Welcome to Rainbow Craftykari Blog: GDT Sunila & Aditi: "Bestie" Mini album tutorial

Continuing from Part 1 http://bit.ly/2hgY6LR

Next lets get our page inserts ready.

Take the 6 3/4”x 5 3/4” cardstock sheets and keeping on the 6 3/4” side score at 5 1/2”. Fold along the score line and press with the bone folder. This forms the flap. I wanted some design, hence I die cut the flap. You could use nay decorative punch or die for this or leave the flaps as it is.

With our pages, hinges and inserts complete, we now only have our base of the album to do.
For this pick the two 8 1/2” x 12” cardstock pieces and attach them together. Apply glue on the last 1/2” on one sheet and place the second sheet on top and press nicely.

Keeping this long sheet as the base, we now need to stick our chipboard pieces. The arrangement goes this way- front, spine, back, spine and front. Between each piece leave a gap equivalent to the thickness of the chipboard.

Trim the sides of the cardstock and fold all sides inwards and stick them to cover the pieces (like a look binding). The placement of the hinges is the next important thing to ensure the pages alternate when opening the album. Before placing the hinges, cut them at an angle. This will help are pages slide in smoothly.

The first hinge is to be placed 1/2” away from where the first spine piece starts and the second hinge is to be placed 1/2” from where the second spine starts. By hinge I mean the peak point and not the beginning flat part. Notice the marking on the page and the hinge placement in the picture below. Stick these hinges down and press firmly with the bone folder. Go over the score lines, as well as the gaps between the chipboard pieces so they fold over easily.

This is what our base should finally look like.

With this done, you have completed most of it. Next, comes the decoration bit and then attaching the pages. It would be good to first design the pages and then stick them. It’s easy to work this way. I wanted to add a flap inside on the back of the album. So for that take a 6 3/8” x 5” cardstock and keeping on the 5” side score at 4 1/2”. Put some glue on the fold and stick it onto your album on the back piece inside. You can also die cut the edge. I wanted to make it magnetic so i stuck two pieces of magnet- one centre of the flap and one on the chipboard piece where the flap would close.

Now we can begin sticking our pattern paper. Start by sticking at the back of your album- front, spine and back pieces and then inside. I haven’t given measurements for this as it depends on how much of a black border you would like to leave.

For the pages, you can use a paper sized 14.5 cm and 14.5 cm front and back and for the inserts 13.5 cm x 13.5 cm both sides.

I’ll teach you two styles of pockets for the pages of this album. You go do more styles too :)

A simple pocket- Cut a piece of patterned paper measuring 7” x 3”. You can increase the height of the pocket. Keeping the 7” side, score at 1/2” and 6 1/2”. Turn the paper 90 degrees and score at 2.5”. Fold along score lines. When you open them you will see two mini squares at the corners. Cut them out and stick the bottom fold onto the side folds. You pocket is ready to stick to your page.

A mini envelope- Cut a piece of pattern paper measuring 5 1/2” x 5 1/2”. I used the envelope template given with my scoring board and scored at 2”; turned 90 degree and scored at 2.5”. Repeated this again. Fold along the lines and open. Cut out four mini triangles fired at the line intersection, fold the sides and then stick the bottom. I cut the pointed edges of the top and bottom flap. I then stick this onto my page, and used some left over paper to form a band to secure the envelope.

Once you have decorated your pockets, you need to stick them inside your album. For this apply glue on both side of a hinge, slide down your pocket and press firmly and hold until it sticks together.

Stick all your pages like this. They would alternate, from the bottom- first the right then the left. So when you open your album your first page will be the one from the left. I decorated the album with some stickers, brads, buttons, tags, die cuts, flowers, charms, metal embellishments, etc.. going with my theme. You are free to decorate it the way you wish to :)!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Here are some pictures of the album inside.