Hey everyone! Kinsey here with a tutorial on how to construct your own Instagram mini album. I created another version of this project a few months ago using different page protectors and have gotten loads of requests for a tutorial on it so here goes!
In the interest of not having a mile long post, I condensed all the photos into one block. If you click on the image it’ll expand for you. Keep in mind, you can customize any part of the album to suit your preferences but I’ll be using the measurements from my version of it. Ok, so let’s do this!
(click on the image to make it larger)
1. First things first, wrangle all your supplies.
Materials// Chipboard. Various page protectors & fillers: 4 x 4 pockets (WRMK 12 x 12 page with 9 pockets), 2.5 x 3.5 pockets (regular 8.5 x 11 baseball card page), glassine bags. 2 pronged metal fasteners. Heyday: fabrips, 6 x 6 paper pad, mistable stickers, thickers, stamps, veneers. Hero Arts ink pads. Tape adhesive. Hole punch. Ruler. Craft knife.
2. Using a craft knife and a sturdy ruler or straight edge, cut page protectors to size. Make sure that you cut outside of the pocket seam to keep each divided section intact. Also, leave the hole strip (for the binding) attached to the protectors- you will need this to add your pages to the album and enable the pages to flip once they’re in the book. From the baseball pages, I cut 3 pockets across and from the WRMK pages, I cut 2 pockets across (see photo #2 above). I lucked out because they ended up being the same width, hooray!
3. Dress up the ugly page protector bindings with cute Heyday patterned papers. Cut enough 2 x 4 inch strips of patterned paper for all of your insert pages. Using a bone folder, fold each strip in half lengthwise (or hotdog style as Brianna says, ha!). In order for your pages to flip once they are in the book, adhere the binding strips so that the edges of the paper are just inside the seam of the protector. Trim any excess binding paper from the top or bottom edges to clean them up. If you are adding pockets, bags or envelopes, the process is the same but if they don’t flip or bend easily, you may want to use a fabrip instead of paper for the binding strip (it will be more flexible).
4. This is what the bindings of the page protectors and insert pages should look like when they’re done.
5. Punch holes in the pages. Using the unpronged piece of the metal fastener (it has 2 holes in the ends) and a pencil, center the metal piece on the binding, trace the holes, and punch.
6. Cut the covers and binding piece. I save all the chipboard sheets that come with my kits because they make awesome book covers…Cut 2 pieces to measure 9.5 x 4.5 inches and 1 binding piece to measure 1 x 4.5 inches. Cut 2 pieces of fabrip to measure 3.25 x 4.5. Peel the backing from one of the cut fabrip pieces and lay it on your work surface face down. Center the 1 inch chipboard strip on the fabrip and then add the cover pieces on either side of it so it looks like photo #6 above. Peel the backing from the other fabrip piece and apply it in the same way so that the inside and outside of the covers match.
7. The inside and outside of your covers should look similar to this.
8. Punch holes in the cover for the metal fastener. Lay out the cover so that you are looking at the inside of your book. On the right side of the binding piece, use one of your hole punched filler pages as a template to trace the holes onto the cover and then punch.
9. Put your pages in and lock it down. Thread the 2 pronged piece through the holes in the back cover, put in the pages in whatever order you prefer (I did mine glassine bag, baseball card pockets, and then 4 x 4 pockets), and then add the flat metal piece with holes in it and fold the prongs down and slide the locks over each prong to hold everything in place.
10. The ‘bones’ of the book are done! I usually fill my books about halfway with pages because I like to use bulky embellishments so they can fatten up pretty quickly. Filling it halfway gives me some wiggle room and if it looks puny, I can always add more pages to it.
So now that we’ve finished the basic construction, I couldn’t just leave it blank and empty…so here’s the same album all dressed up…
(click on the image to make it bigger)
For the cover I was inspired by Waleska’s 5th Anniversary layout that was featured here on the SC blog. I cut the ‘ombre waves’ apart, layered them on the cover, and then stitched them into place. I also added some stamping on the right edge using the states stamps.
On the inside cover, I left it blank because I liked how the wavy stitches look against the raw chipboard.
For all of the filler pages, I kept it pretty simple. I stuck with the aqua and neutral color combo which made everything come together so easily. As you can see, I used some dimensional embellishments in this one and I’m not sure if you can see it in the photos but all the ‘chunky’ items are on the outside of the protector- not on the pages. I’ve found that adding big stuff to little pockets = puckering and wonkiness so by adding it to the outsides, everything behaves much better.
Thanks so much for hanging out with me today! As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!
