The One with the Garden Girl Holiday Mini Album

Happy November!
The start of a new month means new projects from the Garden Girls! The theme for this month is holiday mini albums. Talk about something new and unique! Have I ever shared a mini album I've personally made on this blog? I don't think so! There's a first for everything I guess! Hope you like it cuz I poured my heart and soul into it :) I chose pictures from the 12 days we were in Washington with my family for Christmas last year and called the album 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS. Check it out:

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS IN WASHINGTON 2012 by Paige Evans

Description: It has been YEARS since I've made a mini album! I was afraid to start this challenge but when I was gathering photos and product and reminiscing about last Christmas I couldn't wait to get started! All of the Christmas lines this year are so amazing and coordinate really well with each other. I worked mostly with Peppermint Express by American Crafts, Bundled Up by Crate Paper, Magical by Studio Calico, Hello December by Glitz Design, Noel by Elle's Studio, 'Tis the Season by Echo Park Paper Co, and Reflections Christmas by Echo Park Paper Co. Once I opened up the packaging for everything and combined it all together, it was pretty easy to make the album pages. Since each page is only 6x6, there isn't much space which means it doesn't take much time to make a page - that's my kind of project! Because time is precious :) At first I was using lots of thick embellishments and pop dots, but then when I was only 3 days in to my 12 day album and it was already 3" thick I decided to go back and minimize the dimension. It's still a full and thick album though, that's for sure! I added lots of fun and chunky Christmas embellishments to the front cover to make it really eye-catching and hopefully will make people want to see what's inside!

How to: 
Cover: I started with some thick binder's board that I use for making books and trimmed them to 6" square. I designed a large "12" in Adobe Illustrator, printed it out, then used it as a template to cut a "12" from the front cover using a brand new exacto knife. I painted both covers white and let them dry. Then I filled up a 6" square of white cardstock with Christmas embellishments: wooden veneer shapes, jewels, pearls, badges, buttons, sequins, plastic die cuts, and more. I placed the front cover over the embellishments and glued it in place. I outlined the "12" with clear glitter glue to add some sparkle and shine like snow. I used Glitz Design red letter stickers, Studio Calico green letter stickers, and a "Christmas" sticker by Glitz Design to complete the title at the bottom. I put a dimensional green "Season's Greetings" banner across the front and added a red glittered star sticker to the end. Finally, I clipped on a blue wooden snowflake clothespin to the right edge to make turing the cover page easier.

Photos: First I picked all the photos I wanted, made them really small so I could fit more on a page, and had them printed at Costco. Since it takes 6 weeks for them to get mailed to me directly from Costco I had my mom ship the pictures to me instead and they got here in just a week. Ready to go! I trimmed the pictures down to size and arranged them in chronological order. I grouped them into days and then worked on my mini album one day of photos at a time.

Pages: With my day of photos on my scrap desk I then figured out how many pages I needed to represent that day. It varied between 1 page for a day, to 5 pages for a day, to 4 days on one page (the last few days all blended together!). Then I worked on one page at a time. I trimmed my favorite papers from full 12x12 sheets down to 6x6 or simply used papers from 6x6 pads. That's one of the main reasons I made my album 6x6, the convenience of 6x6 paper pads. I like the layered look so I usually started with a couple of die cut journaling cards or smaller blocks of patterned paper. Then I found a spot for my photo and added the embellishments like crazy! Each day was numbered with a gold foil Thickers number, except for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I used a "24" and "25". Once all the pages were complete (it took me about 2 weeks, an hour or two a day, to complete) and then I adhered the pages back-to-back. I referred back to my blog where I documented our vacation in detail to type up condensed journaling and captions. I wanted a "typewrite" look so I used the font "American Typewriter" and printed it at size 8 font. I trimmed the lines of journaling into strips and adhered them in their correct place in the album. If you have any burning questions about anything specific or how something was made, feel free to send me an email, but otherwise, that's about as detailed as I'm going to get because it could take forever and a day to write down step-by-step instructions :)

Supplies: Cardstock, dimensional glittered star sticker, wooden snowflake clothespin, glitter glue, layered tag, black pen: American Crafts; Patterned paper: American Crafts, Crate Paper, Echo Park Paper Co., Elle's Studio, Glitz Design, Studio Calico; Patterned vellum: Elle's Studio; Binder's board: Art supply; Paint: FolkArt; Buttons: American Crafts, Crate Paper; Jewels: Studio Calico; Pearls: Pebbles, Studio Calico; Stickers: American Crafts (banner, gold foil chipboard numbers, red glitter foam letters, silver foil chipboard letters), Crate Paper (label), Glitz Design (chevrons, cream letters, deer, red letters, words, yellow mini numbers), Studio Calico (green letters); Wooden veneer shapes: Prima, Studio Calico; Sequins, plastic and vellum die cut snowflakes: Studio Calico; Chipboard Christmas-themed stickers: Echo Park Paper Co.; Badges: Crate Paper, Studio Calico; Layered and stitched borders: Crate Paper; Journaling spots, Polaroid frames: Elle's Studio; Typewriter: Smith Corona; Font: American Typewriter; Punches: Creative Memories (hexagon), Fiskars (circle); Sewing machine: Brother; Thread: Coats & Clark

Happy holidays! Thanks for stopping by!