Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Mini Folding Scrapbooking Album Gift Idea with Tutorial and Free Template

Welcome to The Cherry on Top.

Well, as I'm typing this my vision is so blurry. Ha!  I guess I might have to look into those darn reading glasses.  I already wear glasses to see at a distance.  Ageing is certainly a bumpy process.  I may now have a different excuse for imperfections on my pages and projects.  Hehehe...

Today's project is a do over.  We've all already done it, but this time we're doing it traditional and I'm using them both to house either a gift or money for my nieces Christmas presents.  As you can see, I'm keeping it very simple.  You've heard me say it before, consider the recipient of your hand made goodies.  How much will they appreciate your efforts and ask yourself, how much do you care?  Hehehe...If ya wanna go all out for someone who really doesn't give a fig about the hard work you put into a gift, then go right on ahead.  


These mini album, gift ideas can be made in minutes.  Seriously!  You don't have to put a lot of time into them, but you certainly can if that's your thing. 

To save a lot of time, I used my free digital template to crop my photos perfectly.  I mean seriously, what an absolutely brilliant, efficient way to get this project started.  Simply clip your photos into the template with your scrappy software, print and cut!  That's all you have to do, if you choose.  Then you're finished even faster still.


I've also made a step by step video so you can see how I've done what you see above.  It's only over 10 minutes long and I even did a touch of scrapbooking on the inside, for my other project with this template.  That's for the hybrid Saturday blog.


Printed all out.  That emoji was something I thought I could use on the other project. Cute, eh?

I thought it would be fun to put a few of the silly photos from last Christmas for my niece who's 16. As well as photos of her family.


Here's a look at some goodies I had already put together for another project. I thought the colours and patterns were youthful.  Good for two teenage girls, right?  As you might be able to see, these are all just products from a local discount store.  We don't have scrap shops around here.  I always mention this simply to prove, that you don't need all of that fancy stuff to make something pretty.


Print out your template and trace it onto your favourite paper.  Be careful that the paper is going the right way.  I chose a kind of paper where there was a obvious top and bottom and some parts of the image come out upside down and I don't really like that.  If you don't either, then use a paper when direction is not an issue.  If I would have used this paper shown here with the ric rac, I would have been ok.  Darn!  Hehehe...


Something you may have learned when printing yourself is the loss of ink on folds.  To combat that you can do a few things.  Print at best quality on good paper.  Semi gloss and gloss paper gives you a really good result.

To help with the folding issue, the inside or other side of this paper is white.  So, there will be no loss of ink or wearing away.  I cut my photos in a way so as to leave that white space in between the folds so there will be no wear.  Yay!



I also recommend doing soft folds.  Gently press where the fold should be instead of pushing hard and creasing.


I often clip off the prongs on my large brads and use a thick glue dot to adhere them.  You can use a glue gun, double sided tape...any kind of adhesive really.  I show you here how you can fold up the prongs under the brad, just in case you might want to use it again.  Handy for when giving gifts.


 There is plenty of room inside of this mini for money and or a gift card or sentimental notes, if you like.

I tied a very simple ribbon around the album.  She can just slide it right off and reuse it if she likes.


I pasted the brad on some more, pink ribbon.  I used a tiny glue dot to adhere my ribbon and again, slid the ribbon over and around the mini for easy open and close.

Now, you've got a nifty gift idea and a free template.

Thanks so much for hanging with The Cherry!