Mini Albums with Monika...Summer Insta-Fun!

A great big howdy and hello to you all! Monika here today with my first mini album tutorial for My Mind's Eye.

Here in East Tennessee, our summer vacation has ended and we're entering our third week of school. As I was browsing my Instagram feed in the school pick up line, I began to see the story of how my two girls grew closer together this summer and became best friends.

You'll notice that my cover does not have a title, instead, I waited to share the subject of this mini album until the reader opens the front cover. Oooh, and see how all those chunky layers are peeking out and begging you to turn the pages?

Note: please click on any of these photos to see them in a larger version.

After trimming my papers to size and arranging them in a way that allowed each layer to peek out and share just a bit of the story on the next page, I used my sewing machine to stitch the binding right down the middle of all the mini album.

You could also punch holes with your paper piercer and use twine to bind your album if you don't have a sewing machine handy.

I first created my spine by scoring my cardstock, which allows the mini album to lie a little flatter than if I just scored the cardstock in half.

Let's take a closer look at these fun pages, all created with the On the Sunny Side collection with a selection of stamps and decorative tapes from Indie Chic and The Sweetest Thing.

Here are my pages in order, which will help you when I give you page dimensions at the end of this post in case you're so inclined to make an Insta-Fun Summer mini album yourself!

The second photo on the right shows the stitching right down the center of the mini album.

I like to leave some pages spare and let the photos tell the story. 

Thanks so much for the warm welcome to My Mind's Eye. I hope you might be inspired to gather a collection of photos that tell your summer story and begin creating a mini album, too.

You may  have noticed some pages which looked a bit bare. My intentions are to add in the personal, heartfelt Mommy journaling that tells my girls' story.

I'll be keeping an eye out here in the comments to see if you share some of your own mini album creations.!

Here are the precise measurements,album directions,and supply lists. Please click to enlarge and print!

Until next month,