Showing posts with label mini album. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mini album. Show all posts

Thursday, October 11, 2012

DIY: Halloween Card Album


 I recently shared the card album I made with my daughter's cards and I wanted to show you this one as well. If you're as sentimental as I am and save every card you or your child is given, then this is a great way to keep them together and organized. It's also a great way to honor them and be able to share them with others. We love Halloween around here and my son has received lots of fun cards over the last 6 years that I've kept in a box. I decided I had enough of them to make a decent sized mini album out of them, so I got to work!

 
I cut & covered a piece of cardboard with scrapbook paper and embellished it. You can buy premade album covers, but using cardboard was fast, cheap & easy!

 
I decided to keep them in chronological order, so I made little dividers (the orange square) and wrote the year, my son's age at the time, and what he dressed up as that year, on each of them.

 
Some cards are harder then others to bind due to weird shapes & textures, but I used "The Cinch" binding tool and that helped a lot. You could always use a paper punch to make holes to line up with your rings or spiral wire if you don't have one.

 
When I got to the end of the Halloween cards, I realized that I had just a few Thanksgiving cards (yes, my family loves to give cards!) so I added those at the end of the album.

 
You could make a card album to hold any type of card you want to save & remember~think holidays, birthdays, babies, etc. It's fun to go through the old cards with my son, and now they're a special keepsake. I have this album out on display in my home right now--it fits in nicely with our Halloween decorations!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

DIY: Card Album


I'm the sentimental type, so I have saved each and every card my 2 children have ever received.  My storage system is simple; I file the cards in a XL sized photo box in chronological order. (They are both still young so each child just has 1 box so far.) Occasionally I'll take them out of the closet and flip through them or show my kids the cards they got for their first birthday or Halloween and many other occasions. We all enjoy looking through them, so I wanted a way to get them out of the box. Here's what I do with all the Christmas cards we receive each year.

I decided that I'd group them by occasion and put them in small albums, starting with my daughter's birth. We received lots of cards for her baby shower and after she was born, so there were enough to support an entire album.

I pulled this old Covey 3-ring binder out of the closet & decided to repurpose it! It's the perfect size to hold cards. I Mod Podged patterned scrapbook paper to the front, back, and binding to hide the printing that was on it. Here's what the inside looked like...It's solid grey, so I didn't have to cover anything on the inside:


I then had fun embellishing the front cover with more paper, stickers, chipboard, glitter paint, and bling! I tied some tulle around it also.


I then got busy punching holes in all the cards. I used The Cinch Bindery Tool-Version II to punch all the holes. (Got it for Christmas--highly recommend it!) If you don't own one, you can always punch your holes with a 3 hole punch. It was a little challenging since each card is a different size, shape & thickness and I even messed a few cards up a little...but it was my first time to try it and I made it work! :)




 I added a typed sentiment to the inside cover of the album (matted on patterned scrapbook paper) that says:

Madelyn Reese McGarity

My Sweet Little Baby Girl,

These special cards are from our dearest family and friends.
Most were given along with a gift for you at your baby shower
or soon after your birth to welcome you into the world!

Love, Mommy


I'm glad I can easily flip through my daughter's cards now and I plan on displaying the album at her birthday party to share them with our family. Of course one of my next projects is to tackle my son's baby cards by making a similar album. I've already made an entire album out of his Halloween & Thanksgiving cards from over the last 5 years, which I'll share with you this Fall. If your family is the card-giving type like mine is, this is a great way to store them and honor them.

Since I've got a baby theme going on...Here's an article I wrote a while back with a step-by-step guide to creating a pregnancy scrapbook.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Scrapbook Mini Album: My Top Tens

It's been a while since I've shared anything about scrapbooking...mainly because I haven't been scrapbooking! :( I plan to have another one of my "Scrapbook Frenzy Weeks" very soon to get myself motivated and on the slow journey to getting caught up.

But that's a whole other post...this post is about a mini album. One that I happened to make back in 2004 before I had 2 kids. Don't worry-it's not outdated and is actually something great to make and look back on in say...eight years or so when you've changed a bit.

This album consists of lists of my top ten favorites in many different categories, so of course they have changed over time. And that's the fun part! Back in 2004, I chose to make a "Top Ten" album because, well, I actually used to have time before I had kids to think about something other than kids! LOL! Don't get me wrong--I LOVE my kiddos and I love to scrapbook about them, but I do miss those days of getting my photos developed and immediately scrapping them and then anxiously awaiting the next round! Now I'm about 5 years behind. Literally.

I haven't made many mini scrapbooks over the years. I usually prefer to work with 12x12 and document the everyday happenings of my family as well as birthdays & holidays--you know, the usual. However, I found that creating a mini album is a great way to contain one subject matter and keep a continuous theme going throughout to unify it.
But enough babbling--Here's the album! I hope you can gather some inspiration and go make your own. Or if you've already made a top ten favorites album, please leave me a link in the comments so I can go check yours out.


The front cover: I added the stickers for the title. The album is a retro shabby chic style. Or if you know of a better way to describe it, let me know. :) This style was definitely out of my comfort zone, but I'm glad I tried it. Oh, and it's a 6x6 album.

(Click on the photos to see them a little bit bigger...)


Page 1: An explanation of what the album is. I also included the year and my age at the time for posterity.

My Top Ten Favorite...

Pages 2 & 3: Movies

Page 4: Books
Page 5: TV Shows
Page 6: Stores
Page7: Clothes & Shoes (A true sign of the times! Try to imagine if your great grandmother would have made a page like this...Priceless!)

Page 8: Singers & Bands
Page 9: Restaurants

Page 10: Drinks
Page 11: Food


Page 12: Songs I listen to when I'm Sad
Page 13: Songs I listen to when I'm Happy


Page 14: Smells
Page 15: Sounds
Notice we're using all of our senses? :)


Page 16: Things I Like To Do in My Free Time
Page 17: Colors

Page 18: Holidays
Page 19: Places


Page 20: Actors
Page 21 Actresses

Page 22: Things That Make Me Cry
Page 23: Things That Make Me Laugh


Page 24: Sports
Page 25: Things I Can't Live Without

And for some reason, I stopped there & left the last back page blank. Weird.

Anyway, I'm sure you can come up with some other great categories...What about Top Ten Fave:
Vacation Spots, Things I love to do with my kids/husband/friends/mom, Scrapbook Supplies...So many fun things to document!