I am so elated with how this mini-album turned out. Earlier this Spring, Simple Stories did a Live YouTube presentation and Jana showed the pages of three mini-albums designed to be classes for the company. I thought they were so adorable and I particularly liked how they had done a lot of insert pages and flip-ups and totally changed how the pocket protectors are used. This left me totally inspired and as soon as I had a free weekend, I circled back to that video to have a closer look and try putting together a mini-album of my own.
A few years ago, we had an Halloween party at my place. We all dressed up and took family pictures and then my nieces went on a candy treasure hunt to find treats I had packaged and hidden around the house. Because I had quite a few pictures of this day, I figured a mini-album would be a better format than individual scrapbook pages. Two years ago, I had fallen in love with the Boo Crew Halloween collection from Simple Stories and preordered pretty much every item from the collection from my local store. I figured this collection would be a great pick for the mini-album since I had plenty of elements to choose from. I went all out on the embellishing to see how much of a dent I could make in the collection. I have to say, I'm amazed at how much paper and embellishments I still have left considering that I didn't hold back at all on decorating my pages.
The album has 18 pages overall (9 front and back), so here are a few highlighted details from it.
Page 1: One the elements that immediately made me fall in love with the album Jana was sharing was the flaps that fold over the plastic of the page protector. One of the reasons I started disliking pocket scrapbooking really quickly after giving it a try was how confining it felt (both with thickness and width) and how everything felt very grid-like when you leafed through an album. This way of doing pocket scrapbooking breaks out of that mold and makes the best out of those pockets. On this page, I am using a regular 6" x 8" protector, but by using 12" x 12" patterned paper, I'm able to cut a 6" x 11-3/4" piece, score at 8" and fold the piece over, showing the backside pattern. When picking a pattern for this, make sure you think of how you are cutting and scoring the paper if the pattern is directional. Inside the flap, I used a 3" x 4" cut-apart to make a pocket, in which I slid one of the tags from the cut-apart paper.
Page 2: The foam stickers are wonderful to add depth to a page, but they can definitely distort the plastic of the protector once you slip the page in. Those stick really well to the page protector, so you are better off sticking them outside of the protector rather than on the page. My page initially felt a little bare, so adding the foam words really filled up the space nicely.
Pages 3 and 4: This was the very last page I put together. In a different album shown in the video, Jana had done half-page inserts with patterned paper and I really love the idea. I decided I could use it as a way to fit two more portrait-size pictures in my album, glued back to back over the piece of paper. I rounded the corners, added the scalloped border sticker and punched holes using an empty protector as reference. Having those smaller inserts that are not full-sized really make the album more unexpected and dimensional, and that type of insert does not limit you to any picture size or orientation.
Page 8: I had a few pictures from the candy hunt that were not the best quality, because the girls kept moving around quickly and the lighting was not always the best depending on where they were standing. I still wanted to include some pictures to remember the fun we had, but I made them smaller so I used a four quadrant protector for this one. This is one of the format that fills very grid-like to me, and I found that I was able to work around that by adding my stickers on top of the plastic. For example, I had put the "broom hair, don't care" over my niece's picture on the right and I really wanted to add the broom sticker to go with it. I tried adding it to the "Trick or Treat" cut-apart piece, but it was hiding the text too much and made it unreadable. I finally realized that if I put the broom outside of the pocket, I was able to position it exactly where I wanted it and it instantly made the whole page more pleasing. The same is true for the banner sticker at the top. I was trying to get the candle lined up with the edge of the picture and having the black line fall in the middle of the picture was really throwing the balance off, so when I lined up the black piece with the edge of the picture, the candle was hanging off the side of the protector. I thought about cutting it off, but I liked this detail, so I decided to test it as is (adding powder to the back to take the sticky off). Because I'm using a ring binder, there is plenty of room to turn the page without damaging the candle, so again, this helps break the grid off.
Page 10: This is another element from the sample album that I loved. You use a 10½" x 8" piece of patterned paper and score it at 6" to create a narrower flap. I used a circle punch at the top like in the example, but I had noticed that the Bits & Pieces included a few circles so I made sure to add one in my half-circle punchout. This is another spot where I added the foam stickers (Trick or Treat?) since I had the room to accommodate the bulk. On the front flap, there's a bunch of text on the pattern, but one part caught my eye and made me laugh - Beware... be very, very ware! I wanted to make sure to draw attention to that part, so I used the candlelight from the bits and pieces nd added the hand with the finger pointing to those words. At the top, I added the adorable mummy die-cut and I added foam and enamel stars around it.
Page 12: This page also uses the flap concept, and I used the October 31 calendar page as a tab. I didn't like having the back all white when the panel is opened, so I worked a few stickers on it to decorate it. I recently purchased some border dies from Photoplay that are meant for slimline cards. I don't really make those long cards really often, but I figured the longer border dies would come in handy for scrapbooking and they sure do! It was my first use of this wonky edge and I absolutely love the look. I also pulled out this Halloween paper fringe from Tim Holtz and it looks totally awesome! The candy word is a foam sticker.
Page 13: Now this is a fun detail to point out. It appears (if I interpreted what I saw on the video properly) that a pocket was created over the page protector by gluing a cut-apart over it and sliding elements inside the pocket. This is again such a cool way to not be restricted to the pocket sizes of the protector you are using. Here, I had two different patterns from the back of the image slid in the "3 x4" pockets, and I used a 4" x 4" cut-apart, glued in place with sticky strip on three sides, with a cut-apart tag slid in. I added some vanilla flower trim that was purchased years ago.
Page 16: Instead of a flap, you can create a pocket on this one by folding the paper over the front and gluing it in place or in this case, I stapled both sides. I slid two pieces inside. The first one is a leftover die-cut from a frame done on a prior page, on which I punched a slit at the top to add ribbon. I fussy cut a big pumpkin image and added it to the tag with dimensional adhesive. The second piece is two tags from the cut-apart sheet, cut together and folded it in half to make a mini-booklet. I finally (after many years) managed to find a tutorial on how to put pictures together in Photoshop Elements to print smaller-sized pictures at home without using an app, so I used two 1½" x 3" pictures inside the booklet.
Page 18: One of the papers had 2" x 2" cut-aparts, so I used those with a page protector that had two rows of those small squares. Again, I used the concept of gluing things over the protector with dimensional adhesive to give the page dimension.
All of my pages have been put in a temporary 6" x 8" binder that I had on hand. The colour would fit, but the snowflakes, not so much, so they will be transferred to another album once I can find one in the right colour for Halloween. I will probably add a few embellishments to the album itself once I have it.
This mini-album took a full three days of work to get done, but it is arguable one of my favorite mini-albums I have ever put together, in parts because the Boo Crew is one of my fave Halloween lines I've worked with. I love the grey/orange/vanilla combo and the adorable characters and images.
Supplies
Cardstock: Basic Grey, Black Foil Sheets, Vellum (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Decorative Brads, Foam Stickers, Cardstock Stickers, Bits & Pieces,
Washi Tape, Enamel Dots: The Boo Crew (Simple Stories)
Accessories: Mini Album, Mini Dimensionals, Twine, Black Sparkly Organza Ribbon, Curvy Corner Punch,
Black Rhinestones, Pinking Heart Border Punch, Tango Tangerine/White Trim,
Rhinestone Basic Jewels, Natural/White Ribbon (Stampin' Up!);
Buttons (Foof-a-La); Decorative Clips, Black Messy Stitches Rub-Ons (49 & Market);
Decorative Scissors (Fiskars); Reinforcement Pack Dies (Elizabeth Craft Designs);
Baker's Twine, Beetle Black Mini Doilies, Black Sugar Brads (Doodlebug Design);
Rhinestone Flourish Stickers, Wax Seal Stickers, Black Square Rhinestone Stickers (Recollections);
Enamel Stars (Bella Blvd.); Dies (Coco & Reno)
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