Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Mini with How To Instructions!

Make Your Own Snippets of Us

Cosmo Cricket makes some very cool Blackboard mini albums, and when I landed my eyes on one at my LSS I had to get one and play with it. The style I found is called “Ruby’s Album”, and I bought some blackboard letters to go along with. I paired the black album with my collection of Cosmo’s “Get Happy” collection as I love nothing better than bright colors on black.

Gather These Supplies
Cosmo Cricket Ruby’s Album
Cosmo Cricket Get Happy Cardstock and Rub ons
Cosmo Cricket Retro Mix Blackboard letters
Cloud 9 Sentiments Stamps (circle journaling blocks)
Staz On ink - Teal Blue and Black Cherry
Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink - black
Misc. buttons to coordinate
Glitter pens, favorite journaling pen, colored pencils, ribbon

Starting Off With These Time Savers:
1. Scan in one page of the blackboard album, reduce size slightly, print image and cut out to create a shape template. Using the template will allow you to cut your patterned cardstock at the same approximate curve radius as that of the blackboard album.

2. Use a white sheet of cardstock, 2 journaling stamps and 2 coordinating colors of ink – stamp out all journal blocks at one time, cutting out and inking all edges. (I used the Coluzzle small circle template to trim out Cloud 9 Sentiments journaling stamps.) I allowed for three journaling blocks (circles) per page to give balance, and offer plenty of room to write snippets.

3. Print photos to size and trim out, or select 2-3 photos per page that are already in your photo collection, and crop. The inside pages use primarily 3x4 and 2x3 photos, all distressed with black ink along the edges.

With all of these elements now ready to go, the SNIPPETS album can be assembled in less than two hours – as long as you keep embellishments simple. I used rub-ons and buttons – they are fun, the buttons are bright and it was quick to grab them from their storage container. I was tempted to doodle more on the pages, but resisted to a few dash marks around the curves using a white colored pencil. When using intense colors and patterns less is often more.

Each page of this album was designed to allow the contrast of the blackboard album to make an impact with the bright papers. This image shows you the clean lines prior to finishing the album with photos and journaling. If you are “all about clean lines”, by all means make this idea your own and position your photos straight, journal blocks contained within the color blocks, etc.


For the inner strips cardstock was cut to 2” width, and that strip cut into two 6” pieces. The template was used to hand-cut the curved end using a micro-tip scissors. Finished height is 5 5/8” – measuring from the two furthest points.








For the outside portion, patterned cardstock was cut to a 3½” width, then cut to 6” lengths, and again using the template to cut along the curved edge, creating the same height.

For the cover I printed “Snippets” onto a 3x4 journaling card using my favorite “stamped” and distressed font – Social Animal. If you've read my blog tips previously, remember to use two of the smaller cards together for a 4x6 piece of cardstock to feed through your printer, which will prevent frustration with jamming on smaller pieces. Once printed, cut the journaling card to size. I chose to cut around the bracket shape, and am saving the other portion to use as a frame on another project. I used letter brads from my stash and added subtle color to the blackboard letters with colored pencil, which allows the black to pop off the red background. Buttons follow along the curve for a fun accent.


Have lots of snippets? That's okay. Don't forget you can always compile multiple blackboard albums together. I assure you it will be a fun family album to look through time and time again. And even more fun if you create a "Snippets" album every 5 years or so!

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