Thursday 12 March 2020

Hello You ~ Baby girl mini album | Cocoa Vanilla Studio


Hi everyone!
Today I am sharing a special mini album I created a little while ago for Cocoa Vanilla Studio using the beautiful 'Midnight' collection. This baby girl album was made for my daughter to tell the story of her birth and the weeks in hospital following. 


I began this mini album with an unbranded 6 ring pink planner I purchased from eBay. This planner came completely empty, and unlike the last planner I used (which was from Kmart), this one features a magnetic clasp to close it, rather than the elastic band. I also used an adjustable 6 hole punch (also purchased from eBay) that I set up to fit the rings in the planner.


I used pieces from most of the patterned papers from the collection, cutting a variety of sizes and shapes to use for the pages. I then punched each one with the hole punch, ensuring they were not all aligned the same so that they would sit at varying heights within the album. I also added some additional decorative detail to some of the pages using an assortment of border punches.

I created “tip-ins” for some of the pages using patterned paper adhered with washi tape. This allows you to extend on the amount of space you have on a page to add extra photos or journalling, or even hide journalling underneath, just like I did with my daughter’s birth story above.


Remember you don’t always need a photo on each page – it adds extra interest to an album to intersperse purely decorative pages, or pages that simply feature a sentiment throughout, such as the page featuring fussy cut flowers from the Bloom and Grow paper and a Die Cut Title word above.


Another way to help anchor photos into an album and ensure they appear as a cohesive part of the page design, rather than just stuck over the top, is to add embellishments that overlap part of the photos. Alternatively, don’t be afraid to use an entire photo as a page in itself and punch directly through the photo. (Matte photos tend to work better for this, rather than glossy.)


To continue to provide variety throughout the album, try turning some of the elements vertically on the page; or have a horizontal page opposite a vertical one. (It also adds an extra level of interactivity to have people rotate the album to look at them.)


A great way to include a series of photos is to print them as a photo strip and fold them accordion style with a tab sticker to pull it out with…


The photos fold out and then fold neatly back into the album, only taking up the same amount of space as one photo.


Create small pockets from scrap pieces of paper to hold journal tags. For a final interactive element, I uploaded a video taken during the drive home from the hospital with my daughter to my YouTube channel (set as private) and then created a QR code for it. This allows it to be scanned by a QR code reader on a phone that links to the video and plays it. (My children LOVE these!)


There is much more to this album than I could show here. If you would like a look at the entire album, I have a flip through on my YouTube channel you can watch below:


That's all from me today, I hope I have inspired you to try making your own mini album in this style - they are so much fun to do!
Until next time, happy scrapping! X

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