My Crush is Smashing

I am in love with the CTMH MY Crush books! I had no idea what a smashbook was and never really knew they existed until CTMH came into my life. There is a ‘My Crushbook’ in the consultant kit and like many I had to find out more.

The My Crush book fits in a large handbag and is your take anywhere smashbook!

I did a little research and discovered to my delight an age old craft of using a ‘scrapbook’ (a blank white paged book) we used to use to put in pictures, recipes, ticket stubs, drawings and anything else that took our fancy as little girls has been modernised into these delightful predesigned smashbooks. Old fashioned diaries and journals are given a new life! These books are photo safe, predesigned and both very inspirational AND addictive! The modern term used by gen y for making and using these published, predesigned journals is smashbooking. Look it up on you tube and you will find numerous definitions. Some are Art Journals, Some are like diaries, while others are like anything goes photo scrapbook albums.

Now I got into scrapbooking because i wanted my photos in a safe environment, where the story was told and where they , well, are nice to look at. My scrapbook albums sit proudly on bookshelves and tell the story of my life from before my birth (I have done heritage albums) all the way through to present life. In that time, much has changed and while my Scrapbook albums tell a linear story of my growth and development as a young girl, a wife and mother they actually do not reveal a great deal about me. My Crush books encourage me to address that!

Pre designed pages suggest I reflect on what makes me happy, what is on my bucket list, include special things I cannot bear to throw out including cards, notes, receipts and more. There is a joke that we scrapbookers start to take photos just for a specific page we already have in mind – My Crush is encouraging me to photograph, reflect and record on other aspects of life such as my love of coffee, my journey this year from CM to Close to my heart, to celebrate the teacher in me and more.

Ever since I have had this little book in my hand I have been adding to its pages, in no particular order. You can use a crushbook to start a ‘project life’ scrapbook, looking at the mundane everyday things that make our world go around. You can use it to play with paper and colour. You can use it as your inspiration. There are no rules, and they are often anything but tidy looking, which makes them fun and spontaneous. Smash that ticket, keep that envelope, save the label on that chocolate bar! it can all go in the crushbook!

Here are some sample pages I have completed in my Modville crushbook. CTMH have made it easy with the pre-designed pages and the assortments of stickers, labels, secret pockets, journaling cards and other embellishments I have included. I look at my rubbish twice now before I throw it out.

The MyCrush comes in two different designs – Modville the one I am showing here, and Bluebird. Bluebird is very pretty featuring flowers and butterflies, quite feminine. I have found the Modville is more upbeat, modern and trendy. What I love is that these books make fantastic very reasonably priced gifts and FAST SIMPLE SCRAPBOOKING! In fact recently a customer commented at first they ‘looked like work’. After she flipped through mine, she saw pre-designed and easy to complete and ordered 2 of them with coordinating assortments! In our busy lives, a Crushbook is the answer for those of us who are time poor and want to get an album done quickly. Because it is portable it is also a go anywhere journal.

Ok…so how much? I hear you say. The MyCrush book in either design is just $20 AU! The accompanying assortment packs are just $6.50 for 26 pieces including Alphabet stickers, journal spots and more. If you want the fast scrapbook, or know a Gen Y who loves to diarise, journal or scrapbook you have found the perfect gift. Pop over to my store for an more up close and personal look at this product range and to order yours now.

UPDATE! CTMH HAVE PROVIDED US WITH A VIDEO!

Are you ready? Here are some sample pages I have done in my My Crush Modville book.

I needed to smash about my passion. I also use Pinterest. here I have printed some of the scrapbook memes we find on Pinterest. I didn’t want to use 4 pages so i have layered them with CTMH Flip Flaps – a very easy way to include all sorts of extras and interactive pages

Lots of photos layered cascade style on one page

The prompt here reminded me of where my head space needs to be – keep calm. I made a pocket and have a selection of Keep Calm images from Pinterest in the pocket. There is also a favourite meme to remind me that I am ok.

The greatest influence on my life was going on exchange to Mexico. As I was finally finishing the album I had some spare images. The airmail pre printed page was begging for this response – and the red flowers came from my

This page is yet to be finished. I decorated some of it with last months SOTM and added one wrapper – I need more to go on this page

On this page I reflect on my nature as a teacher – there is a lot of journalling here and images of students learning digital scrapbooking and shot of my school classroom post it note activity – it reflects my range of teaching skills.

The prompt hello led me to say hello to my grandson William – On this page i reflect on the experience of greeting my first grandchild into the world. It includes some colouring, a piece from the baby shower and the sudden realisation i was looking at baby clothes again! I added a pocket and a little note. One day I may also add a drawing by William.

The page prompt was T – I took that and ran with it – every T word I could think of! I ended up coming back to teaching of course!

I am a self confessed addict. I was overwhelmed at the Nescafe store in Rundell Mall – and this page has photos from that visit as well as bits from boxes of coffee. See – anything goes!

This page celebrates the beginning of my career in CTMH – I stamped it, I added the assortment envelope, journaling and a photo

This is the first page in MyCrush – celebrating the first time I wore a badge with CTMH on it. It was about the anticipation of where my CTMH journey will take me.

Since this is a book about me, I had to include my life as a painter and a patchworker. The journaling is difficult to see but it is there. The news article was a highlight of my old painting studio – I had scanned it so I had it printed as a photo.