Mini Scrapbook Album

My mom loves scrapbooking and has passed this passion to myself and a few of my sisters. In the days before kids, we would spend hours and hours at my parent's long kitchen table with all our supplies, pictures, and albums spread out as we scrapbooked. See how I said before kids? Ya. These days it seems I'm lucky if I print off pictures of my iPhone, never mind scrapbooking those memories. Nevertheless, I do still love scrapbooking and looking at magazines and being inspired, hoping someday to actually scrapbook again.

Then the day came when my mom introduced me to the world of mini albums. I was intrigued. A scrapbook that I could actually finish? Sign me up. So one afternoon she and I sat down at her kitchen table and she helped me put the base together for a mini album that I wanted to make for a gift. This is the YouTube video that she watched and made notes from. I won't be giving you step-by-step detailed instructions on how we did this, because I'm not too sure I would remember how, and the YouTube video provides all that information for you! (Please note: As you will see, we didn't follow her instructions completely. My cover looks different and I attached the pages together with rings instead of gluing everything together like she did.)

Once we put it together, then came the fun part of decorating!

I found putting this album together very calming and something for me to do. Very often I would put the boys to bed for their nap, turn on some old time radio programs on my iPad, and sit and scrapbook as the boys slept.

What makes this mini album so neat, is all the pockets and details. You can pull out tabs from the top and from the sides and fold down different sections to see more pictures. There is a lot of space for pictures and memories!

 

I used coordinating paper pads to make choosing colours and designs easier on myself. Or else I could have become very overwhelmed with so many choices. I also used many of the same layout designs. Keeping it simple to actually being able to finish it was the goal.

 

 

I decided to add an envelope in the back of the album to include extra pictures that didn't fit in the album. I just glued a plain envelope to the album and then decorated it the same as the rest of the book. 

I am so happy on how it turned out. I will definitely be making one of these little albums again. This was still not an quick project, but I love that I actually finished it. If you are a scrapbooker who is wanting something different to do or looking for a neat gift for someone special, then consider this project. You won't regret it! 

Happy weekend. :)