Spring Mini Album

Page of Spring Mini-Album

I am in the process of making a mini album for displaying and storing sets of tags I have made.  Today I am sharing two spreads I finished from the Spring Mini Album I am creating.

Spring Mini Album Spread 1: View 1 without tags

I designed the two page spread above to display and store three spring tags.  This kind of album could also be used to store vintage postcards.

Spring Mini Album Spread 1: View 2 with three Spring Tags

The spring green and pink color combo is one of my favorite color combinations.  There are pockets sewn on the paper with translucent fabric, so you can see the bottoms of the tags peaking through the fabric. 

Spring Mini Album Spread 2: View without tags

The second two page spread (above) also displays three spring tags.  This spread started with the same background papers, but used a different color scheme and style.  I love the using a mini-album like this to experiment with materials, color schemes and styles.

Spring Mini Album Spread 2: View with tags

This project has been fun - a flurry of laying out and choosing papers, fabrics, laces and needlework.  The mess has flooded the 1st floor, especially the dining room table that we eat on.  The layouts are small but took me a large amount of time, spread out over multiple days.

1+ days: I found and picked papers, lace and fabric bits. (I don't rush picking paper, I look through stacks of paper I might never look at again, and couldn't possibly ever all use.)

1 day: I cut papers to size and assembled into a "signature". Then I collapsed exhausted because I actually had to make decisions.
(A signature is group of printed sheets that are folded and stitched together.)

1 day: I painted vintage music and other vintage papers with acrylic paint.

1 day: I experimented with coloring lace.

1 day: I made the hearts.

1 day: I reinforced the hearts so the paper doesn't crumble.

1 day: I stamped the pink ribbon and green paper (and a bunch of other stuff.)

1 day: I assembled layout 1.

1 day: I assembled layout 2. 
   
As you might have guessed, I am not very efficient at the process.  But I love the creativity involved and taking my time thinking about what I want to do next. 

Heart and Lace detail

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The story - Why did I create my album?

I enjoy making sets of tags to display seasonally in a framed display I have.  (See this post here).  In theory I change the tags displayed as the seasons change.  Practice is more problematic.  

My Original Spring Tag Collection

Since I made my 1st set of tags in 2015, I have lost tags and sets of tags multiple times.  I have issues keeping them together and finding them again.  I've taken them down, put them in a plastic bag and lost the bag.  I have worried the tags got tossed.  Tags get bent.  I take a tag out for some reason and the tags get separated. 

In the meanwhile, Scrapbooking has been evolving, expanding, morphing and merging to include creating Art Journals, Altered books and Book Binding, Collages, Junk Journals (reusing ephemera and found materials), and more.  Magazines and videos have been enticing me to try these techniques, and so I came up with the idea of storing the tags in a beautiful hand-created mini-albums or books, and this post is showing the start of that project.

(If this post is getting too long, skip the rest below - It is just tips for crafters.)

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Tips:


I'm not a tutorial wizard, there are many talented tutorial people on the internet, but I have tips I'm sharing that I want to remember for myself as well. 


Tip 1: Vintage papers are fragile and crumbly, so I used the PH Neutral PVA glue I like to glue the heart (or other) shapes to index cards which I then cut out. A better order would be to glue the paper to the index card and then cut them out. (Sometimes I learn from doing it wrong!)

Tip 1 and 2: Reinforce vintage paper

Tip 2: I put a coat of Liquitex Matte Varnish over the top of the painted cutout shapes.
These two steps make the most fragile papers fairly strong.  The varnish in particular makes the paper almost waterproof.  It leaves a bit of a texture (which I like) and using Varnish works best over water-proof paints or inks.  Test on a sample piece if you are not sure if your paints or inks are waterproof.  Many / most aren't waterproof (The pink color on the hearts above weren't waterproof, so the color smeared.)
The darker heart on the far right above isn't backed yet, and it wants to curl up. It is basically unusable without reinforcement.

Hearts in process and in use - The extras will make other projects go faster

Tip 3: I make bunches of shapes I like on the same day, (cutout; glue down to paper; paint/stamp/embellish; optionally varnish).  This can increase options and productivity on other days.


Tip 4: I work on multiple projects at the same time - I also created other signatures (one for Autumn and one for Travel) at the same time.  It keeps me engaged when I hit a drying spell (pun intended) or when I just want to use a different material, etc. This works for me but might not work for everyone.   

Album pages with vintage Easter postcards

Tip 5: What size?  I decided on sheets 11 inches wide x 8 inches high folded in half and sewn into signatures.  11 inches lets me use 8.5x11 inch paper folded in half and cut down.  Also, many resale shop hard covered books would easily contain the signatures if I decide to bind them together.  If creating a mini-album to display vintage postcards, I would recommend a wider size.

Album page with robin egg tag

I hope you have enjoyed this post

and the spring to come!

(unless you are south of the equator then enjoy fall!)

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Click on the images to see them enlarged.




If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy...

Spring Tags

Spring Needlework

Vintage Lace

Mixed Media 1

Mixed Media 2

Mixed Media 3

Eggs of stone

Eggs-travaganza

Mosaic Birds

Mosaic Birdhouse

Bluebirds

Glass Flowers

Winter Garden

Mosaic Cross

Heart Quilt

I visit and linking up to lots of parties:

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Related cool posts:
Paper from vintage linens 
French-vintage-farmhouse-journal
Making paper bag albums by Dragonflytreasure
Easy junk journal by Freshvintagebylisas
Wyzlemoncraft.pl: z-moodboardem (supercool)
An Envelope from a calendar

Life and Linda: Dishing it Digging it 89 Sun 3p (l Entry missed)