Melbourne Regionals Mini Album Swap

Last Saturday I attended the Melbourne Stampin' Up! Regional seminar at the Melbourne Convention Centre.  I loved walking into the foyer area and seeing familiar faces from around Victoria, and a flurry of activity as ladies were already busy "swapping" - sharing ideas that they have made in exchange for others.  I was inspired by many of the ideas presented to us by Head Office and by fellow demonstrators, and by the lovely swaps that I received. Everytime I look through my swaps, I see new details that I hadn't noticed before, and I appreciate all the pieces that have been shared with me.

Here is the swap that I made for Melbourne Regionals 2011.  I saw instructions for this album over on the Kaisercraft blog and immediately saw the possibility of making it smaller, perfect for the "Clearly For You" stamp set.  This little album uses one sheet 6" x 4" and once folded it is a 1.5" x 2" mini album.  I added cardstock covers which were cut a little larger.

Cardstock:  Subtles (Certainly Celery shown), Very Vanilla
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Cherry Cobbler, Black StazOn
Stamps:  Clearly For You, You're a Gem
Acc:  Subtles DSP paper stack, Window sheets, 1 1/4" Square punch, 1 3/8" Square punch, Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch, 1/2" circle punch

Directions:

Take a piece of DSP 6" x 4" and along the longest side, score at 1.5", 3" and 4.5" as shown by the dotted lines.  Turn the paper 90 degrees and score at 2", then cut along the solid line.  This will enable the pages to be formed.  

Fold the DSP in half so the cut edges now form the top of the album.  Punch/ cut a window in the folded section if desired.  

Concertina fold the pages so the "window" page is in the middle of the album.  Stamp image and glue/ tape the window page. I used our clear window sheet stamped with black Stazon ink for my swaps, for the photos above I have used vellum instead.  I made little covers for the front and back, and punched a piece of DSP with the Dotted Scallop Ribbon border punch to use as binding.  I learned that you need to use strong sticky strip or Tombow multipurpose adhesive, SNAIL is not strong enough to keep it in place once the album is opened and closed a few times.  Of course, I learned this AFTER finishing my swaps, so if you have one of my swaps...... learn from my mistakes! The pages naturally form little pockets perfect for tags, journalling, so you can let your imagination go with this project.  

This is a mini version, a larger version would be an even bigger canvas and take larger photos.  You could use a sheet of 12" x 8" to make a 3" x 4" album.  You would need to adjust the score lines by doubling the measurements quoted above to scoring at 3", 6" and 9" and then turning and scoring at 4".

Happy Stamping,