First of all, let me confess: this idea is not original to me, I just tweaked what Cathy Zielske did. You can check her album out here. I fell in love with her album, it is so adorable yet simple. And she has put all the colors and numbers and used adorable graphics, and has figured out all the measurements for you, and has even created a label for the album spine! I can't say enough good things about her album. But there were a few things that I wanted to do differently, so I created my own. 1) Cathy designed her pages for a 6x6 album. I have put myself on a scrap spending freeze, so I can't go out and buy another album. 2) since it's a 6x6 that you print out and then cut, I would be using 32 pieces of white cardstock, and would have a lot of scraps. 3) because it's a 6x6, the photo would have to be cut down to 5x4. No biggie...but I'd rather just have a space for a full 4x6 and cut down on my work.
I have a bind-it-all with lots and lots of binder rings I stocked up on when an lss went out of business, so it was a no brainer to just make my own. I took 1 piece of 8 1/2 x 11 chipboard and 8 pieces of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock and cut them in half. Then I used my bind-it-all and punched the holes in one end.
Then I took out a well-used collection of paper, Indian Summer by Basic Grey, and cut thirty 1 x 5 1/2 inch strips of paper and attached them near the end of the white papers away from the holes on both sides. There was one piece of cardstock 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 left over which I later used to cut out the title for the front of the book.
Then I used distress markers and made colored lines to hold the journaling for each day, and then used a stamp set I've been hoarding for 5-6 years for the first time to stamp the date on each page.
I can't wait to use it!
