I love making mini albums, and I love them even more when I can feel a little bit of freedom when I create. As much as I love the chipboard albums that I find at my local scrapbooking store, I don’t like searching and searching for the correct album to go with my project. This frustration prompted the creation of my Freestyle Albums. I have all kinds of “found chipboard” all over my house, and it was high time I put it to good use. Let me show you how!

First of all, you have to download the album. I’ve put together this adorable (if I do say so myself) boy-themed mini album using my Boy Freestyle Template and Jen Wilson’s Complete Boy #2 paper pack and elements. The pages are all finished and ready for you to pop your photos in! Click here to find the Complete Boy #2 mini album in my store at The Digichick.

Next, add your photos to the pages by following along with this tutorial that I created for Bella Scraps Magazine.

Now, print your pages. I printed my pages at home on 4×6 glossy photo paper (not top-notch, but not flimsy, either). Of course, you can send your pages out to be printed, but make sure you know how your processor handles 4×6 photos. I’ve had some of my projects get cut off on the edges, and others turn out just fine, depending on the photo processor.

The reason I chose glossy photo paper was because #1 – I have a ton of it that I get for free every time I order new ink for my printer . . . and I hardly ever print my photos. And #2 – if my son sneezes on my project, the ink won’t run as readily as it would if I printed on my usual matte photo paper. #3 – I may or may not get around to sealing the thing. Probably not. I’m lazy like that. My project will hold up much better on glossy photo paper.

Okay, so you have your pages printed! Good! Now, cut them out. No, really, it is not THAT bad. Just sit down some night while your family is watching TV, break out your trusty microtip scissors (super-fine tip, aka Cutterbee) or craft knife (aka Exacto knife) and start snipping away. I promise it will go a lot faster than you thought it would!

Next, find some chipboard. I get mine all over the place. You could reach for your cereal box, diaper box (for a little more dimension), mailing envelope, or do what I did and grab the cardboard at the back of your stack of scrapbooking or photo paper. Mine just HAPPENED to be white on both sides, but that is just pure coincidence. Usually it is brown . . . you know . . . the color of chipboard!

So, next I glued my page fronts to the chipboard. I used a liquid glue that I trust (Beacon’s Zip Dry) and paid special attention to the corners and little areas that would be tempted to come up.

Now, grab your scissors again and get cutting. You are going to cut the pages out AGAIN! (This part really does go faster than the last time!)

Finally, use your trusted glue to glue the page backs to the back of the chipboard pieces you cut out! And now, you have your pages all ready to go. Maybe there are some rough edges, but you can just grab your sandpaper (I used a sanding block) and smooth out those rough areas to hide the imperfections.

As you can see, I included guides for your hole punches on the back pages. Trust those holes!! I set my Crop-O-Dile to the correct depth of one of the holes, and then just punched over my guides, keeping the same depth throughout the album.

You are done with the hard part! Congratulations! Now, for the fun part. Let’s junk it up!

First, you have to decide how you are going to bind your mini-album. As you can see by my pictures, I had rings in mind for this project, but I could only find two among my stash, so I had to improvise.

Turns out that I REALLY like the look of the hemp that I chose. To keep my loops consistent, I tied my knots around the width of a pen (see pic).

I added ribbon to the loops, just to fancy it up a bit.

Then, I discovered a couple of metal pieces among my stash that fit just perfectly with my little album (old Making Memories items). And, that’s it!

My guys just love this little album, and I loved putting it together! I challenge you to do the same for the little boy in your life!!

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