I absolutely LOVE mini-albums! I love them to the point that some days I think it would be a hard battle to choose between creating a Mini Album or creating 12x12 layouts (which are usually my preferred method for telling my stories). Most people think of Mini Albums as a lot of work and a complicated project, where I am of the belief that sometimes simpler is better.
When I saw the gorgeous new Six-by-Six paper pads that My Minds Eye just released, I knew what I was going to do. I decided on the "Away We Go" pad and added the flat cardstock stickers from the Lost & Found Two collection.
I decided to use an A-to-Z index file card set as the basis for my mini album. I thought it would be neat to record all the little things that happened during the Summer. You could easily do an A-to-Z of Christmas or even the whole year as the tabs give great basis for divisions within the album. You can get the index files in a bunch of sizes, but I went for the 4" x 6" version so I didnt have to have specifically sized photographs printed. My biggest issue was narrowing down photographs for certain letters, because I had a lot of choices.
I made the covers with some spare chipboard I had on hand and covered them with horizontal strips of the Six by Six papers. Make sure they are slightly larger than the pages so that the index tabs don't get damaged.
Next, I added vertical strips, some cardstock stickers, and one of the elegant My Minds Eye pearl swirls from the Lost & Found Two collection.
I arranged my photographs and trimmed the portrait to 5.75" x 3.75" to fit easily on the page. I cut the landscape photos depending on where I wanted them across the pages.
Next, add your papers and embellish with the cardstock stickers. I kept everything flat as there are a lot of pages in a complete index and too much bulk leads to issues with the binder rings ,as it was mine were 2" rings. I added text along the way. . . not much as I wanted to keep the pages slightly bare and also I dont have a ton of alphabet stickers :)
Here is a look at some of the inside pages...
I used my Crop-a-dile to punch all of the holes, doing a few pages at a time and then slotted them on the rings. I added some ribbon and my Mini Album was done! An evening with themed papers and a nice mini album as a result.
I hope that has given you some inspiration to make your own little A-to-Z album.
