Monday, June 25, 2007

Featuring Mini-Albums All Week: Today's Features Free Kit

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Creating a Hybrid Mini-Book

by Sue Kristoff, Creative Team Member



Mini books and albums are a fun way to celebrate something in your life, are easy to create, and provide instant gratification because they come together so quickly. You can create a mini album out of cardstock, coasters, chipboard or anything else you can pull together. Mini books are generally associated with traditional scrapping. However, there are a ton of ways that you can incorporate digital scrapbooking techniques to create fabulous mini books.
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There are two extremes of using digital techniques for creating mini books. On one hand, you can print digital papers and elements and scrap with them as if they were traditional paper products. On the other hand, you can digitally create each page completely, then print out the pages and add them to the mini book. Of course, there is infinite variation between those two extremes.

My example mini-book leans more towards the former.
  • This book is made with 4" circular coasters.
  • The theme of this book is my son's birthdays, and I used one coaster per page.
  • I printed digital elements from my Stars digital kit, and used them as traditional paper elements, cutting shapes out of the paper for my page backgrounds and decorative elements.
  • I embellished each page with some traditional elements and handwritten notes.
  • I left the back of each coaster with just background paper so that I could add more notes and thoughts later.
  • I also used a large binder ring to hold it all together so I can add additional pages as he grows and has more birthdays.

Related Article: More Ideas for Creating a Digital Kit from Scratch by Sue Kristoff
Supplies:
"Birthday Star" hybrid coaster mini-book
Patterned paper, star embellishment: Stars kit by Sue Kristoff for EDS Blog (Get this free kit here)
Chipboard letters: American Crafts
Rub-on letters: Doodlebug
Pen: Sharpie Poster Paint Marker
Ribbon: May Arts
Chipboard number tags: Lil Davis

We work hard to bring you free tutorials. Please leave Sue feedback, especially for her free kit! Thanks.
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16 comments:

Julie Ann Shahin said...

Very inspiring! Thanks Sue.

Anonymous said...

Love the mini books and your great inspiration...thanks so much for the digital freebies!!!
cj
aka celebrate2spirit

Webfrau said...

Great idea. Thanks for the kit freebie.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Sue. A great help

Anonymous said...

Lovely kit freebie and the album looks really good. Might give that a try myself someday ;-) Thanks !

Anonymous said...

Sue-that is one adorable mini album! Looks great!

Tammy Dunlap said...

TY Sue for the mini kit! Great tutorials!

sunnietide said...

Fun project. Thanks for the kit.

sunnietide said...

I've been lurking for a little bit, but still new. I hope this isn't a stupid ?. Where do you get the coasters ?
Thanks.

Danielle Holsapple said...

Awesome kit Sue! Love your album!

Liddy said...

Thank you so much for the kit. I loved what you did with it, very cool. This is an area that I have been wanted to try lately so thanks heaps for the inspiration. Gorgeous little boy too.

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for free kit as well as the awesome instructions on mini-books.

LivE said...

Thank you so much for your freebie and for getting the wheels in my head to start spinning!

Unknown said...

great work. good posts. Thank you for sharing.
deepti
http://allaboutparenting.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-create-scrap-book.html

Anonymous said...

Awesome idea and lovely kit - thanks so much! - Gayle

Anonymous said...

Such a great idea. Love the hybrid idea a lot. Thank you for the kit, can't wait to use it on a project of my own (maybe a 4" round coaster mini album... hmmmm) :)