Scrapbooking/ Mini Albums

Mini Book Tutorial

June 2, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

Today’s tutorial is on a mini accordion album – it’s a real quick one, you could probably make the entire thing in 30 minutes. : )

honestymini You can see photos of my entire finished album right at the end of the tutorial.

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What you need:

– 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock

– patterned paper

– scoring blade

– inks and embellishments

– twine

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1. Start by cutting your cardstock into 3 equal strips measuring 4 x 12″

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2. Pop your scoring blade in and score each strip at 3, 6 and 9″

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3. Fold the creases accordion style: fold one piece to the back, the next to the front, etc. Then glue the two strips together as shown in the above photo. If you’d like more pages, go ahead and glue the third strip on as well.

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4. Now cut your pages out of patterned paper. Measurements are 2.75 x 3.75″. Ink the edges if you desire. (I used Colorbox Dark Brown Ink). Glue your pages onto the album.

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5. Cut a strip of cardstock measuring 7.5 inches. Wrap this around the middle of your album. If it overlaps in the front too much, trim a bit off. I ripped the edges of mine.

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6. Glue a piece of twine to the strip on the backside of the album.

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7. Tie the twine at the front of the album. Make it tight enough that it won’t fall off but not so tight that you can’t wiggle the middle band off the mini book without untying it.

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8. You should be able to just slip it right off now.

9. Now have fun embellishing your book! A tip: – try not to make the book too bulky as you won’t be able to close it with the band you just made.

You can use any theme at all for this kind of album- it’s so versatile!

Here is my completed album:

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Remember that you don’t always have to add photos to your mini books, sometimes journaling is all you need. My book turned out to be some Reflections about how life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect it too. There are bumps in the road but also some unexpected surprises.

Here is a challenge for you if you’re up for it: Create your own little book of “Deep Thoughts”. Were there some things you expected to happen in your life that didn’t? What were some of the surprises?

If you do end up making one of these mini books, I’d love to see it! please leave a link to where it can be seen : )

Lastly, I want to share this cute photo of Oscar. I took it the other day and completely forgot about it, then when I was downloading the photos for the tutorial this morning, I found this little gem amongst them. I love it when that happens! The photo is a bit bright as he was sitting in the sun – but it was one of those moments where I had to rush to get the camera before he moved.

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He sits like this a lot – it’s hilarious. Usually he moves though before I’m able to snap a photo of it. Geez, I can’t believe I’m not going to get to see this cute guy for an entire year (and Gracie too)…. (I won’t get any time off from school until next summer and it will just be for 1 week). I will miss them so much…. I can’t think about it right now cause it makes me feel sick : (

New Tutorial

May 18, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

I meant to get this tutorial up here long before now….however my laptop decided to call it quits on me recently. Luckily I was able to get most of my files and photos and thank goodness for back ups! This is the 4th computer that has suddenly died on me over the years – so I learned the hard way to back things up. After the first time, where I lost EVERYTHING, I learned how to back things up from then on. Anyway, because of my not so great history with PC’s, I decided to go for a Mac this time around. So far I love it, but I’m still getting used to it so I’m a bit slow with things.

Now for the tutorial! This is a fun and easy project, a bit time consuming but totally worth it in the end! It’s an address/ contacts book. I made one for my mum for her birthday this month and I think I’m going to make a smaller version for myself to take with me when I move away this summer.

What you need:

-A lot of paper! cardstock weight, double sided. A good mix of patterned paper and plain cardstock works best. (this is a great time to go through your stash and use up some paper you’ve been hanging onto for awhile)

– 2 pieces of 12 x 12 chipboard sheets or craftyboard for the front and back cover

– A Bind it All Machine and the largest sized coils you have

– Stickers, embellishments, ribbon, etc. (anything you want to embellish the pages with but try to keep them as flat as possible)

– inks (for inking the edges of the pages if you so desire)

– print outs for each page (please feel free to use mine if you’d like – download them here)

– Letter stickers (flat) for the inside pages and puffy letter stickers for the cover (such as Thickers)

(Please excuse my messy desk in the photos!)

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supplies

1. Cut 2 pieces of chipboard/ craftyboard to 9.25 x 12″

2. Choose your paper and cut each piece to 9 x 12″

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3. Cover both your chipboard cover pieces with paper and trim excess. Sand the edges until smooth.

4. Stack your pages together and punch holes using the bind it all (you’ll have to do it in sections)

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5. Punch holes through cover pieces with the Bind it All then insert coils through all pages and covers and bind together.

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6. Print out enough sheets (to fill in name, address, phone, etc) for each page. Download mine here

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7. Trim pages, then ink edges (I used Jumbo Java ink)

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8. Glue a sheet onto each page

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9. Once all sheets are glued onto the pages, it’s time to add the letter stickers. I used Remarks Alphabet stickers by American Crafts. For more popular letters, I used more than 2 pages (either 3 or 4 depending on the letter).

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10. Now finish off your book by adding a title on the front. I choose to use “Contacts” but you could put “Addresses” or “Numbers” or anything you’d like

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inside

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Sleepless Nights…

May 11, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

….and not enough hours in the day. Our house is in complete chaos right now. With trying to clear some stuff out, pack and get the house ready to sell, it just seems like there is too much to do and not enough time left to do it in. I walk into a room and don’t even know where to start. We have boxes and rubbermaid bins in every room, as we try to sort out what to keep, what I want to take with me to California, and what to get rid of.
I won’t be able to take much, basically what we can fit into the back of the car.

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I found this video on youtube – its about the EATM program that I got into – very cool!

Exotic Animal Training and Management Program

Zoey had her surgery a few days ago and is doing well. Her first night home was not good – she whimpered for hours and it broke my heart. She has a huge incision all the way from the bottom of her rib cage to her lower abdomen. We should have the results from her liver biopsy at the end of the week.

June will be my last month teaching scrapbooking classes at Precious Memories, well teaching classes anywhere actually. (for the next 2 years anyway). As of August, I officially become a student again. crazy…

A new class I’ll be teaching at PM in June is a Date book – this was really fun to put together! I made one for my mum for mother’s day and I also made a matching address book to go with it. (I put together a tutorial on this, I’ll try to get it listed in the next couple days).

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May Classes

April 15, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

I’ve got 3 new classes coming up in May at Precious Memories: 2 mini albums – one for Mother’s Day and one for Father’s Day, and another Techniques class – Fun!

The past couple weeks have been busy. I’ve been working on more mini albums as 4 new ones are going to be in the September/ October issue of Memory Makers Magazine. They are all done now and sent off so I can now focus on video tutorials and other fun stuff.

The weather here is gorgeous today – finally it feels like Spring is here. The dogs and I took a nice early morning walk in the sunshine today to the vet to drop Zoey off. She is in there getting a series of tests to check her liver function. (some abnormalities showed up in some blood tests last week). I felt awful for leaving her there – she was pulling and straining at her leash trying to get to me as Angus and I left. It was as if she was saying “Don’t go!! You’re forgetting ME!!!!”

If only she could understand that I will be back in a few hours to pick her up, but I know she will be stressing out the entire time now. My poor girl.

Angus, on the other hand, would be perfectly fine staying there the entire day if he had too. He must be the only dog in the world that LOVES going to the vet. He just thrives on the attention he gets. Getting poked and proded doesn’t faze him at all. Even when he has to have a blood test, he is fine, as long as he is standing on his back 2 legs only. (these odd little tricks we discover). Getting his nails clipped is a completely different story though….

April Classes

March 6, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

My new classes for April are done! I actually got them done on time for once, lol. I really had a ton of fun making these ones and probably cause the paper is just so darn cute! They are both mini album classes (cause of course that’s really all I make anymore) at Precious Memories

“Happy” mini album in a tree shape

This one is a Summer themed one, in a popsicle shape (mmmm….I love popsicles!)

Precious Memories has a blog now! Check it out – they have a giveaway going on right now!

Some new stuff that’s been going on here, well not too much, but we did go on a hike a couple weekends ago in Mission to a place called Hoover Lake. Totally out in the middle of nowhere and we only passed 2 other people the 5 hours we were on the hike. It was an interesting day….

the trail started out like this:

and then quickly became like this: covered with snow!!!

Did I mention in a lot of places it was more than 2 feet deep??

The dogs did really well and walked a far distance on their own, then they got really tired and cold so we turned around at that point and we ended up carrying them both all the way back – which was 4 km!! I planned ahead and figured Angus would not want to walk too far so I brought a baby snuggli for him (I know, laugh all you want), but I’m glad I did! He fit inside it perfectly and I was able to hike back with him strapped to me. We had to put Zoey in one of the backpacks we brought, and she surprised us and sat in it without a fuss, she was cold too so I wrapped her in the extra fleece I brought. We must have looked pretty hilarious hiking back down with these dogs strapped to us, plus we were slipping and tripping in the snow all over the place. I’m so surprised neither of us fell cause we certainly came close to it many times. The dogs were so trusting of us!