Summer mini album...

Hello, I'm finally back to share with you something! Before I do that, I should say - baby is A LOT of work, but we love him so much! I think he is the most kissable baby in the world!

Anyway, I've been joining Ali Edwards and hundreds of other scrapbookers in December Daily challenge for three years and I always loved it. This year, I really wanted to highlight our summer in a separate mini album. I wanted it to be a project of it's own. I wasn't going to make a page for every day of the summer, but wanted to highlight some little everyday moments that would bring memories back when we look through the book. I have about 30 pages all together in it.

For the longest time I wanted to add sewing to my mini books but didn't know a good way to do it, since sewing shows on the other side. So I came up with an idea that solves that problem - folded page. I started with a 12x12 pattern paper and trimmed four inches off the top:

 

and then folded the piece in the middle, which gave me an 8x6 page:

For the base of my album I used a collection of kraft colored paper from My Mind's Eye:

I added lined paper to each side of my page for easy journaling, and punched holes:

Identifying those little stories, picking out a photo and arranging it with a little pattern paper to make it more fun was my favorite par of the project:

After adding a photo, I stitched around white paper on all of my pages, and randomly added more stitching on other elements of design:

 Since most of my design happened to be on the outside edge of the page, I used a piece of paper to glue inside the folded page, which served two purposes - it gave the book a little more even shape and reinforced the holes:

Here are a few more pages from the album:

 
I also added a kraft envelope to the album,

to include some memorabilia like a drawing from my four year old or a note from my teen, or a business card from the place where we ate:

I wanted this project to be quick and easy, so I'm adding a hand written journaling to the book, unlike any of my other projects.

That's it for today. I might come back to share the rest of the pages from this album-journal. 

Thanks for visiting and I'll see you soon!