I decided to switch things around a bit this month and started working on my Mexico mini album. This project is near and dear to my heart for various reasons and I'm looking forward in sharing my process and pages with you.
Here's a list of the items that were used to achieve the below spreads;
Items:
- Precision scissors
- White printer paper
- Pencil
- Acrylic paint
- Old plastic card (e.g. gift or rewards card)
- Stapler
- Lemon Drop Main Scrapbook and Embellishment kits
I've always been a fan of the 4x4 format for my mini albums and for someone who's not big on journaling, being able to fill up my pages with a quick blurb or paragraph, is perfect!
I recently purchased a vintage Brother De Luxe typewriter at a local Flea Market and this project was a great opportunity to take advantage of my new toy. As you can see, a few errors were made (slowing down when I type, would probably help) but I decided to just go with the flow and chose not to start over, whenever mistakes happened.
I decided to use bullet points for my storytelling. First, I created my titles in Photoshop using the Smith-Corona Galaxie Typewriter font, printed them on matte photo paper and then typed in my text using my typewriter.
The above 4x4 page was inspired by the wonderful Beshka Kueser. I drew a wonky scallop border with my pencil, at the bottom of a plain piece of printer paper and cut it out with my precision scissors. Having placed my now handmade "stencil" near the bottom of my patterned paper, I then used an old discarded rewards card to spread a dollop of bright pink acrylic paint, from top to bottom, until it covered the exposed pattern paper area. After the paint had dried, I stapled on a label which contains a few details of our pre-trip whereabouts. I absolutely LOVE how translucent the paint turned out on my background paper!
For the time being, my pages are simply held together by a book ring closure (in page protectors of course) and will be put in a 4x4 album, once my project is completed.
Hello wonderful ones! It's Essie here with a mini album project to share.
My family had a really beautiful NYE with some friends this year, and I wanted to record the event in more detail than I'm able to in my Project Life album.
When I want to do that, I always turn to mini albums. They allow me to place a special moment in our lives in it's own little spotlight that we can revisit over and over again.
There are so many ways to add texture and play with small embellished details in a mini - for me that's partly because there are simply more pages to work with...
... and partly because we interact with small albums in a different way than to a larger scale chronological album.
Albums give us a look at he big picture, minis often allow us to focus in on the smaller specifics.
I had so much fun making this mini with the January 2018 Pocket Life kit.
Pocket Life kits are great for creating minis because they come with all the elements you need to make a good one - a mix of lovely papers, a set of coordinating alphas, and all the embellishments you could possibly need to tell a beautiful and cohesive story.
Hi friends! Emma on the blog today and I am so excited to share my completed December album! Yep, you read that right; I have actually finished it - wohooo! I am so happy I could dance, ha!
I've already shared the first few pages of my album in the CTK Facebook Fanpage but I thought I'd share the whole album here so apologies if you're already seen a few of these before ;) I used the Christmas Stories kits for the majority of my album but there are also pieces from previous years kits and other random things from my stash throughout.
This year I went with a 4x4 album and painted the cover (it was white with purple spots, I covered the whole thing in white paint and added gold spots!). I'm definitely not going to win any awards with this paint work, but I actually don't mind how it turned out! Edges are wearing already but that's OK.
The album has finished up ALOT chunkier than I'd anticipated. I love a chunky mini but this one is really stretching the limits! I've had to use a band to keep it closed because it can't close properly (and I need to be a little careful turning the pages so the rings don't pop open...oops!). I used a red elastic band I had in my stash from who-knows-what and added a few "charms" - a die cut, sticker and actual charm (from a dear friend!).
Before I go on too much, here's a quick flip through of the whole album (sped it up 2x so it's just over a minute, didn't want it to take too long and bore you all!):
Rather then show photo's of every page, I thought I'd just share a few of my favourites and talk about those but if you have any questions about others, please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you!
The most surprising thing I've noticed about my album (now that it's all done) is the amount of
red I've used! Red isn't a colour I use a lot of (scrapbooking and in real life) but it's on
almost every page of this album and I actually love it!
I love my intro page - it's super simple but something different. I had some gold craft wire in my stash so I used that to form my circle and used the hot-glue gun to stick it down. Then I picked a few chipboard stickers and white sequins and stuck them on top (using the glue-gun again). So easy right?
No mini-album of mine is complete without some kind of sequin pocket. I love them. I think they add a fun interactive element to any book. I used my sewing machine to stitch the top of my page so they don't pop out (one day I'll invest in the Fuse...).
On this page I used one of the papers from the December Add-on (Sweater Weather "Cozy") and added various stickers inside each of the boxes and added some (red!) pompom trim at the bottom of the page. Another simple but effective page to put together (it's how I roll!).
The majority of my album relates to the elf and his daily antics. We don't typically do a whole lot of "Christmas-themed" activities during the month (other than the crazy shopping) but we do have our elf, Freddie, and he is always entertaining so I include everything he does in my album. All of my journaling is typed up on the computer (using a typewriter font) because I'm not too fond of my own handwriting. Actually that's not true, my handwriting is fine until I put it on a scrapbooking page, and then I think it makes it look messy, haha. Weird but true.
I've also included a few random notes from the elf and tucked them behind the photo/journaling and just used ribbon that's stapled to the tops so you can pull them out. And yes, more red....
My album is actually repetitive in the layouts I've used - such as this one - I used big photos and added a word/embellishment directly on top, then for my journaling I'll either have it on the page beside or on a tag of some sort. I love having different textures in my album so I've used various ribbons/twine/elastics to loop the tags over the rings. (Although I picked up the WRMK Crop-A-Dile so I'm currently addicted to adding eyelets to everything!!)
I completely forgot to take photo's when we went to my brothers for our Christmas Day lunch. I packed the camera/tripod so I could get the family photo's but never got around to it! Just means we were having too much fun hanging out :) I also blame the fact that I was super tired, haha - I got to bed late and Zack was up super early....I am a girl who need her sleep!
But it's not the end of the world, sure the photo's would have been great but I added a quick little note saying I'd forgotten and talked about the awesome food. We love our food ;)
Using the Christmas Stories kits made this album so easy to put together. And it all coordinated so well with pieces from previous years Christmas kits so I was able to use up pieces from those too (I never, ever throw out or give away my Christmas-themed items haha, they stay in my stash forever!).
I loved putting this little book together; makes me so happy to have those random little bits down on paper (with photos) so that hopefully in the years to come, we can look back and have a little giggle about the fun we had at Christmas time (while Zack still believed in the magic ;) ).
And if you've made it to the end of this post - THANK YOU! Sorry for the novel but I'm hoping this might help inspire you to finish your own album (if you've not done so already - and if you have - HOORAY!). Remember, if you have any questions at all, please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you! I'll also be sharing all the photo's on my blog (all 43+, eek!) incase you wanted to see more.
This is my last post on the CTK blog for 2017 (I'm back in 2018 though!) so I just want to say thank you so much for your support this year; it's such an honor to be a part of this team and I hope a few of the projects I've shared this year might have inspired you, even if it's just a teeny bit! Best wishes for the New Year - please stay safe and have fun!!!
Take care, Em xo
This month have been a busy month for me and I was kind of getting worried that my pocket life kit took its sweet time coming to my doorstep. So I planned ahead on what to do when the kit came, well..not exactly extensive planning though... more of what pictures to use and if I will use it as a pocket life entry in my album this year or make a mini album out of it.
In all honesty, I have started lots and lots of mini album and I think I only managed to really finished one, which was my trip to Korea. So I was hesitant to do a separate mini album, but there are lots of photos that I want to include. While pondering on what to use, I chance upon someone destashing a Passport size Traveler's Notebook in one of the facebook sites that I am a member in. Fast forward to the day my kit came.
The kit itself is not a travel themeish however, it does have an outdoorsy feel with all the butterflies and flowers in the exclusive ephemera pack. So I challenge myself to use up most of the products in my kit. I quickly cut to size the Dream paper pad before I change my mind, printed my photos to size and planned out where to use the journal cards.
I try to simplify my process by having a pattern in what I create so that not every page is unique or special, Most of my "spreads" are consist of one page photo and the opposite page is a journaling card with journal or just plain filler card. After that I would try out the embellishment which ones I feel that would fit and suit the "spread".
For sceneries, I have the habit of taking panoramic shots with my phone, so I try to incorporate those by doing in in a single spread, like this photo above.
The first time I saw this grey die cut piece that is included in the kit, I sure did look for ways how to use it. In the end, I use it simply by putting in in the middle of the page with few muted down embellishments so as not to attract too much confusion. Moreover, as much as I love using the enamel dots in my layouts, I was hesitant to go crazy with those in this album because I was already having trouble with it being too bulky.
Just for fun, I made this little flip up using the tab and labels from the cut apart sheet that is included in this month's kit. It's a simple and yet a nice surprise.
My favourite spread in this traveler's notebook is this one. When closed the panel looks like just one ordinary spread. I did cheat a little by using a 12x12 sheet of patterned paper that I have laying around. It doesn't hurt that it has gold foiling in it. Anything with gold foil, I am so all over it.
When that panel is open, it would show page with photos layered with bush of the ephemeras. My favourite this month is the die cut ephemeras so I just had to use them up in this album. I love how the die cut word looks so natural among the other ephemeras.
I used the labels in the cut apart sheet and use the stamp set to find words that are closely related to the pictures.
I just couldn't resist using this cure puffy sunglass sticker that is from the Embellishment kit.
In the end its all fat and chunky, however since its very small and handy, I wouldn't have a problem where to store it. Which is one of my problem, living in a small city apartment.
Good morning friends! I hope your week is starting off fantastic. It's Tara here today sharing a mini album tutorial I made with July's GraceBox kit. I wanted to make a mini album that was a little book of God's truths. It's easy to get caught up with the everyday busyness, that we forget God's grace and mercies. This mini album is going to a friend to help encourage her in the happy and tough days.
I'm making the exact style of accordion album as I did here. Thanks to the original creator, Stephanie Bryan, I recreated it once more. This is one of my favourite stash busters - I used a lot of papers, embellishments, stamps, and washi tape I already owned.
The first step is to pick a 12x12 piece of patterned paper and cut it into 3 4 inch high strips. Next, score your 4x12 piece of paper every 3 inches. I'm using one of the older exclusive Citrus Twist Kits paper from a main kit.
I decided to only use 2 strips of paper for this mini album. Finally, attach the ends together! Then comes the fun part - decorate to your heart's desire.
Here is the finished cover:
Here are a few of the accordion pages.
Some up close shots of each page:
I wanted to make this mini album interactive. I tucked this bible verse into some layered papers.
Flip up the paper cluster to reveal two more verses.
I cut down one of the bible journaling cards down as a tip in.
I added a small little sentiment on the bottom.
Pull out the yellow piece of paper and find the "amen" sentiment from the Scripture Doodles stamp.
This was a cute die cut from a past GraceBox kit.
I added the small glassine bag from the kit layered on top of patterned paper. I'm going to add a special note inside.
Here is the back half of the accordion mini album.
Thank you for stopping by today. I hope this mini album inspires you to make one for documenting life, writing down bible verses, or other fun things you would like to remember.
