BRAGBOOK Week here over at Fancy Pants Designs - Day 4

This week, here, on the Fancy Pants Designs blog, you will get a handful of inspiration everyday and we are focused on our ever popular Brag Books! Whether you are into mini albums, want to scrapbook your summer memories or document your daily life, our Brag Books are the best companion for memory keeping.

Meet Alexes for our fourth Brag Book Day !

Hi there, Alexes Brown from Dear Lexe Designs here to give you a step-by-step tutorial on how to make “A Few of My Favorite Things” mini album. 

Scrapbookers devote their lives to documenting the stories of their families and those around them but the most often neglected stories are the ones about themselves! Today is all about making an album featuring, you guessed it, YOU! We will be using product from the Trendsetter line, a little of the Artist Edition and with the amazing Brag Books from Fancy Pants Designs! Let’s get started!

The first thing I did was to carefully pull the metal binding apart to make it a tiny bit loose, just enough to pull all the pages out from it. This is useful if the color of brag book doesn’t match your color scheme. In this case my Brag Book was brown but my color scheme was Navy, Pink, and Teal. In this tutorial I’ll show you how to not only customize the cover with patterned paper but also how to cover the binding (the brown part) with paper as well. 

The first thing I did was to take one of the covers and adhered patterned paper by first putting down some glue onto the kraft part of the cover and then laying the patterned paper so it aligns right next to the brown “seam” if you will.

Then I flip the cover over...

...and trim the paper by cutting alongside the chipboard cover. I prefer this method because I don’t have to worry about aligning my pre-measured and cut paper perfectly before my glue dries. This way I just can cut the page after it’s already glued down and I’ll have the perfect size, every time. 

The next step is to cover the brown part of the cover or the binding. I measured out a piece of Navy paper to the right height and then cut the width to twice as long as the brown section. It’s useful to cut the width a little bit longer, to account for the actual thickness of the chipboard cover.  Be sure to only glue one side. 

After the glue dries its time to cut out the holes so the binding can go through. 

This is where a precision set of filing tools comes in handy. I just took my flat file and filed along the four edges of each square. Another way to do this is to use an exacto knife, but I think this left the edges cleaner. 

This is what it looks like when one side is all finished. Now that you have finished one side it’s time to glue the other side down. Then you can repeat the same filing process on the unfinished side. 

All finished! Now you are free to layer on your embellishments onto the front cover. 

Notice how the patterned paper on the front cover is upside down compared to the back cover? This is because when the back cover is flipped around (so the patterned paper will appear the backside of the book) the patterns will match up. 

The next mini-tutorial is how to make a peek-a-boo window. First cut out a square from some type of clear material, I used part of a page protector but honestly you can use anything, a clear plastic bag, acetate, or even vellum. 

The next part may seem intimidating but it’s really easy. Just place your square wherever you want it on the page. I chose to center it and I just eyed it, no measuring. And then sew a straight line along three sides of the square. 

Next, put in your little bits and pieces of paper. I just used a butterfly punch and a regular hole punch for this page.

After you’ve added what you want close up your square by sewing along the last edge of the square. I like to sew around the whole thing a few more times just because I think it’s cute!

TIP: to hide any sewing you might do take another piece of paper from the journal and glue it to the back of your sewn paper. 

The next thing I’m going to show you is how to turn one of the stencils from the Artist Edition into a little mini page. 

I took one of the journaling pages from the Album and cut a strip about 1.5 inches wide, making sure to include the holes from the page.

Then I glued the stencil right on top of the paper but notice how there’s a part of the paper that kind of peeks through the stencil? Well I didn’t like that so I just used my exacto knife to remove the pieces I didn’t want. 

Then I added the stitching just along the left side of the stencil just for fun!

Okay this next page is really fun and really easy. I simply used my silhouette to cut out a phrase and then (here’s the tricky part) I took another journaling page and lined it up so the holes for the wires were aligned and both of the journaling sides were touching on the inside. 

This way the back of this paper will also be this plain kraft color. 

Then I just chose a few of my favorite patterns from the collection and put a small piece behind each word to give it some color. The pieces don’t have to be perfect because they will be hidden once you glue the two journaling pages together.  

Here you can see how I arranged my pages so both of the sides that have journaling lines are on the inside of the paper sandwich. See, I told you it was easy!

The next page is really fun and probably my favorite! 

I took one of the divided plastic page protectors and some glitter and dumped some of the glitter into one of the sections.  Then I broke out my handy dandy sewing machine and closed the open side with a straight stich. I did a full back stich that ran the entire length of the edge just to be sure it was really closed off. 

Be sure to then shake your page so all the glitter is spread out as evenly as possible. 

Then (and here’s the fun part) I just chose the cutest looking stiches my sewing machine had to offer and sewed a bunch of horizontal lines, making sure the glitter was as even as possible as I sewed. 

How cute is that?? Something “sew” easy, fast and fun! And not to mention the texture it adds to the album! 

TIP: I usually will NOT back stitch on these horizontal lines. If you pull on one of the strings it will usually help the stich on the other side to kind of pop out, you can then pull on it until both the strings are on the same side of the paper and you can then tie them in a knot and cut off the remaining thread. Although I have seen people who like to leave the threads alone too, if you want something different. 

Now the very last thing you need to do it put your pages in the order you like and slip the binding back through all the holes, pinch the wires together again and voilà!  You’re finished with an amazing album!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you had a great time creating!!

- Alexes

Comments

[Jean A Marmo]

Such a great album and very clever ideas!!

[Izzy Anderson]

There's so many fun tips here. Beautiful work. I love all the stitching.

[Angie Gutshall]

Such a fun tutorial!! I love all the designs and very creative ideas!

[Lisa T.]

Fabulous tutorial!! So much creativity and inspiration! I love it!

[Vicki Chrisman]

Really fun stuff! Love it!!

[Nicole]

Awesome stuff here! I'm in love with what you did with the photo sleeves and glitter, totally stealing that idea :).

[Alexes Brown]

thanks guys!! you're all so sweet!

[Diana Brodeur]

I loved all the tidbits you added to your album! And those confetti and glitter pockets are so cute!

[Sharon Gullikson]

What an awesome book. I love all of the details!

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[susie mccormick]

Really nice book and great details! thank you so much for all the great steps and pictures

[Tracey]

What an absolutely fabulous book!!

[Jennifer Grace]

This is gorgeous, I love the die-cutting and the stitched pocket with glitter in! x

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yay! I'm so glad all of you enjoyed this tutorial!

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