Okay, back to today's post topic.
As I was searching for pictures to scrap the other week I came across some cute ones of Christine and I from her Parent and Tot Gymnastics class (see this post for the layout). They were still in those folded cardboard holders that you get for all your kids sports team pictures. I was about to throw out the holder when I was struck with the idea of turning it (and several of the other ones just like it that I found at the same time - I do have 3 kids after all!!) into a mini album. Since I am not purchasing supplies and actively stash diving right now, this seemed like a super idea. Very PRACTICAL even!! I do have stacks of left over cardboard that I could have used instead to create the album but I liked the idea of being able to slide journaling cards or extra photos into the sleeves of the album.
I think it's time for some visual explanations!!
These are the photo cards that I'm talking about. We have a LOT of these kicking about - gymnastics, soccer, field hockey and dance! I started by punching holes into the fold, lining them up so I'd have one long side and then one short side all the way through the album.
Like this.
Then I pulled out my scrap drawer. I have recently moved to a larger drawer - not to encourage me to keep more scraps but because I wanted to be able to keep anything that was not a full 12x12 sheet in here. My previous scrap drawer was only able to hold papers that were a maximum of 8" wide so my paper racks could get a little messy with odd sized papers getting crushed etc. Plus, the larger drawer allows me to dig through everything more easily.
I also have a bag of my plain card stock scraps. These are all Stampin' Up scraps and at this point I haven't decided if I want to amalgamate them with the patterned paper scraps or go through my big drawer, pull out other card stock scraps and create two scrap piles. One for patterned paper and one for card stock.
But that is not important for this post, just a glimpse into my current organization dilemmas! If you have suggestions or opinions be sure to pop them in the comments!
After going through all my scraps, I pulled out several large pieces of card stock in colours that made me happy. No thought was given to colour matching at this point.
I did the same with my patterned papers. Once I had a good choice of both card stock and patterned paper, I started playing around to see which patterns could feasibly go together and which card stocks coordinated.
Eventually I ended up with something that looks like this.
My front cover.
I covered the photo cards with papers and then sewed everything together adding a little heart shaped charm onto the bottom. I haven't (obviously) figured out a purpose for this mini yet but was thinking that I may create a book of people I love ... or something like that. You'll just have to stay tuned!!
Rather than comment a ton on my thought process (why the heck did I pair cupcakes with a distressed frame image, and other random bits) I'm just going to give you the photos of each page as they stand right now.
I kind of consciously didn't make this flow from page to page but did try to connect each page to the one opposite it - especially if they were drastically different prints, colours or styles. All in all, I'm quite happy with this! I will mull over how to use it for a bit. For now it's sitting on my shelf in my scrap room, waiting!
Oh, this is what one of the larger inserts looks like. I can put pictures here or lots of journaling. Or both!
And one of the smaller inserts looks like this.
One last view of my mini - because it's my blog and I wanted to show it off again! LOL!
Thanks for "tuning in" today. I hope I've inspired you to look at something you might normally throw away in a different light. I realize it's not feasible to keep everything but every now and then it pays to keep some things!
If you haven't seen my big announcement yet today please go to layoutaday.com (after 8AM PST) to see what's got me so excited - hope to see you back here after you do!
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