Today we are have a project that makes a terrific present for the grandmothers in your life!
Last week our family had the pleasure of being with our extended family. All nine Flores cousins were together. The kids had an amazing time getting to know one another, and we were thrilled to meet the smallest. These gatherings are sadly not a frequent occurrence for us, so when they happen, I find myself taking oodles and oodles of pictures. This time, not only did I take lots of together time pictures, but also managed to get an individual photo of each of the kids. I was so happy. Visions of mini albums began to swirl in my head.
I remembered many of you asking for ways to use up 4x6 photos, so I thought I would try to put a mini together that made use of them! (Since I switched to digital, I have not printed out many photos and funnily, I was a bit startled by the size of the photos! Silly, huh?)
For this album you will need 10 patterned papers (fewer if they have backsides you can use), one sheet of letter stickers, a bit of twine, a binder ring, a heart punch, a trimmer, a needle, some adhesive, and some journaling cards.
I love the Handmade line from LilyBee and knew it would be perfect.
especially knowing that LilyBee has these amazing letter sticker sheets.
I thought these would make terrific journaling cards (aligning the number to the order of the cousins)
but alas, my local store did not have them, so instead I made journaling cards for the kids.
I was also hoping for this page to decorate my cover
but again, no luck. (I should have done some better time management on my thoughts, no? ☺) So I dug out an old heart punch instead. A bit of red twine, and my tools, and I was ready to go.
Here is my put-it-together list:
- for the cover, trim 2 6x6 pages
- for the inner pages, trim 9 6x6 pages
- order the pages
- adhere the photos
- add the journaling cards between pages
- punch a hole for the binder ring
- decorate the cover
Not too bad, I hope. I am making this one for Richard's mother, whose term of endearment for the kids is "Angel," which I (happily!) used in lieu of Grandma's Brag Book, for the cover title. I strung 9 hearts together on the twine, representing each of the 9 kids. I had a leftover journaling card that I also added to the cover for a bit of extra decoration. And here it is! I hope you, and she, like it!
Here are a few of the inside pages.
As you can see, the photos sit on the bottom four inches. Nothing fancy. I printed them with their names on them, too. (Not that Grandma/Gummy/Gumball/Boo doesn't know who they are??!!)
(I was hoping for something sweet. I suppose 13 and sentimental are a bit incongruent.)
Here you can see that the cousins' journaling cards are not yet written.
I will drop the cousins' cards in the mail this morning which should give me plenty of time to get them back, reassemble the book, and then pop it in the mail to Grandma! All in time for Mother's Day--a first for me, that's certain!
I hope you might consider this as a fun gift for a grandma in you life!
Thank you for stopping!
