Hey, y’all! For my first May project, I have a mini pocket album inspired by the “Tea Book Ephemera Organiser’s” from Bohemian Crafting! When I saw the original video, I knew I had to make my own little book! Not only is this an adorable little book/album, but it is also easy to put together!
Make sure to check out my video and see it all come together!
For my cover, I used a piece of poster board from when my kids were in school. It’s flexible, yet sturdy – I’m not very good and guessing the weight of paper, but I do know it isn’t as thick as the 130# cover stock I like to use as card bases!
I cut out a 10-inch by 8-1/4-inch rectangle from the poster board, then on the 10-inch side, I scored at 4-1/2-inches, rotated the cover 180 degrees, and scored at 4-1/2-inches again. You could also score at 4-1/2 inches and 5-1/2-inches if you didn’t want to rotate your cover piece, I only rotated mine to make sure I had the front and back flaps of the cover as close to equal as I could get! This way, if my original cut wasn’t “exactly” 10 inches, my front and back cover would still be 4-1/2 inches, and any “excess” would just find its way to the spine!
I picked out the papers I wanted to use for my cover and cut four 4-1/2-inch by 3-inch rectangles out of the floral paper and two 4-1/2-inch by 2-1/4-inch rectangles out of the orange-ish paper. I added the extra 1/4-inch to the orange-ish paper to give a little bit of extra to work with to make sure I didn’t have any gaps – which is also why I glued it down before the floral paper! I didn’t glue the paper down to the spine until after I had the pages stitched in, because I knew I wanted to cover all the thread.
After the outer papers were glued to the front and back cover, I poked some stitch holes and added some simple stitches using 6-strand embroidery floss (I used all 6 strands!). Then I picked out the papers for the inside of the covers, cut the background papers just long enough to have the edge hidden by the 3-inch pockets, glued them to the cover, and added the pockets.
I have three different pocket page sizes – 3, 3-1/2, and 4 inches – made from 6”x6”, 7”x7”, and 8”x8” squares of paper. And, regardless of the finished size, they were all made the same – folded in half, then half again! This gives an opening at one long edge of the paper (the top of my pockets) and the two short, outer edges. To seal the outer edges, I didn’t glue them closed, I used leftover strips of the BoBunny paper, solid cardstock, and BoBunny stickers to hold them closed. As an optional step, you can also use a circle punch – or just scissors – to add thumb holes to the top edge of the pockets! I inked the edges of my pages, and since it is chalk ink, I have my pockets a spray of Workable Fixatif to help the chalky finish stay in place.
After I had the edges sealed, I added a strip of green cardstock to the inside spine and finally stitched my pages to the spine through the holes I had pre-poked using a template I had made to help me keep my pages centered and evenly spaced. Each page has two holes for stitching through – 1/4” from the top and bottom of the pocket – and I just used simple straight stitching to hold them in.
Once the stitching was done, I finally added the papers I had picked for the spine to cover my thread.
After the pages were sealed, I used more of my scrap pieces –the solid cutoffs stamped with one of Tim Holtz’s newest stamps – and some of the stickers to add some simple decoration to the pages and cover – sometimes adding another wrap around the edge, sometimes creating tabs for the edges. On the cover I also used one of the Tres Jolie Chipboard pieces, coated with clear gesso from my stash, the Faded Jeans Chalk Ink from the kit, and a little clear embossing powder, and with some of the KaiserCraft pearls on the stem.
Thank you for joining me here today, I hope you enjoyed this mini pocket page album and it gave you some ideas of what you can make using this month’s Cards, Tags, & More Kit!
Stay Crafty, Friends
Did you get a kit? Share what you made in our Facebook Group!
Hey, y’all! How’s everyone doing? Have you been having fun playing with your Tres Jolie Kits this month? I know I have, and this week I have a mini-album for you using the beautiful 49 & Market “Tranquility” Collection, and, for good measure, I added the Stamperia rice paper from the Mixed Media Kit.
I have my video up and ready for you to check out to see how I put this all together! Make sure you swing by and check it out!
Are you joining the Tres Jolie challenge this month? All of the kits this month work wonderfully with the “Spring Flowers” twist! As you can see, the flowers were definitely a factor in my project, but I also worked the two pink doilies from the kit (and mood board!) in as well!
Be sure to place your entries in the March 2023 challenge folder on the Tres Jolie Kit Club Café Facebook page. This challenge ends on March 31st, 2023 at 11:59 pm CST. All entries must be in this folder to be eligible for the prize (to have everyone eligible to win, we limit the same winner to once every 3 months).
I don’t know if it’s really a “cheat” or not, but it is quite a bit easier than cutting thick chipboard – I used two 4”x6” (approximately 101-102mm x 152mm) canvas panels for my front and back covers! Then all I had to do is grab up some scrap chipboard to create my 2-1/2” x 4” (approximately 63-64mm x 101-102mm) spine.
I honestly couldn’t decide if I wanted to use the rice paper from the Mixed Media Kit or one of the papers from the Scrapbooking Kit for my cover – so I decided on both! – especially since rice paper makes a wonderful top layer on a collage. I cut one of the 49 & Market sheets (almost) in half, so I had two 6” (or so) by 12” pieces, lined up two of the ends – creating a 6” (or so!) by 24” strip to use as my album cover. To “cut” my rice paper, I used a water brush to outline the section I wanted to use, then just gently tore the paper apart. One of the best things about rice paper is that getting it wet is – in my opinion – the best way to cut it because it’s easier and creates a feathered edge. Of course, the other “best thing” about rice paper is that the white areas of a print become practically invisible as soon as you add your collage medium – which for this project was some Soft Matte Gel from Prima-Finnabair.
After the gel dried, I added my canvas panels and chipboard spine to the cover paper, lining the center of the spine to the seam between the two strips of patterned paper, and to make sure my cover would fold like it is supposed to, I used a 1/4” (a little over 6mm) fiberglass rod (it’s what I have, a wooden dowel rod would work just as well!) to create the necessary space between the spine edges and the canvas panels. After the glue had dried, I gave the cover a coating of matte varnish to help seal the rice paper and 49 & Market paper, let that dry, then trimmed the excess away, leaving about one inch to fold over the edges. I trimmed the corners – more than I normally would since I was going to add some pink doily corners – and a little at the top and bottom of the folds to keep the bulk out, added double-sided tape and glue, then folded everything up!
I gave the doily I was going to use for my corners a coating of matte varnish to help protect and strengthen it, cut the doily into four pieces, and wrapped all four corners of my cover with those pieces – just using more varnish as my glue.
Once everything on my cover had dried, it was finally time to get to work on the inside and add my closure. I used a couple of strips of linen hinging tape on the inside folds for more stability, coated my second doily with the matte varnish and cut it in half, and cut my end papers down to size – 3-3/4” x 5-3/4” (about 95mm x 146mm).
I added the two halves of the doily I had just cut to the edges of the endpapers that would be closest to the spine and glued the finished pieces into place after I added my closure hardware (see below). Although I didn’t add the ephemera until closer to the end of the project since I am talking about the cover already, I thought I would just try to keep things a little more “together” here on the blog and show the finished insides – plus it allows you to see how the inside doily pieces look in place!
I added a few pieces of the 49 & Market ephemera – a spot to mark the date on the front, and a little spot for journaling on the back.
After I had my end paper in place, it was time to add the spine cover/page holder. I cut a strip of paper 6-1/2” x 3-3/4” (165mm x 95mm) and added a score line every 1/2” (12-13mm) so I could create four tabs sticking up to hold my sleeve pages in place. For all of the folds that would be against the spine, I added linen hinging tape to help strengthen all of the hinges, then I glued all of my tabs together so I would have the finished piece ready and be able to trim off any excess from the left and right edges – which ended up being about 1/16” (1.5mm) from each edge – before gluing it in place.
For my closure, I used a D-ring and a short slotted head screw, leaving the smooth side of the slotted head screw showing on the outside of the covers, but covering everything on the inside!
To keep the D-ring from twisting under the paper with use, I added some 3D Matte Gel to the surface that would be again the canvas panel cover, some Loctite to the screw threads, and more Soft Matte Gel over the inside screw head and edges before finally getting the end papers in place.
I carefully used my bone folder to shape the paper around the screw and to make sure everything was smooth and wrinkle-free!
Finally, with my cover together, I was able to set it off to let it dry completely and get to work creating my pages. I decided to create sleeve pages to allow for more areas for photos, ephemera, or journaling since this is a mini, 4-page album. So first, the easy part – the inserts! I just cut four 5-1/4” x 3-11/16” (133mm x 93-94mm) rectangles. Why that size? So when they were in the pockets – which would have those tabs holding them in place – they would still have a little peeking out of the sleeves which were also cut 5-1/4” (133mm) wide and I shaved off the extra from the edges to make sure they would slide freely.
With my inserts cut, I just set them off to the side and got to work creating the sleeves. I cut four 8” x 5-1/4” (203mm x 133mm) pieces – trying to mentally keep in mind where my folds would be and which side of the pages would have the image right-side up and which side would be up-side-down! (Although, to be honest, it isn’t really that big of a deal – just more for personal preference!)
To help make sure my pockets wouldn’t be too tight – allowing photos or other flat ephemera to be added to the inserts – I gave my sleeves rounded edges with an approximately 1/16” (1.5mm) “gap.” Along the long edge of the paper I was using for the sleeve, I scored at 3-7/8” (98mm), lined that score up on one of the “bumps” of the scoreboard, and added a second score to the right of it. My scoreboard has 1/8” spacing – so moving over to a bump, gave me the 1/16” (or so) spacing I was looking for! Plus, I did add some light markings on my paper before starting the scoring process to help!
After the first edge fold was scored, I moved the paper back to the corner of the scoreboard, added a score line at 7-3/4” (197mm), moved the paper over half a tick again, and added another score to the right.
I have a thin metal ruler with smooth edges that helped me shape the edges – since making two folds that are so close together isn’t the easiest thing to do! I just wrapped the folds around the edge of the ruler, used my bone folder to help shape them, and kept the ruler in place until I had everything glued down so I wouldn’t crush the edges while burnishing to get a good seal!
And, with that, the hardest parts were done! All that was left to do is start adding photo mats and ephemera to my sleeves before sliding them onto the tabs in the spine!
I did turn some of my photo mats into 3” (76mm) circles – depending on what I wanted to show on the background – but most of the photo mats are 3-1/2” (89mm) squares.
I added a bit of decoration to the tops of my inserts, strengthening the edges and making them a little easier to hold on to.
After I had added the sleeves to the spine, I did go back through and added the dimensional flowers from the flower vine found in the kit. I took a pair of wire cutters to the vine, chopped it up, and just popped the pieces in place. I waited until the album was fully together to make sure I didn’t add too much bulk between the pages!
When the time came for me to add my sleeves, I wanted to make sure they weren’t going to be flat against the spine, which would keep them from flipping smoothly, so I cut a couple of strips of chipboard and used them as spacers on each side of the tab when adding the pages.
With the pages in place and the ribbon knotted to the D-rings, my album was done!
Thank you for joining me here today on the blog! I hope you enjoyed this mini album and it gave you some ideas of what you can make using the Scrapbooking Kit and rice paper!
Stay Crafty, Friends
Did you get a kit? Share what you made in our Facebook Group!
Finnabair 3D Matte Gel, Finnabair Soft Matte Gel, Prima Water Brush, Spellbinders “Standard Circle SM” Nestabilities, We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile II, double-sided tape, 4”x6” canvas panels, heavy chipboard, Liquitex Basics Matte Varnish, LineCo PVA, LineCo 1.25” Linen Hinging Tape, Art Glitter Glue, Fabri-Tac, washers, Loctite Blue Thread Locker, D-Rings, slotted head screws
Hey, y’all! Have you seen the fabulous heart-shaped mini album in this month’s Cards, Tags, & More Kit yet? It is so adorable and makes putting a love-themed mini together quick and easy.
Make sure to check out my video to see how I decided to use my album with this month’s papers and embellishments, then grab your scissors and glue and get started on yours!
To prepare my chipboard, I mixed some white gesso with a bit of the Worn Lipstick ink from the kit and brushed it on the front of the heart-filled-heart chipboard page and the back of the flower-filled-heart page, as well as around the edges of the front and back of the other three pages.
Using the chipboard as a template, I traced out hearts for each of the cover hearts from all of the different patterned papers, glued them in place, then backed the page with a full sheet of the pink with white hearts patterned paper – turned 45° the paper covers all of the “holes” surrounding the hearts!
I didn’t want to over-do the flower page, so I just added some of the “XOXO” paper to some of the larger flower centers, then backed everything with a sheet of the pink floral print patterned paper.
For the background of each page, I decided to do some paper piecing instead of trying to decide which paper I wanted to use – they are all so beautiful, I had to use them all!
I just cut out some templates to work on using some plain printer paper – it is far more forgiving if I make a mistake than the chipboard would be – and randomly (by randomly, I mean I didn’t think about the width or pattern too much when selecting which strip to use!) glued down my strips of patterned paper. I didn’t bother measuring my strips either, I just put the paper through my trimmer a width I felt was good, cut, and did it again until I had a fair amount of strips to start working with.
After I had all of my backgrounds finished, I trimmed them up, distressed and inked the edges, and glued them in place.
Although I hadn’t originally planned on adding stitching to every page, as I was working on the album, I determined that it was “necessary” for each page to have some of the simple straight stitches added to them! I just created a quick template so my spacing would be even, then used an awl to poke the holes through before adding the variegated perle cotton thread.
With the base of all the pages completed, it was just a matter of picking papers to use as photo mats, pockets, and envelopes! I also decided to use the circles from the pop-out pages to create a couple of window pockets on the photo mats!
Some elements are backed with thin foam (about 1/16” or approximately 2mm) just to add a little depth, but I didn’t want my pages to be too bulky since they would be going on album rings.
The first page has a “hidden” envelope – I attached the photo mat and frame to the envelope flap, then used a bit of ribbon from my stash to keep it tied down.
On a couple of pages, I just have photo mats – again, because I didn’t want there to be too much bulk on the pages! Then on other pages, I added pockets, a couple turned horizontal, and I added touches of ribbon to almost every page, just to keep the design elements [mostly] the same.
On the page with the tied horizontal ribbon, I left two of the envelope flaps open and created a double-flip out page element.
I kept my flower page rather simple – I didn’t want to create something too busy or cover up the chipboard, so all I did is add a bit of the ink and a couple of photo mats.
Finally, to finish it off, I just added a single envelope to the inside of the back cover to hold any larger ephemera or notes.
For the cluster on the front of my album, I just cut a strip of the lace print paper, added some of my ribbon to each side, and stacked a couple of the Prima flowers on under one of the resin frames and the “I Love You” piece I had cut from one of the pop-out pieces.
When I was adding the gesso to my chipboard, I also added it to the resin pieces so they would be ready to use, so when I did decide my cover would need one, all I did is add a second coat of gesso (heavy gesso this time!) after dabbing on some of the ink. I don’t know if it’s odd or not, but I really love how matte gesso is!
After everything had dried, all that was left to do is slide the pages on to my album rings.
Thank you for joining me today on the blog! I hope you enjoyed my mini album and it gave you some ideas of what you can do to create your own mini album! I’ll see you again soon!
Stay Crafty, Friends
Did you get a kit? Share what you made in our Facebook Group!
Hey, y’all! Hope you’re having a fabulous December!
Have you had the chance to check out this month’s kits? They are all sure to get you into the holiday spirit in no time! For my first project of the month, I used the Cards, Tags, & More Kit to create a mini-folio-album-thingy. Maybe I should call it a wallet album since the size, shape, and the way it opens reminds me of a wallet…anywho…I used a couple of the solid cardstock sheets, and about 5 or so of the patterned paper sheets to create this fun little album – then I printed out some photos from Christmas a few (or maybe more than a few!) years ago to fill it up.
To get the rundown of how this all went together, I have a video where I explain my process and try to explain my thinking! (LOL – explain my thinking )
Although the closure was the last thing I did for the project, I’m just going to go over its construction now with the photos of the folio album all closed up.
I used the full length of ribbon from the kit to create my closure by cutting the lengths needed for both the horizontal and vertical wrap and a faux bow. I wanted everything to remain smooth and flat – which is why I wrapped each direction separately – then used Fabri-Tac to hold it in place (pardon my areas of excess glue that soaked through – I had forgotten I had just got through thinning my bottle out when I went to use it and it got away from me!). My bow is a faux bow because I just folded the bit of ribbon into a bow shape, added staples to hold it together in the center, then wrapped the last little piece I had as the “knot” for the center.
For the closure, I used some white velcro. I have a couple inches of the hook side of the velcro (the stiffer side of velcro that grabs) on one end of the horizontal ribbon, then I added pieces of the other (softer/fuzzy) side of the velcro to the other end of the horizontal piece and the back of the bow after attaching my bow to the vertical ribbon.
For the outside patterned paper, I just picked out what I wanted to use, and cut it down to size.
I used the full sheet of this piece of cardstock from the kit and just added some score lines to create a size to work with! I have 1” scores along the long sides, then, from left to right, I scored at 1-1/2”, 2-1/2”, 6-3/4”, and 7-3/4”.
Then, because this cardstock isn’t necessarily “made” for a lot of sharp folds or hinging, I added score lines between the 1-1/2”, 2-1/2”, 6-3/4”, and 7-3/4” scores at 1/8” intervals. The only excess pieces I cut off were where the score lines intersected with the 1” side margins (the little flaps that are folded up in the image above).
I left the flaps for the top and bottom of the folio so I could fold them in to reinforce and round those edges some, and the flaps in the “main” (center) section are where my inside flaps connect.
As I have been known to do, I used some packing tape to strengthen my moving parts! I added to all of the folds in my base so that cardstock would have some support at all the bends. (I only added tape to one side of the cardstock, I didn’t want to make the folds too stiff!).
To help hold everything in place, before I glued my outside patterned paper in place, I added a few small staples to the corners with the top (flat) side of the staple showing on the inside but allowing the bottom (curved) side to be covered when I added the outer papers.
For these little windows/frames, I marked where I wanted to cut on the back of the patterned paper I would be using and carefully cut the centers out using my craft knife. I kept the frame edges at 3/8”, allowing just enough room for a 2-1/2”x3” photo to slide in and not have too much of the edge of the photo covered. For the green cardstock backing the patterned paper, I just used my cut patterned paper as a template and added (about) a 1/16” extra to peek out from the inside and outside edges. (Note: The windows/frames in the center section were created the same way! And since I hadn’t glued anything down yet, all I had to do was use my already-cut pieces as templates!)
For my inside flaps, I cut the cardstock into 3-3/4”x 4-1/8” pieces, then scored at 3/8” to create a 3-3/4”x3-3/4” square and glued then reinforced with more tape the 3/8” edge to my 1” flap on the base. I have my 3/8” flaps facing each other – creating a 3/4” space between them – then I just cut a strip of patterned paper down to size to cover that seam!
After the main body of the album was put together, I just went through and used up all the smaller bits of patterned paper and cardstock I had from the build to decorate the remainder of my album.
For my chipboard pieces, I gave them a coating of “Lumberjack Plaid” Distress Paint, then used the “Lumberjack Plaid” Distress Ink and Embossing Glaze for some depth and shine. After the Distress Glaze had cooled, I came back with some Lindy’s Embossing Powder and added it to the bottom half-ish of the chipboard to create a gradient-type effect (I just used the “Lumberjack Plaid” Distress Ink again for the Lindy’s since I already had it out!). Then the only thing left to do was glue my words, add my ribbon, and tuck in my photos.
I do hope I wasn’t too confusing in this blog post! If I was, the video should be far clearer!
Thank you for joining us here today at Tres Jolie! I hope you enjoyed this project and it gave you some ideas of what you can do with this month’s Cards, Tags, & More Kit!
Stay Crafty, Friends!
Did you get a kit? Share what you made in our Facebook Group!
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C.J.'s Corner Scraps 