It’s Easy to Make Your Own Mini Albums for Scrapbooking, Art Journaling, Planning, Note Taking or Whatever Other Purpose You Might Need Them for. Read on for Free Mini Album Instructions and Ideas.
Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice: That’s What This Cute Mini Album Is Made Of!
Specifically, it is made of papers and embellishments from the “Harvest Market” and “Good Stuff” Collections by Simple Stories.
Crafting Skill Level: Easy
Craft Supplies You’ll Need for Making a Mini Album With a Saddle-Stitched Spine
- We R Makers (Formerly We R Memory Keepers) Book Binding Set — This set comes with a book binding tool, an awl, some waxed thread, 2 needles, a felt pouch to use for organizing everything, and an instruction sheet.
The book binding tool is useful for helping you make straight, evenly spaced holes in your paper to stitch through. It is not a strict necessity. I highly recommend it, but if you don’t have it, you can use a ruler to mark your papers with evenly-spaced guides for placing holes in your papers. In place of the waxed thread, you can use pretty much any sewing thread, fine crochet thread, fine yarn or embroidery floss. It’s ideal to use a tapestry needle or darning needle for doing your sewing, although there are other possible needles that could work, too. - Scoring Board or Other Scoring Tool — I’m using a Scor-Pal tool to do the scoring for my mini albums. There are other scoring boards and scoring tools that will also work for this purpose.
- 12″x12″ Papers — You’ll need at least 2 sheets of 12″x12″ patterned paper to use for making the pages of your mini album. I used 2 12″x12″ sheets of patterned paper from the “Good Stuff” collection by Simple Stories. This collection features one paper for each month of the year. I decided to make my project a fall-themed mini album featuring photos I took in the months of September and October — so I chose to use the September and October papers from this collection. You can use these, too, if you want your mini album to look like mine. If you want to scrap a different season, you could choose papers from some of the other months in the year as an alternative to these. Or you could choose any other papers you love.
- Paper Cutter or Trimmer
- Extra Papers and Embellishments — There are zillions of possible ways you can embellish your mini album. You could use stickers, die cuts, frames, washi tapes, ribbon or whatever other embellishments you like. I used stickers from the Harvest Market cardstock sticker sheet to embellish my mini album pages. I also used pocket cards from the Harvest Market 6″x8″ paper pad and handmade frames I made using papers from the same pad. I used the We R Makers Frame Punch Board to make the frames. I used Happy Planner washi tape on both the book cover and the interior pages.
- Photos up to 4″x6″ in Size — If you want your mini album to be a scrapbook, you’ll need some photos to scrap with. This small-sized album works best with small photos; photos measuring 3″ x 4″ are ideal, but you can also use 2″x2″ photos, 2″x3″ photos, 4″x4″ photos or photos that measure 4″x6″ or any size smaller than that. A 4″x6″ photo will take up one entire page in this mini album.
- Adhesive — You’ll need a flat, paper-friendly adhesive such as Cherry Tape, Scor Tape or Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive. It’s optional to also use a three-dimensional adhesive. I like using Scrapbook.com’s Adhesive Foam Strips to make photo frames appear to pop up from the page. I also use them to attach random embellishments to the pages to make them look more interesting. However, please do not overdo it with the foam adhesive so you can be sure of getting your book to close properly.
How to Make the Mini Album: Free Step-by-Step Instructions and Tutorial
- Cut each of your 2 sheets of 12″x12″ paper into thirds measuring 4″ tall by 12″ wide.
- Score each of these pieces of paper down the middle using a scoring tool.
- Put your papers in the order you want them to appear in your mini album and stack them neatly on top of each other with the center fold lines all aligned.
- Thread your needle with the waxed thread or whichever thread, floss, yarn or fiber you plan to use.
- Use the book binding tool and your awl or paper piercing tool to punch evenly-spaced holes down the center fold line on your stack of papers.
- Stitch through the holes using your threaded needle. Saddle stitch simply goes up through one hole, down through the next hole, etc. Then after you’ve stitched the entire spine of the book, you can backtrack and go back through the holes again in the other direction if you want to make the sturdiest possible binding. If you have the We R Makers Book Binding Tool, you can consult the instruction guide to see how to do this type of binding plus some other fancier bindings, too.
- Knot your thread at the end to keep the binding from unraveling.
- Embellish your book as desired.
So there you have it: That’s how to make a mini album using the We R Makers Book Binding Tool Set. I hope you’ll enjoy making and decorating your own mini albums! Happy crafting!
Over to You:
Have you tried making a mini album with a saddle stitched binding? If so, how did it turn out? How did you embellish it? Did you keep it for yourself or give it as a gift to a loved one? Do you have any questions about making mini albums?
The floor is open for comments — so if you have questions or feedback about this project idea, please feel free to leave a comment and we will do our best to help you if we know the answers to your questions.
Thanks so much for taking a look at this project. I appreciate your interest!
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By Amy Solovay
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About the Author:
Amy Solovay is a real, live, human content creator and educator who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Sweet Briar College; she has also earned a separate Associate of Arts degree in textile design from FIDM LA (The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Los Angeles). She is NOT a robot and does not use artificial intelligence (AI) to write book reviews or articles for this website.
As an educator, Amy Solovay used to teach in-person college courses in trend forecasting, marketing and surface design at California Design College in Los Angeles. Nowadays she uses online platforms for sharing her knowledge about textiles, crafts, current color trends and current design trends.
This page was last updated on 11-23-2024.
