A quick mini!

I had been wanting to make a Thank You gift for a friend for a while but as always, time escaped me. Finally, I got myself into gear, sorted out some photos and put a Saturday afternoon to good use.
I started with a range of cardstock offcuts that I had lurking around that I knew would make a great mini album. The colours all co-ordinated so I sorted them according to size and trimmed to make uniform.

Using the scalloped edge of a tag, I drew similar edges on the edge of each cardboard piece and trimmed to add interest.

I then used offcuts of other coordinating patterned paper and a few new sheets from my Studio Calico kits to create mats for the photos. I inked each edge of the mat. I also used washi tape throughout and a sheet of stickers left over from the Sarahs Cards retreat.

Finally, I added some photos (3x4" and smaller) and some embellishments. I tried to keep it really simple so that didn't get too bulky.

In the end, this mini had photos of a bunch of our friends from about 3 different occasions in 2011- I gave it to my friend last night at our first 2012 party and she absolutely loved it! I'm so pleased!

Lean Mean Mini book

I was scrapping with friends on Saturday and originally had plans for these photos to be a double LO but as I looked through them, it was decided that a) I had too many photos and b) the photos told a story so it would be difficult to cut them down in number. Suddenly, I remembered that I had instructions in my crop bag for a Lean Mean Mini-book which I had printed from JimJams blog some time ago (link to instructions here: Thanks JimJams)

The advantage to this minibook is that it uses only one sheet of 12x12 cardstock and one sheet of 12x12 double sided paper! On a mission, I decided to give it a go!

Front cover. The whole album is held together with ribbon. I've used a sheet of Jillibean soup paper and some co-ordinating embellishments for the details:

Inside front cover:

There is plenty of room on these pull out pages for either more photos or journalling on the reverse. I added some machine stitching, word sticker labels and some cute tags with the kids initials on each:

This is the pull out pocket page. Would be equally cute to put a ticket etc from a visit in there depending on the theme of your album. Secret journalling, anyone?

Another half page pocket on the final pages.

Once I'd figured out the instructions this was actually really simple to make. This took me 2-3 hours with lots of chatting inbetween. I reckon if I was to do it again I could make the album (as a gift etc) in less than an hour and the whole thing including photos etc in less than 2.

Thanks for looking.