Heavenly Crafts

I am ashamed to say that I have had this album finished and on my desk for over a week now, but just haven't found time to post all the photos and, wait for it, this is a first for me, as I have a video too!  Not, however, a video tutorial (I have those in the pipeline!) but just showing you the album in all its glory (well, I was pleased with it at any rate ;) ).


And exactly what, I hear you ask, is this album then?  Well here it is:

Isn't it gorgeous?!!!  I just love this, and I think my daughter has her eye on it too as the first thing she said when she saw it was that it was in all her favourite colours....if that wasn't a hint, I don't know what is!


Surprisingly enough, this was actually made using a male oriented kit, One in a Million which is a collaboration from Aimee Harrison Design Studios and Snickerdoodle Designs and, what is even better, is that it is the bundle is special offer right now too!




My eldest reckons I have trouble making male cards, etc. and judging by all the papers I selected from this kit, I reckon he is right!  I have a tendency to want to add flowers and butterflies to absolutely everything....


Anyhow, I thought I would show you how this was made and then you can all have a go and let me see what you come up with!  I got the idea from Susan Lui who part of the team at Graphic 45 (don't you love their papers and kits too?!!!).  Whilst she has a tutorial on her blog, this is my version.


Firstly, you need to sheets of  heavy weight cardstock 6" by 6".  I actually used an empty Cornflake box for mine.  Put double sided tape or glue one side like so:




Then stick a sheet of 7" by 7" paper to these.  I used one of the papers from the kit printed on A4 copy paper and cut to size.  If you cut the corners of the paper, you will find you can stick it down without adding too much bulk at each corner.  It also helps if you bend the paper round the bottom of the cardstock to help get a cleaner, crisper edge:






This photo really shows up the Cornflakes box nicely, doesn't it ;)?!!!


I then placed both covers wrong side up about one inch apart and stuck ribbon all the way round:






I actually went overboard and covered the reverse side too, although I needn't have bothered as almost the whole of the inside cover ends up being covered by the inside pages.  You can see above where I matched up some of the paper, but it doesn't show on the finished album. Of course, if I wasn't bothered about my ink cartridge running out (it ran out the next day!) I wouldn't have been scrimping and saving on the printing and would have printed a second sheet to so there were no gaps....but then if I had read Susan's instructions all the way through properly first, I would have known there was no need to cover the inside, sigh!


So then the next thing to make was the pages for the inside.  For this, I used two sheets of A4 cream cardstock cut down to 5 3/4" width.  Susan cut hers to 5 3/4" by 11 3/4" but A4 card is actually just a fraction smaller at 11.7".  I reckoned the 0.05" difference wouldn't matter!  the card stock was then scored at 5 3/4" and then at 1" intervals just on one side from there:






Then using sticky tape (I used the red stuff as it is stronger than ordinary double sided tape but you could use hot glue, PVA or any other strong glue) stick the two sheets of cardstock together with the creased sides in the middle:










You can see it is beginning to take shape already as the folds are where the inside pages will be stuck.


Then add more sticky tape like so:




Stick the front and back covers to these inner pages, making sure you get the covers the right way round (if you are using paper with the pattern in a particular direction, you don't want the back cover to be going the opposite way from the front ;) ).  This is what you should end up with:



I made the inner pages from sheets  of A4 card stock folded in half.  I then stuck them carefully to the spine folds:






You might need to hold the covers and spine carefully as the middle part of the spine has a habit of expanding out when you least expect it ;).  Then it really is a case of just decorating the album as you see fit.  You need to stick or glue the bottom parts of the pages together, but you can then use them as wallets to hold tags, photos, journaling cards, etc.

You will see I added another piece of cardstock (printed using a paper from the kit) to cover the spine of the album. 







This is my finished album:








These are the inner pages:












You can also cut a piece of cardstock 2" by 6", fold this in half and use it to go around the bottom of the page instead of using glue.  That way, you can also use this as a tag holder - the bottom two photos above just above shows you what I mean.


And, just in case you haven't been bored enough already, here's a video with my dulcet tones showing you the pages in more detail.  Please excuse all the umm'ing and err'ing.  This is my first video and I was nervous!  I also didn't appreciate just how difficult it was to keep things within camera range even after I spent what seemed like hours trying to place my tripod and camera in the right place so I didn't end up bumping into them whilst filming.  Oh well, guess things can only get better with the next video ;)!