Monday, December 5, 2011

Creating Christmas Day 2

                                                   Creating Christmas at The Girl Creative


Good morning and welcome to Day 2 of Creating Christmas with The Girl Creative!  I'm excited to show you today a great, simple and inexpensive Christmas gift that I recently made.  I love giving homemade and handmade Christmas gifts because they are usually more cost efficient and show you have put some time, energy and thought into a special gift.  

I made these mini scrapbook albums for my family members to showcase some photos of my children throughout this past year. 


You will need a piece of cardboard (box flaps work great), fabric, ribbon and cardstock.  

Here is the how to:
1.  Cut the cardboard to a 6 inch by 13 inch piece.  Score and fold at 6 inches from each end making a 1 inch binding.
 2.  Cut your fabric to roughly 8 inches by 15 inches.
 3.  Glue the fabric around the cardboard using a hot glue gun.  Fold over the corners as shown in the next two photos

 4.  Cut two 6x6 pieces of cardstock and glue to the inside front and back of your cardboard to hide the cardboard and cover the edges of the fabric.

 5.  (No photo of the cut cardstock sorry) I cut cardstock into 6 x 6 3/4, 6 x 6 1/2, and 6 x 6 1/4 (two of each size) and scored each piece to a 6x6 square.  For example the 6 x 6 3/4 pieces I scored and folded at 3/4 inches.  Then I glued each of the matching pieces together to make mini books and then centered the fold and glued into the book.  See the two photos below for the finished inside look.


6.  Then I cut a piece of black ribbon to coordinate with my fabric and glued it to the back of the photo album. 
 7.  Bring it around the front and tie your album closed.

Now with your finished album you can just wrap and give as is to someone who might like to make their own scrapbook pages or fill with photos and give to grandparents - what grandmother doesn't like a photo album filled with photos of their grandchildren?

Cost: Cardboard (Free with all the boxes being delivered to my house for Christmas)
         Fabric ($1.99 a yard on sale at Joanne's - one yard makes three albums)
         Cardstock 0.40 when purchased in bulk from Close To My Heart. (used four sheets)
         Ribbon ($1.99 a roll at Joanne's - used about 1/6 of the roll)
         Total per album is less than $3

Check out some of my other homemade/handmade gifts here

Paper Flower Ball

Paper Flower Wreath

Yarn wreath with felt flowers

Fabric Flower and Elastic Headband

Handmade Notecard set


Homemade Vanilla Extract with Handmade Gift Tags
Come back tomorrow when I'll post some great Christmas cards ideas (most of which I got off of pinterest)!  Don't forget to check out Cooking with Cricut for Day 5 of 25 Days of Christmas Crafting for some fun giveaways, free digital stamps and tons of Christmas project ideas!  

Free File (over at Cooking with Cricut)

Linking with
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Elizabeth


Elizabeth Mindemann alwaysdeeper@hotmail.com www.ejoym.blogspot.com
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http://thecsiproject.com/

10 comments:

  1. FABULOUS!!!!!! love the album and wow you are nice and early with your new project!!! : ) i am honored to be co-hosting with you at the girl creative! i am now your newest follower! sending hugs...

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  2. I'm always looking for great, inexpensive gift ideas and I must say, I love this one! Thanks for sharing. Excited to be a new follower and co-hosting with you :)

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  3. Cute! Love that it's so frugal. I would have never thought of using the cardboard.

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  4. Oh my gosh, this is genius. I have to give this a try. Love it1
    Thanks for linking up to Make the Scene Monday!

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  5. Elizabeth, I love all these projects! Will you link one up to my link party? "Sit Back, Relax, and look at all the loveliness"? jaihartjustlovelydesigns.blogspot.com

    Jill♥

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  7. These are beautiful! Great job :)

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  8. tons of great projects, thanks!
    Emily
    domesticdeadline.blogspot.com

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  9. Thanks sharing and inspiring us at Shine on Friday! You are fabulous!! I definitely have to make these.

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