Square Mini Album -- Good for any occasion!

I CASEd this idea from Monika Weiss, a Stampin' Up! demonstrator from Austria, and created a video showing how to make this little bridal book.

It doesn't use a lot of materials -- just one piece of 12" x 12" DSP, two A4 pieces of cardstock, a couple 11 x 11 cm squares of cardboard and 50 cm of ribbon to tie it shut -- so you can put one together fairly quickly.

You can click here for Monika Weiss' instruction sheet which is written in German, however the measurements are easy to read and I explain them in my video.

There are plenty of pages to decorate in this little album, 12 in total! This gives you lots of room for photos, signatures or other memorabilia.

You can decorate the inside pages with stamped images, sentiments or die cuts, but make sure you leave enough space for photos or messages from well wishers.

The bridal book is made with one sheet of Flowering Foils Specialty Designer Series Paper and Whisper White cardstock.

For the cover I stamped the bride from Wonderful Moments in Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, coloured it with Stampin' Blends and then cut it out with the second largest rectangle from the Stitched So Sweetly dies.

I stamped the words 'For the Bride' in Versamark ink and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder before I fussy cut it out and popped it up using a dimensional.

I used lots of stamped images from Wonderful Moments, Stitched All Around, Good Morning Magnolia, Love What You Do, and Beauty Abounds to decorate the inside pages with Basic Gray ink.

For the first mini album I made, I used a piece of Animal Expedition DSP (retired) and the Animal Outing stamp set.

I made peek-through areas with some of the Animal Friends dies on a few of the pages and decorated the rest with stamped images coloured with Stampin' Blends.

This album would also be perfect for photos, a gift, an autograph book, a special birthday card or a mini scrapbook. There is no limit to what you could use it for!

#KeepCalmAndCraft #ComputerAndCraftDesigns #StampinUp #creativetherapy #StayHome #CraftHappy #ShareSunshine #trysomethingnewchallenge #Embossing #Scrapbook #DesignerSeriesPaper #MiniAlbum #BridalBook #PhotoAlbum 

Squash Card Fun Fold

I was watching Sara Douglass' home crafting video last week and a card her daughter made reminded me of one I learned how to make 12 years ago when I was a Girl Guide Leader at the J'08 Christchurch Jamboree.

This style of fun fold is called a squash card because you squash it down to close it! Squash cards are perfect for scrapbooks, journals, photo albums or a special life event like retirement or a big birthday! I used my original card as an autograph book so I could collect contact details to keep in touch with all the wonderful people I met at the jamboree.

It is easy to create the base of this card . . . the hardest part is deciding how to decorate it!  So I got out some cardstock, designer series paper, stamps and ink and then a few hours later I had created a couple squash cards.

Here are photos showing the front and back of my two cards.

The smaller one was made with three 6" x 6" (15.2 cm square) pieces of Very Vanilla cardstock using the So Sentimental Bundle and Tropical Oasis designer series papers with coordinating colours.

I show you how to make the larger one in my video using two 8-1/4" x 8-1/4" (21 cm square) pieces of Whisper White cardstock. I decorated it with stamps from one of the 'host only' sets called New Wonders along with papers from the Pressed Petals Specialty Designer Series Paper, Come Sail Away Designer Series Paper and an envelope liner from the Magnolia Lane Memories & More Large Specialty Cards & Envelopes.

You can make your squash card any length you want by adding more squares. The finished size of the top will be half the size of the original square that you start with, i.e. a 4" x 4" starting square will give you a 2" x 2" finished card.

When you decorate the inside of the card you simply use squares which are slightly smaller than the finished card size and you can cut them in half at the diagonal for the triangular areas. For the small card I used 2-3/4" (7 cm) squares and the larger card was decorated with 4" (10 cm) squares.

I had lots of fun decorating these cards and I used a lot of colours. For a full list of the supplies have a look at the description under my YouTube video.

I hope you enjoyed this fun fold card and I'd love to see you make your own Squash Card!

#KeepCalmAndCraft #ComputerAndCraftDesigns #StampinUp #creativetherapy #StayHome #NewWonders #SquashCard #Scrapbook #TropicalOasis #PressedPetals #SoSentimental #Journal #AutographBook  #LargeCard