I love how this book turned out. I finished it last night and immediately googled to find out where I can buy more of these little mini binders. I am going to make similar albums for the wedding and honeymoon. And then someday I'll have little kids and they'll get little books too.
When I bought the album it looked like this. Orange cloth on the the outside and a gray and white decorative paper on the inside. Cool, but not perfect.
I trimmed paper to the correct size (about 7x9 inches) and adhered it to the inside using double sided tape.
All of my pages were created in Photoshop Elements. I created 6.75x8.5 canvases (? - can't think of the right word) with 300 dpi and played with the photos until I was happy with the results. I enlarged photos when I thought they looked good and did not worry about including every photo. I just picked my favorites and moved on.
As I mentioned yesterday, I decided to print each page at home. I have an HP Photosmart 2575. I am hesitant to even link it though because it looks like reviews on amazon are just TERRIBLE. I think someone even said, "WORST PRINTER EVER." Hmm. Mixed reviews much? I AM A HUGE FAN. The photo quality is just fantastic. I also want to note that while it's hard to measure exactly how much ink was used, I think all 38 pages took about 40% of a color cartridge. Not bad at all considering how great the images look in real life.
I printed the pages on semi-gloss Office Depot brand professional photo paper. I don't have much to say about the paper except that it was on sale. It's very thick and obviously semi-gloss which is good for me. I don't like glossy photos, just matte. The pages were 8.5x11 and I trimmed them down to 6.75x8.5 using this Fiskars paper cutter
I spread the pages out on the floor in the order I wanted them to appear in the book and then used a tape runner around the edges to adhere them back to back. The book now has super thick pages and is probably a little too full for the small binder rings.
Because the book is so simple, I kept the cover simple. I had a chipboard ampersand that I covered with white embossing powder and heat embossed. (The ampersand was originally green.) I stuck it to the front with the tape runner as well.
I really loved the (super simple) digital scrapbooking route. I am already trying to figure out something else to do now. The wedding seems much to far away.
photos IN the book by the fantastic Lisa Welge.
