Thin is the New Bulky – an Alice in Wonderland 10-pic Mini Album

A friend asked me to create an Alice in Wonderland-themed mini album for her, to hold a maximum of only ten pictures. So no wallet, no folio, but an actual mini album. Oh, and no flowers please.

Well, that turned out to be a fun design challenge! Using a Marion Smith Designs paper collection called Mad Tea Party, I designed two interactive pages to hold the ten pictures. Of course I also incorporated a scrap mat, for which there’s a free video tutorial available on my blog. The second tutorial which may come in handy is my free gradient technique video for Distress Stickles.

So, this is a very thin mini album with no bulky embellishments, but:

Thin is the New Bulky! 🙂

Let’s start a new trend here shall we 😎.

 

 

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Sunny Times – an XXL Flexible Spine Photo Album!

Hi all! I’m excited to be able to share this, my latest album! It is HUGE: it measures 9 x 12″ (23 x 30.5 cm), which makes it perfect to house the loads of pictures from any event or period of which you want to cherish many memories.

Since this particular album is beach-themed, it was created with our summer vacation in mind – so I named it Sunny Times!

It houses ten base pages – so 20 page surfaces – with lots of extra add-ons for your many pictures. You can add pictures of all sizes, ranging from wallet-sized all the way up to 8×10″ (20×27 cm), and in addition it offers lots of pockets and tuck spots for your memorabilia.

So check it out, enjoy the video, and consider your purchase options if you’d like to create one yourself: there’s the tutorial only option – a 178-page written tutorial (with over 500 clear pictures!) by way of immediate download – and then there’s the kit + tutorial you will very soon be able to get from Photographs and Memories, which is a kit full of goodies to create the album plus my aforementioned tutorial (no extra costs).

 

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Romantic Nursery Baby Boy Mini Album

When my cousin had her first baby, a cute little baby boy, I wanted to make her something special. I decided to make her a mini album to keep her most precious pictures and notes of baby’s first couple of months. I wanted a somewhat romantic baby theme, with nostalgic colors instead of bright blue pastels, which I found in Marianne Design‘s lovely Romantic Nursery design paper.

The mini album has three page assemblies, which makes it a bit thinner than my other mini albums which usually have six or eight. It still has plenty of room for photos and other memorabilia though, with all its pockets, tags and even hidden photo wallets. Of course I inked around all the edges, this time with Vintage Photo distress ink by Tim Holtz.

And here’s the video, please feel free to let me know what you think!

 

So what kind of baby shower gifts have you been looking for, or even created yourself?

 

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Stacks of Love: a Stacked Page Mini Album – Tutorial version

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Several weeks ago I shared my first stacked page mini album with you, an experiment with a different kind of binding system than I had been used to. For instead of the hidden hinge system, this one is based on stacked pages – hence the name… 🙂

It is not my invention, I’m not sure whose it is. I’m guessing it’s most likely based on Laura Denison’s stack the deck binding system, on which someone then elaborated.

Anyway, I did add a personal flavour, for my stacked page albums have twelve pages instead of the usual six – so 24 page surfaces! – but with a regular-sized spine. You can see the first iteration of this album in the above-mentioned earlier blog post, created with the Domestic Goddess collection by 7 Dots Studio.

This week I’m sharing the version on which I based my tutorial. This album is somewhat larger, has more elaborate page designs and sports several photo mats and tags, the latter – among others – by Crealies. The album was made with Prima Marketing’s lovely Tales of You & Me collection. I’m calling this version the ‘Stacks of Love’ mini album 🙂

The tutorial is listed in my Etsy shop. It is a (written) English language tutorial with measurements in centimeters and inches. It is 130 pages long and holds 324 clear pictures aimed at visual learners. As a bonus it also contains the main measurements for the Domestic Goddess version!
Moreover, I’m very happy to be able to point you to the kit that is available for this album as well! Go to the (US-based!) Photographs and Memories online store, where you will find kits for several of my projects, including this one.

So enjoy the video and please feel free to leave a little note below, in the comment section 🙂

 

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Hidden Treasures: an Explosion Boxed Mini Album (new!)

Hi you all! Time for a spring & summer project! 

This is what would happen if a mini album and an explosion box married and had a baby. 🙂 It’s an… Explosion Boxed Mini Album!

This lovely box can hold over 55 pictures and sports LOTS of embellisments on the pages. And it’s its own gift box to boot, so a double bonus!

I designed it around a Prima Marketing collection (called Free Spirit), so a 48-sheet 6×6″ paper pad, an ATC card pad, some 12×12″ sheets and lots and lots of flowers. My goal was to have as little leftovers as possible, so it is also doubling as a destashing project 🙂 (triple bonus, yea!)

Check out my (written) tutorial if you can’t wait to destash work with your own lovely papers and create, for instance, a nursery gift, a wedding gift, a birthday gift, or simply a stunning way to present your own holiday or Christmas pictures.

And for those of you who prefer complete kits, that is to say everything you need to create this project, including materials AND my tutorial, go to the Photographs and Memories (USA-based!) online store and have at it 🙂

But first, let me know what you think!

Stacked Page Mini Album

This week I’m sharing a mini album with twelve pages. As in 24 individual page layouts!
To make it, I tried a new binding system – new to me at least, it’s been ‘out there’ for quite some time I think. The best way to describe it is the stacked page binding.
I kept this one simple to try it out, but I’ll create another one to be able to make a tutorial for you all, so stay tuned!

And please notice this paper collection you guys, isn’t it stunning? I love it! ❤️
It’s a somewhat older paper line by 7 Dots Studio, and it’s called Domestic Goddess. I think its graphic designer at the time was Finnabair, a well-known name in the paper craft world!
I only had 15 sheets, but that was enough to create this mini album and two beautiful cards – which I’ll share with you in my next 🙂

Let me know what you think, and stay crafty!

 

A Double-paged Keepsake Album

I designed this new mini album around three criteria: its dimensions should be something like 15×15 cm (6×6″),  it should have two spines and each spine should hold its own set of pages.

My creative process ended up with me coming up with this 14.5×17 cm (5¾ x 6¾”) gatefold mini album, in the fresh colors of Kaisercraft’s Ubud Dreams collection – colors that remind me of the sea and small mediterranean villages 🙂 Which is why I’m dubbing this my Holiday Dreams keepsake album.
And guess what, Ubud turns out to be a town on the Indonesian island of Bali! Okay, so not the Mediterranean but still: Holidays galore 🙂

The album holds seven interactive page assemblies with all new page designs, four attached to the left spine and three to the right; the inside covers offer even more room for pictures.

If you can’t wait to make this album yourself, check out the (written) tutorial which is available in my Etsy shop. 🙂

NEW: There’s also a kit available at Photographs & Memories online webshop! This includes my tutorial at no additional cost!

Enjoy the video and pictures below and let me know what you think in the comment section! See you next week! :-).

 

New Design: Pouch-Paged Mini Album

Happy New Year everyone! 🙂

I’m not a New Year’s Resolutions Person, but I do have one for 2017: I’m committed to keeping up my schedule of weekly blog posts, which means I’ll again have to do at least 52 papercraft projects this year… How’s that for a SMART resolution 🙂

I’m also striving to keep up my almost-monthly mini album schedule, or more specific, to create at least 10 mini albums in 2017. Yes, a bit less SMART, but intentionally so since I cannot guarantee my own periods of inspiration & creativity. It’s a lot of hard work and keeping to a tight schedule, all while doing (and trying to excel at) an actual fulltime job. But to be clear, I am NOT complaining! I love my job, and I love papercrafting!

So, let’s kick off this new year as best I can – with a new blog wallpaper & background (again a detail from one of my projects, just like last year’s), but more importantly, with a new mini album design!

I’m very proud to present my Pouch-Paged Mini Album! It’s a very versatile design which will hold at least 75 large pictures (13×18 cm / 5×7″); with every pouch you add, the number of pictures will increase with an extra 25 pictures or so, while staying relatively thin and practical.

And that’s not even counting what happens when you decide to add digital photo collaging to the mix. In my case that ensured my three-pouch album to hold 165 pictures! Check out the video below to hear and see more about that.

So, I hope you are all as pleased as I am with this very practical design. Let me know what you think, or create one yourself with my tutorial – the first of 2017, and many more follow 🙂 .

 

 

Man About Town – a New ‘Sturdio’ Album

A short while ago I designed a new kind of folio album, with accordion style page sets and very sturdy cover parts – hence the new name I coined: a sturdio album 🙂

At the time I was in the Zone designing & creating, so I wasn’t able to write a tutorial. But I promised you I would, and now I have! So here is the second iteration of my sturdio album design, created with Graphic 45’s A Proper Gentleman collection. It’s a little bit larger, but it has the same page design as the original. You can find the tutorial in my Etsy shop.

This one was especially created for my dearest friend Christa, who wanted to have a very special album to keep her favorite pictures of her beloved husband.

So, without further ado, here’s Man About Town, a sturdio album.

 

 

Some Photo Embellishment Tips

A short while ago I designed what I called the Easiest Mini Albums Ever Made. Today I’m showing you two more iterations of this kind of wire-bound album, filled with pictures, to demonstrate how you can easily embellish your pictures with some punches, dies and glitter glue.

This way it’s even more fun to peruse your little mini albums again and again, and though it might take you some time, it’s really very easy to do 🙂

 

Stamping a sentiment (stamp by Kaisercraft) on top of the picture! Use ink for non-porous surfaces for this.
Punches come in all kinds of fun shapes and sizes and are a great way to add interest!

Hiding a bystander with some die-cuts helps pulling the focus to the main subject of your picture.

Using a little glitter glue here and there helps to add that little Something Extra!

Two different examples of embellishing the same picture 🙂

 

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Joyful Reminiscing – a Keepsake Album XL

When I published the video for my Treasured Memory Keepsake Album XL, I got several requests for a tutorial. It took me some time to get around to it, but this summer I took advantage of my time off of work, and created another Keepsake Album XL of the exact same design, in order to write a tutorial.

It’s turned into a large tutorial for a large album :-), sporting 181 pages and a whopping 479 clear pictures to guide you through the step by step process! It will probably not be a “quick project” for you, which of course makes it ideal for the rainy Sunday afternoons that will probably soon dominate our upcoming fall weather.

So, without much further ado, I happily present to you my Joyful Reminiscing Keepsake Album XL, created with the beautiful Coral Couture paper collection by DCWV! 🙂

Click here to purchase the tutorial in my Etsy shop!

Four Seasons Sturdy Folio Album

Hi guys, I’m very happy to present my latest design: a very sturdio folio album, which I’ve therefore dubbed Sturdio 🙂 .

It consists of three accordion-fold page assemblies, rolled into one neat mini album. This one’s theme is the Four Seasons, since I used Graphic 45’s beautiful floral calendar collection Time to Flourish. I kept the months in their proper order, thereby creating three trimesters for one entire year of pictures.

I was completely in the Zone when I designed and created this, which is why I haven’t been able to write a tutorial. I promise I will write one this year, and thank you for your patience, for it will take me creating a second one of these sturdios.

Anyway, enjoy the video and pictures, and do let me know what you think in the comments section! See you next week! 🙂