Hello everybody!  My name is Jessica, aka penkitten, and I’m so happy to be able to share with you today.

January is almost over and you know what that means … Valentine’s Day!  It’s already crossed my mind a few times and I didn’t want this year to be the same as every other year … scrambling the day of or a few days before to make something super special for my loved ones.  So, when inspiration struck, I went straight in to action.  It took my computer, a printer, an afternoon and a few helpers to create a super special Valentine’s Day gift.

I’d like to share this project with you in hopes that you will be inspired to create something awesome of your own!

First, I chose my project.  I started with a small cream pocket album from Close to my Heart with 3×3″ pockets.  Why did I choose this album?  Well, to be honest because I just happened to find it while cleaning up a pile of random stuff and said, “Hey, I could make something!”  It also helps that I happened to have Danielle Young’s latest kit, With Love, on my mind

I headed right over to the computer to get started!

I knew that whatever I created would be a gift for my husband.  I instantly had the idea that I wanted the kids to help and make at least one page themselves.  So, I started by creating the pages to be printed.

Danielle Young has these very cute Lovebug printables, but they were rectangular and not square (my pages were 3×3″). 

I used them as inspiration and decided to create my own square valentines using the With Love kit and the Lovebug Title Wordart (the images that are sold separately used to make the printables).  I took papers from the With Love kit and resized them to 3×3″ or 900 x 900 pixels (that’s 3″x3″ with a 300 dpi print quality).

I use a program called Macromedia Fireworks, but no matter what program you use, I’m sure you could interpret my instructions for your own use.

I added a second paper (the cream colored weave that will be used on all my pages) and put a drop shadow on it.  For those of you who want to know, it’s 800×800 pixels.  It looked something like this:

Using this same theme (with different background papers from the With Love kit) I created three different styles of pages.

The top row of images is the square valentines I created using the Lovebug Title wordart.  The second row contains more valentines and the photo pages I made – one for each of the kids.  I used some elements of the With Love kit, but they are reduced in size to fit the 3×3 page.  The next four rows are blank pages that I created (some with a small decoration or two), printed out and let the kids draw on.

It is not hard at all to get these printed out.  Your programs may vary, but I just exported my pages as .jpgs.  I saved them to my chosen folder and then inserted them in to a Microsoft Word document.

Some other people use different methods for printing (and I myself have used quite a few), but I went with the quickest and simplest method for this project.  My printer is just a normal color inkjet printer and I used 8.5″x11″ matte photo paper.  I was able to fit 6 of my little album pages on to one printable page.  I was not thrilled about the amount of empty, wasted space (2.5″x11″), but you do what you have to do.  Simple and quick:

After printing them out, I gave the kids some art supplies and told them to have fun!

They ended up loving the project so much that I had to print out extra sheets for them to color and we made extras for our other friends as well.

While they worked, I created a cover and printed it out.

When the kids were done, we cut the pages out and inserted them into the album sleeves:

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All in all, it probably took under three hours to complete this project.  It was a lot of fun, the kids loved it and we created something so wonderfully personal for their daddy.  I can’t wait to give it to him!

This idea would work for any family or any relationship.  Have older kids?  Have no kids?  Need a gift for your mom or friend?  This would apply to all of them!  The best thing about it is that you can do whatever you want.  You can change the size or layout anyway you desire.  You can use all photos or no photos.  It’s completely up to you!

So, I hope that I’ve inspired you just a little.  Have a great day!

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