DIY Envelope Mini Album

Hi there friends! Hope you are having a lovely day! Do you feel like this year is already flying by? I do! All of our kiddos got one kind of sickness or another during December and then January too and now everyone is sick again! It makes me ready for Spring and all this sickness to be over, but I’m also feeling like it was just Christmas and I’m not ready for the weeks and months to be flying by so quickly! One of the things I love to do in January is look back through all of our photos from the previous year. It’s fun to relive all the memories and I also like to do a bit of digital organizing and inventory if you will… cleaning up the photo folders and printing the most favorite pictures that I know I want to scrapbook. When Kathleen sent over today’s project for the blog, it reminded me that I haven’t had time to do that project yet this year! She made the most darling recap mini album of 2018 and I want to make one now too! It’s a DIY envelope mini album that you can make pretty easily if you use the envelope making template tool listed in the post. Read on for all the details…

Hey there, it’s Kathleen here with you again and today I have a really fun project to share with you. Now I don’t do Project Life, but I still wanted to have something to remember the highlights of the past year, so I thought I would create a mini album for it… an envelope mini album to be exact.

As you can imagine, I took a whole bunch of photos in 2018 and couldn’t possibly include all of them in this album. So I picked one for each month that represented a special event or that symbolized what that month was about. Then I also included some journaling about all the other events of that month on a journaling card, which I tucked into the corresponding envelope.

For all of the envelopes I used patterned papers from the beautiful Willow Lane collection. Some from the 12×12 paper pad and some of the single sheets. For this mini album it doesn’t matter if the papers are only printed on one side because the white side will be covered up. So it’s a great opportunity to use up those paper pads!

I kept the embellishing very simple, since some of the patterns are already quite busy. I used different stickers and die cuts from various Maggie Holmes collections, mostly Flourish, Carousel and the Maggie Holmes Sticker Book (which I love!).

I also made sure to incorporate the number or name of the respective month on each page in some way.

The album itself is really easy and quick to make. You can either make your own envelopes (using a tool like the We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board or 1-2-3 Punch Board really helps) or use ready made envelopes and embellish them later. It’s a lot easier to show how it’s made than explain it, so hop on over to my YouTube channel to find the tutorial for this mini, plus a flip-through of my finished album.

At the end of my album I also included two envelopes for “plans & wishes” where I plan to include a journaling card for each of my husband and my plans/wishes for 2019. I’m really happy with how this album turned out and that I now have something to flip through and reminisce about the past year! 🙂

You could of course create a mini like this for any kind of occasion. If you make it as a vacation mini, you could put your favorite photo of each day on one envelope and include a journaling card with all the info about what you did that day. The envelopes are also great to tuck in ephemera like tickets or small maps.

Whatever you choose, I hope this project inspires you and maybe you will try it out yourself! 🙂 Thanks so much for stopping by! Kathleen

Materials:  Maggie Holmes Willow Lane / We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board / 1-2-3 Punch Board / Willow Lane 12×12 Paper Pad / Willow Lane Ephemera Die Cuts /  Willow Lane 6×8 Paper Pad /   Willow Lane Cardstock Stickers /  Willow Lane Waterfall Cardstock Stickers / Willow Lane Gold Foil Alphabet Stickers / Maggie Holmes Sticker Book / Flourish Ephemera / Carousel Ephemera