7 Creative Ways to Fill a Mini Album with Pictures

A couple of years ago I designed and created a very sturdy folio mini album, with the nature-themed Time to Flourish collection by Graphic 45. My mother now owns it, and she asked me to fill it up with some of the awesome closeup pictures my father took, mostly of flowers, insects and birds in their own garden.

And since it’s always nice to see a handcrafted mini album filled up with pictures, I thought I’d share it with you one more time 🙂 .

In the video I’ll be sharing some general tips for filling your mini albums with pictures:

  • Don’t be afraid to rigorously crop your pictures when your page design or paper pattern requires it;
  • Die-cut your pictures into shapes, like circles, rectangles, squares, labels;
  • Apply glitter glue or liquid pearl all around the edges of some of your pictures;
  • Fussy cut the main subject from your pictures if the background or the rest of the picture is boring or irrelevant;
  • Trim your pictures down to miniature size to fit them onto smaller tags – simply find a picture with a small main subject;
  • If two pictures don’t fit onto one page, use washi tape as a hinge for one of them and stack them;
  • And last but not least, my favorite: color-coordinate between your pictures and your design paper as much as you can!

If you want to create this yourself, check out my tutorial. I also did a second iteration with a masculine paper collection, you can find that one here.

Merry Christmas to You All + Introducing a Tag Wallet Christmas Card

Have the Merriest of Christmases you all! 🎉 For that occasion I am giving you, if not a Christmas present, then at least a First: you get to see me in the video, not just my hands! 😃

Another extra is that you’re getting not one but two videos this week! For I’m also sharing a project with you. It’s a new design, and I’m calling it a Tag Wallet Card – for it’s a wallet, holding tags, that you can put into an envelope and send out as a card. And of course I’ve also written an easy to follow – and very affordable – tutorial for you, loaded with very clear step-by-step pictures. It’s already waiting for you in my webshop.

The thing is that I already uploaded the project share video a couple of months ago, in the beginning of October, so my Youtube subscribers have probably already seen it. But I couldn’t share it on my blog back then, since my mom is following this blog – Hi mom! 🙋🏻 – and this particular tag wallet was meant for her as the most elaborate Christmas card I have ever made 🙂

This project was also featured as a Guest Designer project for Crealies.

The beautiful papers I used are by Graphic 45, from the Winter Wonderland collection plus one sheet from the Time to Flourish collection. If you purchase my tutorial you’ll also get a supply list with the names of each individual design paper sheet.

So, enjoy at least one and perhaps even both videos, and especially your holidays! 🤶

 


In the Pocket: a Tag Briefcase Mini Album

While Autumn has arrived and stretching its legs with some really cold temperatures here in the Netherlands, I thought I’d design and share a little Four Season’s mini album. I used Graphic 45’s calendar collection Time to Flourish, which of course automatically offers seasonal colors and themes.

The cover design makes it a cute little suit case with a magnetized closure and a ribbon grip, that will stand on its own. Each of the ten pages are pockets, holding a tag that has been decorated on both sides but still leaves room for wallet-sized pictures.

All in all a very cute little gift – think Thanksgiving, Christmas, simply Summer or basically any seasonal holiday 🙂

Like to make one yourself? Go ahead and purchase my tutorial, offering lots and lots of clear pictures, guiding you through the creative process step by step. And for people who have worked with several of my album tutorials: this time I’ve used a different binding system, so not the hidden hinge binding, but the stack the deck binding. If you don’t know how that would work, check out my tutorial.

Enjoy the video and let me know in the comments what you think!

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Four Seasons, Four Sentiments

A lady asked me to create four double-layout cards for her, one for each season. She also provided me with four seasonal sentiments to incorporate. What a fun challenge that proved to be! 🙂

I also used four brands by the way, so I really saw all four ? corners of my craft supply room. Here’s the collections I used:

  • Spring: Graphic 45, Time to Flourish
  • Summer: Kaisercraft, Fly Free
  • Autumn: Bo Bunny, Autumn Song
  • Winter: Studiolight, Frozen Forest

Let me know what you think!

 

Tag die set by Crealies:

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Four Seasons Sturdy Folio Album

Hi guys, I’m very happy to present my latest design: a very sturdio folio album, which I’ve therefore dubbed Sturdio 🙂 .

It consists of three accordion-fold page assemblies, rolled into one neat mini album. This one’s theme is the Four Seasons, since I used Graphic 45’s beautiful floral calendar collection Time to Flourish. I kept the months in their proper order, thereby creating three trimesters for one entire year of pictures.

I was completely in the Zone when I designed and created this, which is why I haven’t been able to write a tutorial. I promise I will write one this year, and thank you for your patience, for it will take me creating a second one of these sturdios.

Anyway, enjoy the video and pictures, and do let me know what you think in the comments section! See you next week! 🙂

 

 

 

Time to Flourish – Three Graphic 45 Cards

For these final months of the year (boy, how time flies!) I created some cards using the Time to Flourish collection by Graphic 45. This collection is the perfect seasonal collection, with a special focus on all things floral.

I already created some cards earlier in the year, there was Mayincluding Mother’s Day, and fairly recently I showed you two versions of August birthday cards.
This time it’s the fall, and even one Christmas card.

So enjoy the video and pictures, and please like & subscribe!

 

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Time to Flourish – Two August Cards

The Time to Flourish collection by Graphic 45 is really versatile. You could do a calendar of course, a mini album, or special greeting cards to send your friends and family actual month-based well-wishes. Back in May I created a birthday card and a Mother’s Day card, and today I’m happy to share with you two summer birthday cards, this time for the month of August.

One is a double layout card, the other an extra large card which measures an actual 8×8″ (20 x 20 cm)! I used a lot of layering with the design paper, cutaparts, chipboard pieces, die-cut flowers and some embellisments, mostly from the Time to Flourish collection.

Enjoy!

 

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Perpetual Calendar pt. 4 – Time to Flourish

As you may have discovered by now, I’m doing a four-part blog series on two perpetual calendars with Graphic 45 paper collections:

I’ve created two calendars at once because one, the Place in Time calendar, is for my mother, the other for myself.

Now that I’ve finished both, I must say that although the calendars have been based on a layered layout principle, they weren’t so alike as they may seem at first glance. Not only are both calendars different in size – Place in Time is 12×12, Time to Flourish is 8×8 – but the design and atmosphere of each collection are so uniquely their own that they felt like two completely different projects to work on.

And I can’t make up my mind which I like best! Except maybe for size: in hindsight, I liked to work with the 12×12 cutaparts more – mainly because all of their gorgeous pictures were larger, and therefore more fully enjoyed. 🙂

Well, without further ado here’s the video of the fourth and final part. And don’t forget to enjoy all of the beautiful pictures in the photo gallery below!

 

Mother’s Day and Happy Birthday with G45’s Time to Flourish

I’ve been working with Graphic 45’s Time to Flourish collection since the end of last year, when I was creating the first six months of an 8×8″ calendar. (I’ll show you the second half of that calendar this summer, since I haven’t finished it yet.)

Meanwhile, I added some 12×12″ inch Time to Flourish sheets to my otherwise 8×8″ collection, to mix & match a bit and create four nice cards. Today I’m happy to share the first two, centered around the month of May. They were great fun to make, especially with all the cutaparts, tags and chipboard pieces that come with this collection! I also enjoyed playing around with two different sizes of the same May sheet, the results of which you can see in the video.

So here’s two layered cards, one for Mother’s Day, the other for a birthday, both centered around the month of May.
For some more month-based greeting cards, check out my August versions!

Please like & subscribe, and let me know what you think!
(If you click on the title of this blog post you’ll find the comment section underneath the post).


Perpetual Calendar pt. 2 – Time to Flourish

Last week I shared a so-called Eternal Calendar with you, usable for as many years as you please. Otherwise known as a birthday calendar 😉 – although as long as the actual calendar part is replaceble, like mine, you could do an actual calendar (where the dates actually match the weekdays).

As I shared with you in my previous blogpost. I’m actually creating two versions of this type of layout calendar, one for my mom and one for myself. I’ll share them both, in three or four parts:

So here’s part 2, created with Graphic 45’s gorgeous Time to Flourish collection, enjoy!