Hi, friends! It’s Rae here to share with you a mini album I made using recycled cardboard because I am a “girl with a re-purpose”! If you are anything like me, online shopping for everyday things is a way of life! And, the one thing you get every time you shop online is a cardboard box, which you must recycle. BUT, you don’t have to throw ALL of those boxes in the recycling bin- cardboard can be a scrapper’s source of free materials such as using it like a canvas, using it in lieu of pop dots, and making mini albums! It’s so easy to do, and the possibilities are endless with creating the different sizes and shapes you want, for FREE!

I decided to use the Crate Paper Carousel papers from the kit to make this mini album:

I thought it would be fun to make a circle album, and I wanted to get the most out of the three sheets of the Carousel papers, so I measured how big I would be able to make four circles out of each sheet, so I could get two pages out of each sheet. That ended up being about 5.5 inches in diameter.

I decided that I wanted 5 circles total for my mini album because I wanted to use the paper with the blue and pink lines one side and the advertisements on the other as little accents inside the album.

Tip: when you are cutting cardboard, use heavy-duty scissors. You don’t want to use the ones you use for fine cuts because they will get dull and may bend.

After cutting the cardboard, I cut the papers.

At this point, it’s time to prep the cardboard because the “Kraft” color is not the look I am going for- I want to make the edges flow and blend with the paper. White it’s the common color in all of the papers, so that’s the color I go with here.

I used heavy white gesso. And white paint will do, but I prefer gesso because it’s thick, so it will only take two coats and it dries fast.

I used a foam brush on the top where the cardboard will show, and a stippling brush that has coarse bristles to jab the gesso into the edges.

Once the gesso is dry, I add the papers to the cardboard. I like to use liquid glue for this, in particular, Zip Dry. This glue is great for spreading, which I do with a rub-on tool. A brayer or bone folder works just as well. If any on the glue comes out from underneath the paper, you can just rub the glue, and it will ball up and come off completely.

Once the glue had dried, I add the white gesso to the edges with a foam brush to give the edges a blended look.

Here’s a close up of how I applied the gesso. You can see it gives it a shabby, distressed look.

At this point, the mini album is ready to be embellished! I use a hole punch on each of the circles, paying attention to the direction of the design of the papers, and then bind them with a circle clip.

Here are some closeups of the completed mini album (without pictures, for now).

I added ribbon to the ring that binds the pages, and most of the blue Melissa Frances garland on each of the pages of the album. The flowers are from Prima Marketing. I made the flag stick from a dowel I had and added glue to the silver ribbon and twisted it. I cut the “Today at the Fair” from the paper that I didn’t use to cover the pages of the mini album.

 

 

 

In this spread, on the left there is room for one small picture on the white cardstock.

On the right, I added the silver ribbon in the middle of the page, but only added glue to the ends, so could slip in some of the tickets, and other mementos and pictures later for an interactive element to the mini album.

These pages both have spaces for one picture. The pictures will be placed where the white cardstock is, so all of the tickets will be poking out.

 

Thanks for letting me share my mini album using the Crate Paper Carousel products that came in the September kit!