Keepsake Tag Mini Album

Mini Album DIY Project

I am stepping on a soap box here for a minute. This is going to show my age a little. I remember saving my money to buy my first digital SLR camera. I couldn’t wait to process my images in Photoshop and print photos to put in our family albums! Well, fast forward to today. My iPhone takes better photos than that digital camera. The technology in the palm of our hands it astounding! I can snap from my phone, edit, and post to social media! It’s wonderful. But guess what? I rarely print my photos anymore. When was the last time you printed photos?

What will happen years from now when our grand-kids want to see what their parents looked like as high school sophomores? Are we going to scroll them through pages and pages of online albums?

I am a firm believer in documenting life. This means printing and writing.

Our life experience will mean a lot to our future generations.

(Stepping off the soap box)

My beautiful daughter is turning 16. She loves a good photo shoot, so I obliged. We took a lot of really great photos, and instead of just posting to social media, I printed some favorites. I also wanted to document her little quirks right now. (Collection sunglasses, love of overalls and checkered Van’s) I threw together a trendy mini album DIY project.

Today I am going to teach you a quick way to make this darling mini album DIY project out of ordinary cardstock tags! Once you master the process, it is super simple to vary the tag size, and tag color(s) to create your own mini album any old time you want!

Let me show you how easy this mini album DIY project is!

Supplies needed for this mini album DIY project:

• Darice Paper Tags
• Darice Blank Eyelet Tags
• American Crafts Vicki Boutin Sticker Book
• Natural Jute Ribbon
• Foundations Light KraftSmooth Cardstock
• TomBow Mono Dual Tip Permanent Multi Liquid Adhesive

For my project, I chose to keep my palette neutral. It goes without saying, that you can easily switch up the colors of the tags, and the selection of stickers to fit whatever theme you are working with.

Begin to assemble your mini album by cutting a piece of matching cardstock into a 4″ x 12″ strip.

Next, score your strip of cardstock in the center.

This will give you a point of reference to begin attaching your tags.

Adhere one tag, face side up along one side of the score line.

Adhere your next tag along the other side of the score line. Make sure to leave a slight gap between all of your tags, so they will have enough space to be able to fold.

Continue to adhere your tags until you come to the end of the cardstock strip.

Slide a section of ribbon slightly underneath your tag as shown. I used about 12″ of ribbon on each side. Using a strong adhesive (I chose liquid Tombow Mono) adhere the ribbon to the cardstock strip.

Add your final tag to the cardstock strip using the same adhesive, and sandwiching your ribbon piece.

I used a weight to hold the pieces together until the adhesive dried. And hey! I used my hand weights! That counts as exercise, right?

Repeat on both sides.

Then fold your tags accordion style. You can either score between each tag, or just carefully line them up and fold them.

Flip your tag book over. You will be able to see the cardstock strip, if that bothers you, you can cover each tag with another tag. I only chose to cover the two end pieces where the cardstock ended.

Again with the strong adhesive. You don’t want your ribbon pulling out.

This completes the basic tag mini album DIY project. I am going to share with you a couple of interactive techniques that will allow you to add additional photos as well as visual interest to your project.

The first one is a pocket.

Using decorative scissors (or a regular straight edge), trim the tag right at the polka dot design (or on another tag, about 1- 1 1/2 inches)

DO NOT discard that top piece, we will be using that in a minute.

Apply adhesive around the bottom and sides of the bottom cut piece, and adhere it to the bottom of one of your tags to create a pocket.

Take the other cut section, trim the decorative edge off,  and score it right underneath the hole of the tag.

Apply adhesive to the top (holed section) of the tag. Adhere to the top of one of your mini album tags.

This will create a flap.

You can use it for hidden journaling or additional photos.

I like the look of eyelets in my tags. I used a little cheat on this project. These little tags come with eyelets. I simply inserted them into the tops of my tags, lining up the eyelet with the hole in the top of the larger tags, and adhering the small tag.

I just trimmed the excess white tag. The small tags come in a bunch of different colors and I loved the visual interest they gave my mini album.

One last tip: when I am working on a project, I like to use already coordinated embellishments. Then I am not wasting time gathering things. It helps me make a mini-album into an enjoyable mini-project instead of an all afternoon event.

I loved this sticker book. Literally everything you see in this album (with the exception of the bling, and journaling) was from this book. A pre-coordinated sticker book is not a must, but I would suggest you at least gather like items when you put mini albums together.

Here is a quick peek of my finished mini album.

Front:

And back:

To tie the finished album closed, accordion fold it up.

Then take the ribbon, and half-knot it in the back:

Bring the ribbon around to the front of the book, and tie it closed.

You can see how fun these mini tag books are. I have a few of them tossed into a basket on my coffee table.

They are a great conversation starter, and much more interesting than a magazine.

I hope you decide to throw a few mini tag albums together and see how fun they really are!

Print the beautiful photos that you take, for you and others to enjoy for years to come.

Shaunte

Shaunte is a 30-something, chocolate-loving, SAHM from Utah. She has been scrapbooking since 1997, the dreaded era of photos cropped with deco scissors. Since then, her work has evolved into a clean, linear, photo-focused style. Her favorite subjects to scrap are her husband and five kids (never a lack for subject material there).

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