And I added some detail at the top of the envelope too.

Whilst doing all this it had given me time to think about storing my photos inside this pocket. I’d seen this piece of paper in the planner kit and I knew it would work great as a mini book. So this is when I decided that rather than just pop the photos inside the envelope, I would make a mini book to go inside instead.

I cut the paper up separating the tags like this.  I holed the top of each one.

I then decorated each tag.

I used scraps of the papers again, the same alphas and some photos.

And whilst doing so constantly thinking and planning ahead making sure that my layers were neat and tidy and that nothing over lapped that wasn’t supposed to. I also used the acetate from the planner kit here and cut that to the size of a tag and punched a hole at the top.

I used the planner stamps and stickers too.

I also decided to outline everything with my favourite black journal pen. I like how this makes everything stand out and I love that doodled look.

For my last page of this mini book, I wanted to add these 2 photos. I wanted to have a close up of the fossil that my son had found when he was little. I created a piece that would fold out so that I could keep the photos together side by side, but this way the tag mini book could still keep it’s size. I added some double sided sticky to the tag.  

I used the same piece of 12×12 paper that I’d used before and cut a thin strip to size that was longer than both photos together and stuck this to the tag.

I then stuck one of the photos in the inside and one on the outside. I folded it to keep to the size that I wanted.

By doing this it also enabled me to be able to document a little at the back of the book.

I finished the doodling and I just needed to fasten the book together. I used the string from the planner kit cotton bag.

It worked perfectly and the mini book is now finished. I love how so many layers are visible here. Here are the finished pages.

I now just needed to finish my dashboard pages after I’d been sidetracked with the unplanned mini book. I added some more stamping and a few extra details. I love that the heart puffy sticker fitted perfectly inside the ‘o’ of the word ‘memories’.

I added a couple of photos to the reverse of the dashboard to finish.

The project is now ready.

I am so happy with how this turned out and so much of it ironically was unplanned. It may have taken me so much longer to create, but I’m really pleased that I made this. It’s the perfect addition to my planner now.

I really hope that you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed making it.

If you have any questions, please do ask. Thank you *waves*