Hello everybody!

Today, I wanted to share with you my favorite way to make my own mini album foundation.
I use it all the time because it's very sturdy, and the result looks so great! You can adapt it to your own style once you have the base.

It's not that difficult if you have the tools: PVA glue or any strong liquid glue that you can spread out thinly with a roller, and chipboard (I buy mine in craft stores, but if you really haven't anything else, you can try with cereal cardboard).

For my mini album, I mostly used Hello Sunshine papers and Float my Boat stamps by Lawn Fawn.

The anchor is heat-embossed with silver powder (and then fussy cut and tied with yellow twine).
The title "2014" uses the lifebuoy as a "zero".
The word "été" means "summer" and I die-cut it in a cardstock that I painted with my Magicals (I mixed some "Shabby Turbine Teal" powder with white paint and some water and that's all!). The result is so shiny, I love it! You couldn't guess that it was only basic cardstock.
On the back of the cover, I added a stamp by Elle's Studio for the place of our vacations.


I love that my Magicals can be used in so many ways! I chose my favorite color palette ("Industrial Chic") because I was sure I would have a lots of uses for it.
I keep them in their powder form and only mix some of it with the needed medium: this way, I can have either a spray ink (I used some "Time Travel Teal" color with an Heidi Swapp chevrons stencil), a paint (I used some "Shabby Turbine Teal" with an Heidi Swapp triangle stencil on clear plastic sheet), or anything else I fancy!

I think that stamps are a great way to embellish an album, because they help to bring unity by using them all over the album: I used the boat that I paper-pieced and mounted on foam, the anchor that I heat-embossed with silver powder, the arrows on my tags, and the hearts (tiny and medium) here and there to add a contrasting touch.
Did you notice? My "lace" border is actually stamped by repeating the wave stamp!



So now, let's see how to make your own mini album foundation! (Click on the pictures to see them larger).

Here are the supplies you need:
- PVA glue + heavy thread
- chipboard:
6-1/4 x 6-1/4 (2 pieces)
3/4 x 6-1/4 (1 piece = spine)
- Patterned paper for the cover (outside):
6-1/2 x 7-1/2 (2 pieces)
2-1/2 x 7-1/2 (1 piece)
- Patterned paper for the inside:
6 x 6 (2 pieces)
2-1/2 x 6 (1 piece)
- cardstock sheets:
6 x 12 (4 pieces) fold at 3" and 9"
3/4 x 6 (1 piece = spine)
- clear plastic sheet: 5-3/4 x 6 (2 pieces)

I also used 2 eyelets and some ribbon to close my mini album, but you can do without.

Step 1: the cover

Using liquid PVA glue and a roller to spread it out, glue the chipboard pieces onto the patterned papers.
Start by gluing the chipboard spine: center it onto the patterned paper spine. Then glue the two chipboard pieces on each side, letting about 1/8" between each piece to allow the cover to close without tearing.
The patterned paper spine only covers a small part of the chipboard covers, so glue the 6-1/2 x 7-1/2 patterned paper pieces edge-to-edge to cover it all. You can add some ribbon or washi tape to embellish (or hide!) this edge-to-edge.


Then, cut each corner following a diagonale (don't flush cut but let about 1/8"), fold over and glue.

You can add two eyelets and two pieces of ribbon to close the album if you want.

Finally, glue the two 6 x 6 patterned papers inside, and then the 2-1/2 x 6 paper in the middle (overlapping the other papers). Carefully mark the folds with your finger and allow to dry.


Step 2: the inside pages

First, fold your cardstock pieces of paper (6 x 12) at 3" and at 9". You can use a border punch for the vertical sides if you want, but be careful to line them up!

Next, make holes on the paper spine like on the picture below. There are only two lines of 6 holes (spaced at 1" each) because you will sew two cardstocks on the same line.

Then, sew each of the 4 pieces of cardstock on the spine with a heavy thread. To make things easier, you should first make holes on the cardstock pages. The sewing is the most difficult part...



Using double face adhesive, stick the clear plastic sheets between the flaps. That's why it was important to make the punched borders lined up!


Finally, glue the paper spine (with the sewed pages) onto the cover spine. Don't forget to carefully press the spine onto the cover for a perfect result.


And here is my (almost) finished mini album, ready to receive my vacation photos (that I am hopefully taking right now, as this post is scheduled!):


This album is also great to offer because it mostly uses standard photos (8 (6x4) photos and only 4 (3x4) photos). I think that the color palette and the sailor theme is also nice for a baby boy album!


You could also not stick the photos and make the tags removable to add more photos or more journaling.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and please, don't forget to share your take on it if you use it!

3 Comments »

Hello everybody!
I am thrilled to be part of this wonderful team, and I am so excited to share my first project with you...

My name is Solange, but some of you may know me with my online name "Isbaha". I am a 36 years old stay-at-home mother to three boys (2-4-6 years old) and I live in a tiny French village.
I love everything with paper : mini albums, layouts, cards, tags, boxes... but if I had to choose only one, it might be anything that you can offer ! I enjoy everything homemade, especially embellishments, and I try to share what I know with tutorials.

So now, let's see my project for today... Here is a tutorial for creating a set of 8 cards from only 12 patterned papers (6x6) and 3 cardstocks (12x12)! Almost no leftovers here...
Need to have some greeting cards ahead (Christmas in July, anyone?) or maybe some all-occasions cards available? This tutorial also works great for making a set of cards to offer, and... You will finally use some of these cute 6x6 paper pads!

To show you how versatile this tutorial is, I made three sets of cards.
The first one uses the brand new Glitz paper pad "Brightside" and has a modern look:

For this set of cards, I wanted a more distressed look, so I decided to play with my brand new Magicals by Lindy's Stamp Gang.

These powders are supposed to be mixed with a medium before using them, but I plan to keep them in their powder form and to only mix the needed amount with different mediums when I want. This color palette is right up my alley, so I figured that I would have many uses for them!
So this time, I decided to mix my Magicals with my embossing powders.

First, I mixed some white embossing powder with clear embossing powder: it gives an interesting distressed look to the final result, because some of the pattern is white, and some is clear BUT it can't be colored because of the clear embossing, so you can see the color of the background.
(Note: mix only the needed amount of powder in case you don't like the look!)
Then, I added just a little of Time Travel Time Magicals powder and I mixed it carefully.

Even when heat embossing, there is not enough wet to make the Magicals react and color the embossing powder, but here is what I discovered: if you rub on the embossed stamping, then, the color appears, like by magic! You can use a very-very slightly wet wipe (be careful, the more wet you use, the more "painted" look you have!) or just your finger for a subtler look.

Finally, I added shadows with a brown pen, to highlight my sentiment. I am so excited to try my Magicals with other mediums and see what happens!
(For information, my sentiment means "Season's greetings" in french).


 


TUTORIAL

1. Choose 3 cardstocks (12x12) in neutral color and cut 8 cards (6x4). The remaining cardstock will be used to stamp the sentiments, add borders or make embellishments. Note that the card F also uses a (3-7/8 x 5-7/8) cardstock background.

2. Choose 12 patterned papers (6 patterns twice) from a 6x6 paper pad. See instructions about how to choose the patterns according to the cutting diagrams on the Snapguide.

3. Cut all the pieces following the cutting diagrams: don't forget to write the cardsketch letter on each piece (on the side you're not going to use)!

4. Gather all the patterned paper pieces for each sketch (looking at the letter on each piece) and put the cards together. Here are the sketches:


5. Using the remaining patterned paper, make your own embellishments and/or add embellishments from your stash.

6. The card F mainly uses paper strips onto a cardstock background (3-7/8 x 5-7/8), so leftovers are perfect for that, they are not included in the cutting diagrams.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and please, let me know if you used it!

8 Comments »

6 Comments »