because I can

Hello there

I've been inspired quite strongly by Heidi Swapp this year and her feelings on giving her kids stuff to help them remember their growing up; take pride in their achievements and for her to remember too. Kids love looking at photos of themselves too, especially small, cute ones. Rosemary Merry has also started doing shows on Create and Craft tv and because she runs a fairly local craft shop and I've met her on a retreat I went to which she runs regularly, I like to watch her. I also like to watch her because she does fun projects. One in particular which appealed was a mini album made with just one sheet of 12x12inch paper. One night during the week after seeing that a crafty friend Sally Anne had made one of these albums, I just grabbed a sheet of 12 x 12 and started folding and cutting. Hey presto, I had the starting of an album within very few minutes. I had done it without the instructions in front of me, so it's not perfect by any means but it was definitely usable.

Photo courtesy of Sally Anne

I pretty soon realised what I was going to use it for; an album of good events my daughter has enjoyed this year. I found some great stickers too which ironically enough came from the retreat I went to with Rosemary's Crabapplecrafts shop and a heart from a very old stationary pack Maggie was given.

Since taking this shot I've inked round the edges
but you get the idea

Once you've put the album together, you glue on some ribbon to form the closure. The ribbon is some hanger ribbon from an item of clothing Maggie bought recently and it's perfect for this project. To form a tidy cover and to give the album a sturdier feel, use two pieces of card slightly larger than the initial album and glue them over the album.


I cut some pieces of card to the right size to fit in slots in the top and sides of some of the pages and stapled short pieces of ribbon to them, to make it easy to move them in and out of place to read the journalling on them.


As you can see, I don't have a circle punch to make
the half-circle cut outs tidy and I was doing it
in a hurry late at night. It was only meant to be
a practice run but I decided to keep it

I selected nine photos and printed them at 3.5 x 4.5cm on my printer's software, which makes the whole thing so easy. I glued them in and then decided to add some stamping on the pages and the journalling inserts. I used some Debbi Moore tag stamps which were perfect for what I wanted.

I'm really happy with how quickly this came together and how it looks. I must do these more often for different occasions and for different people.
I hope it gives my daughter a keepsake to help her remember her youth, when she's alot older.

Take care out there