Hi! So happy to be here again! I´m Celes from GuiadeManualidades.com and today we are going to create beautiful things together! You are going to fall in love with the new collection… Simple Vintage Great Escape! It’s so wonderful and full of amazing details.

This collection is perfect to prepare a mini book for a special journey. That’s what I’m going to show you today… But this time we are going to combine two types of projects in one big album. We are going to make an album with three journal notebooks and a lot of space for photos, collecting memories and to add everything you want. Let´s get started!

First thing to do is to prepare the stable cardboard pieces. For my project I cut 3 pieces of stable cardboard : #1- 7” w x 8 1/2” h (cut 2 of it), #2- 2 3/4” w x 8 1/2” h. I used two of the collection kit papers and one of the basic kit to cover all the structure. I also picked one design paper for the interior. But, you have to wait to add the inside paper until you prepare the spine.

I made a basic spine but I left some spaces for three journal notebooks. For making it cut a piece of white cardstock paper of 9 1/4” w x 6 1/2” h. Then you have to scored it in 1 ½”, 2”, 2 ½”, 3 1/4”, 3 3/4”, 4 ¼”, 5”, 5 1/2”, 6”, 6 3/4”, 7 1/4”, 7 3/4”.  As a result you are going to have a classic spine with 4 hinges and 3 free spaces between them. As a special detail I added small stripes of color paper between them. Once the spine is ready, you can glue it in the interior of the mini album structure. Please, glue it in the center.

After that, you should add 6 eyelets above and below the spine. We are going to add an elastic cord and they will be ready for our journal books.

Next, we are going to prepare the cover. Before starting with it, you have to pick a decorative ribbon. Glue it to your structure. For decorating the cover I used: one layered frame from the collection, a small picture that I printed before starting, made some flowers with the papers of the Color Vibe collection (in this case I used a model from Paige Evans, you will find it in her store), some foil and foam 3D.

If you like, you can design the cover in a different way. But as I love flowers and chose this very special photo for me… I made this composition. I also added two capital letters for New Zealand (this album is for that special trip that I made a year ago)

Time to go inside!

First, we need to make three journal notebooks of  6” w x 7 1/2” h. You can use three papers from the collection kit to make all the covers. If you have a binding tool it will be fast and easy to make them. In my case, I made 3 notebooks of 10 pages each one.

Besides the notebooks, we have to make four pocket pages. For them you need 4 papers of 13” W x 9” h. Score papers in 6 1/2” (w) and finish the pocket pages. The final measures are 6 1/2” w x 8” h.

We have all we need ready… time to decorate! My favorite part of the creative process! YAY! We are going to decorate all our pages and journal notebooks. You can use all you have. Die cuts, stickers, chipboard, enamels dots, foam alphas, brads, stamps, hemp cord, washi tape. The idea is to leave as much free space as we can to add a lot of pictures. You will see that I added some hidden pockets and special structures in every page. Besides, I added some pockets to the interior of the journal notebooks.

IMPORTANT: If you are planning to make some inside structures as cascade or anything else, you have to add them before you glue the pages together. The same thing happens if you are planning to decorate with some brads as I did.
You can see some of my pages here. When you finish decorating them, you can glue them to the spine.

Remember to decorate your journal notebooks before adding them to the album.

I hope you like this idea! Create as much inside structures as you like and leave a lot of space for your beautiful photos and memories… you are going to love your album!

See you next time!