Tutorial of the Week: BoBunny Weekend Market Mini Album Series 2

Good morning, everyone!  I am back for week 2 of our mini album tutorial 🙂  Well, I have to be honest…I did not make as much progress on the mini album as I had originally hoped or planned 🙁  On the upside…there are all sorts of things we learn along the way 🙂

So…this week, we will cut and prepare all of the patterned paper for the mini album pages.  As you probably already figured out, I chose to use BoBunny’s Weekend Market paper collection.  Because this paper line is quite masculine, I expect to use alot of gears, chain, eyelets and other manly metal bits.  For this reason, I chose not to adhere the patterned paper to my pages quite yet.  I like to attach gears and such to my patterned paper using brads before I adhere it to the mini album pages.  We will also cut and adhere some of our matting to our tags.

Throughout this week’s tutorial, I continue to share my creative process, including both the things that worked…and the things that didn’t quite go as planned 😉  All in all, we will go over:

1. the dimensions for all of the matting for the mini album pages and tags,
2. how to cut your patterned paper to accommodate angles and notches (used for finger pulls) on your pages,
3. how I add a splatter effect to my pages,
4. a super easy no-fail way of centering your patterned paper every time, and
5. I even get a little side-tracked and go over how to make your corner chompers work like new again (mine had become rather pesky and started to grab).

I also cover 3 design principles that you can use to take your projects to a whole new level:

1. balance – evenly distributing elements (color, pattern, etc) throughout your mini,
2. unity – using similar design elements throughout your mini to make it cohesive, and
3. variety – adding unexpected elements throughout your mini to add more interest.

I will warn you now…this may be a long tutorial series!  I will be going all out on this mini album, packing each week with a ton of useful information (well, I hope you will find it useful) even if we don’t move quite as quickly as I would otherwise like.  …so, let’s get into the materials you’ll need this week…

Materials

• patterned paper
• solid colored cardstock (I use ivory and kraft)
• Scor-tape
• distress ink (for distressing the edges of your wallpaper, if desired)
• shimmer spray (I swear by Lindy’s Stamp Gang)
• paper distresser
• paper trimmer
• metal-edged ruler
• exacto knife
• corner rounder
• 1-¾” circle punch
• heat tool (optional)

Instructions

Well…I really couldn’t share my creative process in its entirety without recording a video for you, so that is exactly what I will continue to do throughout this tutorial series 🙂  …and I will make it super easy for you again…here goes:

Measurements

Front of Pages 1, 3 and 5:

Three pieces of patterned paper required:

• 1 @ 2¾” x 5¾”
• 2 @ 3¼” x 5¾”

Back of Pages 1, 3 and 5:

Three pieces of patterned paper required:

• 3 @ 8¾” x 5¾”

Front of Pages 2, 4 and 6:

Four pieces of patterned paper required:

• 3 @ 8¾” x 5¾”
• 1 @ 5¾” x 2¾” (with corner cut @ 45º to match pocket on page)

Back of Pages 2, 4 and 6:

Four pieces of patterned paper required:

• 1 @ 3¼” x 5¾”
• 3 @ 5¾” x 5¾”

Tags:

For each of the 3 “booklet” tags in the front of pages 1, 3 and 5:

• 2 pieces of patterned paper @ 4″ x 5¼”
• 2 pieces of ivory cardstock @ 4″ x 5¼”

For each of the six 5½” x 8″ tags on the front of all pages:

• 2 pieces of patterned paper @ 3¾” x 5¼”
• 1 piece of kraft cardstock @ 7¾” x 5¼”

For each of the nine 5½” x 8″ tags in the ends of all the pages:

• 1 piece of patterned paper @ 3¼” x 5¼”
• 1 piece of ivory cardstock @4¼” x 5¼”
• 1 piece of kraft cardstok @ 7¾” x 5¼”

For each of the three 5¼” x 8″ tags on the back of pages 2, 4 and 6:

• 2 pieces of patterned paper @ 3¾” x 5″
• 1 piece of kraft cardstock @ 7¾” x 5″

For each of the three 5½” x 5¾” tags on the back of pages 2, 4 and 6:

• 1 piece of patterned cardstock @ 5¼” x 5½”
• 1 piece of kraft cardstock @ 5¼” x 5½”

I hope you were able to stick it our with me this week and learned something new that you can use on all of your projects going forward.  Next week, I look forward to getting into learning a few techniques that I like to use in my mini albums to take them to a whole new level…and hopefully we’ll even get into the nitty gritty and start embellishing some of the pages 🙂  Thanks for sticking with me this week.  Cheers!