Step by step mini photo album in a box as promised

Had a lovely scrapbook demo at squires in badshot lea yesterday, nice and busy as they had a quilting exhibition there too. for the lovely ladies who admired the mini album i made for my friend Marilyn , here it is finished with instructions.

i started with a 6 x 6 stepper card, i opened it out horizontally and then scored it to make 6 equal parts, i then folded it in half and cut it down in the guillotine to 3" high. so you then have 2 mini books to decorate .

I used the above pack of lucy cromwell A4 ultimate die-cut pack to decorate my book as it was most suitable.
I painted my box, ( nesting boxes from Do-crafts) with pearlised acrylic paint, several coats

i printed off my photos in picassa, 12 to a page.

The way i chose to decorate my album depended on the photo's and the colours , in this one you would not use any red embellishments or it would bring the fire extinguisher to your notice . i am going to find the best colours by laying photo on to them , see below

i prefer the lower paper buy just to be sure i am trying it with a toning mat as well, see below

 Yup, they are both nice but i think the pink one brings the presents to the viewers attention more.
i shall ink up the edges in a dark purple before sticking into my album,

i then chose a die cut frame to pop over the image.

as you can see, i have now added some 'presents 'embellishments from the pack to cover the fire extinguisher and the radiator in the photo. the green button is added to draw the eye to the green plants in the background too. i continued in this way for the photo below , using a 'cup cake ' embellishment to cover the half a person in the background.

Try different techniques like embossing as shown above.

 on the photo above, i cut some bunting from a page in the lucy cromwell pack

i continued in this way for the rest of the book and these are some of the other pages.

i made a front and back cover for my book, and you could just tie it with ribbon if you didn't want to put it into a box. Or you could stick the last page of the book into the bottom of the box, so it just pulls out to view. i thought my box was a little deep for that.

i covered the front of my box with pretty paper , punched in the corners and inked.

adding a small pink stone to each embossed flower

I finally stuck a ribbon all around the lid of the box and tied it on one corner.

I hope she likes it, and i hope you like it too and will have a go yourself :-)

just a quick post before i go to work, this is a quick large card made with an A5 Lucy Cromwell card kit.

this is the second card made with the pack. there is loads in the pack to make several big and smaller cards. very good value.
i added the back ground paper from the A4 ultimate die cut set and the tag. the name was cut on my cricut machine. Happy Birthday for Dion tomorrow

A simple scrapbook page anyone can follow, step by step

I am on my soap box again, i love to scrapbook and i love to get others into my 'habit'
so this is a simple easy page that can be done in any colour, just to get someone (anyone ?) started

hope you like it - start with a plain 12 x 12 in this case and this one is black- i am using for my page, bexley black and lincoln linen papers from Do-crafts capsule range

I have trimmed some lincoln linen paper to 12 x 11 so the black edges show on the sides

I then added an 8 x 8 in bexley black , i laid it on the paper to see if i liked it. then i distressed the edges by rolling them over and ripping a bit. adding an ink pad to the edges. used tim holtz old paper distressed ink
see below, and then i stuck it down as shown.

Next i did the same with another piece of bexley black , this time matting it onto a piece of lincoln linen cut slightly bigger.

I then stuck it down as shown above

This is my chosen photo as its black and white its ideal. i have matted it onto some black card as above and then added it to the left side of  the centre square

Here you can see i have used a white pen to ink around the edges like stitches

-and a black pen on this one

I have added a long piece of lincoln linen to fit down the right hand side of the centre grey square. 

 i sneakily used the card from a pack of bexley black die cut shapes as its pretty with the bow on it.
i then used some lincoln linen strips of sticky borders in the black flower shape,see below,  i left the centres in the middle of the flowers so it would cover the printed text  on the card. then using blitters and buttons for the centres

Next i used a button to cover the circle writing i didnt want and i did a bit of journaling on the card in black.

 More sneaky stuff, i used the front of the 8 x 8 bexley black paper pack and chopped the piece as shown. it covers the rest of the writing on the card i didnt want to see. (Below) in the A4 die cut packs you always get some nice letter, these are some i have used on this page to say US 2 as you can see, these sticky back letters can be coloured to suit your project

Finally added blitters, a large button  to embellish further. and you could go on adding stuff. but i really think less is more sometimes and i was happy with the end result. i shall do a page to go opposite this one in my scrapbook in my demo at squires on Saturday 23rd June and will post it on here after that.

This is a matching page, i like to make a similar page to go on the facing page in my scrapbook. not the same, just similar