Origami Folded Mini Album

This is the Origami Mini Album that I posted on my blog last month but I didn’t give any details about it. So I finally did this tutorial for you – just a little late but I hope that you enjoy it! These are really easy to make and they make very nice gifts. I made several as little Mother’s Day gifts for friends a few years ago.

You’ll need:

• Two pieces of chipboard – 4”x4” each
• Four pieces of patterned paper – two @ 4.5”x4.5” (the floral paper in my photos) for the mini album covers and two @ 3 7/8” x3 7/8”  (the green) for the inside covers. I used double-sided paper from the Sweet Nectar stack by K&Company
• Wide ribbon – about 2 feet. I just used some wired ribbon from my stash
• Three pieces of cardstock – 8”x8”
• Strong adhesive – I used my trusty ATG!
• Any embellishments of your choice for your pages – Used my Cricut of course!

ok. let’s start! Put your adhesive on one side of both pieces of your chipboard. Place these, adhesive side down, centered on the 4.5x4.5 pieces of the patterned paper like the example on the right side in the following photo.

Cut the corners off of the patterned paper almost to the tip of the corner of the chipboard. (Don’t cut the patterned paper all the way to the corner of the chipboard!)

Now put adhesive on each of the four sides of the patterned paper ‘tabs’ that you just created and then fold them over onto the chipboard. This makes really nice mitered corners.

Now take the smaller two pieces of patterned paper (the 3 7/8” by 3 7/8” squares) and place adhesive on them making sure that they get a good coverage of adhesive, especially on the edges, corners, and center. You are going to have to use your imagination for this part! I forgot to take that photo and didn’t realize until now – after the album is glued together!                         Sorry!

You have just created the covers for your mini album! Now on to the inside and the ‘origami’ folding using the three pieces of cardstock. I did take photos of this part – I promise. This part uses just 3 folds per piece! I used a scoring board to make the folding easier. Trust me, it really does help to have one of these!  I actually have two – the Scor-Pal and the one by Martha Stewart shown in the photos. A bone folding tool also helps by making your folds nice and crisp!

First, score and fold the first piece of cardstock in half diagonally…

and use your bone folder to crease.

Open the folded cardstock, and turn it over and make the next two folds in the opposite direction. (This will make sense in a minute). Now fold in half from side to side like this:

Now unfold and fold again in half from top to bottom.              Unfold again.                                                                                                           

Now when you press the two opposite creased corners in towards the center…

the other two corners will automatically collapse together…

Don’t forget to use your bone folder on all folds!

Repeat these steps with the other two pieces of cardstock. You are now going to adhere the three pieces together. Put adhesive on one of the folded pieces (again making sure to put adhesive close to all edges, corners, and good amount in the middle – you don’t want your mini to fall apart when it is opened!) and adhere two together with the ‘openings’ facing in opposite directions…

Adhere the third piece next with its ‘opening’ going in the same direction as the first, or bottom, piece of cardstock. I hope this all makes sense, lol! Your three pieces should look like this:

Now, let’s put it all together! With the inside pages all folded, put adhesive on one side (again, don’t skimp on the adhesive!)…

and place one of the covers on top, eyeballing the placement and making sure that the cover is centered on the ‘pages’…

Turn your album over and repeat, adhering the second cover. When you open your mini album, it will look like this…

and this…

You now have six 4”x4” square pages to place photos or journaling – four on one side and two on the other side when you turn the album around. There are also 12 squares that are folded in half giving you 24 triangles to embellish! Those triangles are great for journaling! For the closure, I used my wired ribbon to wrap around the mini and tied it into a bow. I love the wired ribbon because it holds its shape. This way you can just slip the ribbon off the mini without having to untie it! I used the Paper Lace cartridge, my Expression, and Gypsy to cut out the same image that I used on the front of my glass block in a previous post and just cut two in a smaller size and adhered them to a couple of the inside pages. I plan on embellishing the inside some more before I give it as a gift!

Here is my final mini album -

I can’t seem to stop making paper flowers lately! So I just had to make another one of my 8-layered flowers, with some bling added, and adhere it to the ribbon:

I hope that you give this a try enjoy creating your own Origami Mini Albums! If you have any questions please email me. Thanks for visiting!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,

Glass Block Tutorial

Hey guys, here is the tutorial for the Glass Block that I first posted on Saturday.

I started with just a clear glass block that I bought at Hobby Lobby. It has an opening in the bottom to place your string of lights. Instead of using my glass etching cream on it like I had originally planned, I decided to spray the entire block with this -

It’s a Specialty Frosted Glass spray made by Rust-oleum that I also purchased at Hobby Lobby. After the glass is sprayed it almost looks like it’s been etched or frosted.

(You can barely see the string of white Christmas lights inside the block in this photo.)

The block will need a couple of coats of spraying but it dries pretty fast. I measured my glass block at about 7.25” square. Now, I use my Gypsy or Design Studio whenever I can because an image that looks square may not always be a perfect square. So with my G or DS I can unlink the height and width proportions to make an image perfectly square. Two things to remember – make sure the little chain link is NOT highlighted yellow on the Gypsy to unlink the height and width proportions and you may also need to use the Real Dial Size to get the correct size. I used an image from the Paper Lace cartridge and sized it to 7.25”x7.25”. I also used pink vinyl and transfer tape, both from Provo Craft.

Using this transfer tape will save you from countless headaches – trust me on this one! I set the pressure on my Cricut to Medium (3) and my blade depth to 2 –remember, I used my Gypsy so I couldn’t control the speed but slow the speed down to 3 also if you’re just using your machine alone. You just want to do a ‘kiss cut’ – cutting only the vinyl and not the paper backing. After you have your vinyl cut out, you need to “weed” it. That just means to pull off all the negative areas of the vinyl and leave the image on the paper backing. The best tool to use is the dental looking tool that comes in the Cricut Tool kit! I love that little thing!It’s probably one of my favorite and most used tools! Now cut a piece of the transfer tape a little bit larger than your image. Pull the transfer tape layers apart – there is the part with the grid on it and a tacky layer. Place the tacky piece over your design. Here is what it will look like with the tacky layer over the design:

Now burnish the tape onto the vinyl image by rubbing it with the stick that came with the vinyl or the transfer tape. You can also use an old credit card or something similar – just make sure that you get a good seal between the vinyl and the tape.

Then gently peel the transfer tape away from the vinyl paper backing. The vinyl image should come up with the transfer tape. If it doesn’t, put the tape back down and burnish it some more.

Place the transfer tape with the vinyl image over your project, in this case, the glass block, making sure that the vinyl image is centered correctly.

Once you have it where you want it, smooth it down so that you seal the vinyl to the glass. Then slowly peel the transfer tape off. Go slow – you want to avoid air bubbles!

If you do find some air bubbles just keep smoothing them out slowly with your finger being careful not to rip the vinyl.

And here is the finished project -

Just add a string of lights and plug it in! What I like about this method of decorating a glass block is that you can easily take the vinyl off and redecorate it with different images and in different colors of vinyl – even use multiple colors of vinyl!

See how nice it looks with the lights plugged in -

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions, please email me! Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Some Vinyl Projects!

What a great day I had yesterday! The Fabulous & 50 Blog Hop was so much fun and everyone involved had great projects! I can’t stop thanking them enough – so here we go, just one more time: Dawn, Janice, Normea, Nancy, Michelle, Barbara, Debbie, Marcia, Veronica, Tina, and last but not least, my girl, Monique. Thanks again to all of you for celebrating with me and being great friends! Scroll down to yesterdays post if you missed it!

I will get the tutorials made this week about the Glass Block that I made and the Origami Mini Book also. So keep checking back or better yet, subscribe to my blog and you will automatically receive my blog posts! But today I just wanted to share a couple of projects that I made back in BC – that’s Before Cricut! I had the Baby Bug but I also wanted something that would allow me to do more and design – so DH bought the Wishblade for me! More on that later!

In the first design, I bought the file from Paper Threads but I’m so sorry that I can not remember the actual designers name.

Jesus’ face is so detailed. This was a gift for a friend so I purchased an inexpensive clear glass plate and placed the cut black vinyl on it. She loved it!

Look at this – isn’t it amazing! If you know the designer please leave a comment. This was a very simple gift to make. I love working with vinyl so much!

This next project is all mine! I knew her family’s names and the fact that family was extremely important to her.

So easy to do with vinyl! Ok, now back to the Wishblade – I loved my WB and my little Bug just sat in the corner of my craft room. That was until I discovered the Gypsy and the Design Studio! I {HEART} my G & my DS! And that’s when I found out that I could do many of the things that I did in my WB program but with the G & DS it was SO MUCH EASIER! Yes, I know that with the WB I could use all of the fonts on my computer but between all of the carts that I own, surely I can find at least one font that will work with my projects! So even though I still have my WB (and I’ll never part with it) I absolutely {HEART} my Cricut family. Since then I have adopted a Cricut Expression, a Cricut Cake, the Design Studio, too many carts (lol, but the next one is just around the corner!), and my precious Gypsy! My little ‘family’ is very close and we spend a lot of time together! Maybe too much if you talk to some others, like those real people that stay here too! But with your Cricut, you can design the second project above in just minutes! You don’t need the G or DS but let me tell you, those two make my life so much easier! And if you get a Gypsy NOW and register it by tomorrow, you’ll be able to download extra cartridges – FREE! Now that’s a deal!

Well, time to go play with my family! Until next time, Happy Crafting,

My Fabulous & 50 Birthday Blog Hop

“Happy Birthday To Me!” Good morning and welcome to My Fabulous & 50 Birthday Blog Hop! I am celebrating my 50th birthday (which is actually TODAY!) with 11 of my good friends who have graciously agreed  to design projects for the blog hop. These are a great group of talented ladies and I want to thank them so much for helping me on this special day! Please leave them some blog love (comments) after looking at their projects – don’t we all love to be loved? After my blog, just visit the next person on the list below (Dawn) and just keep hopping! Also, at the end of my post I have some extra special blog candy to give away!

I actually made 3 projects for today’s blog hop. The first is a little box that you could make to put a special birthday gift in.

I created this file on Cricut Design Studio but then made it into a Gypsy file so I could cut it with just my Expression and my Gypsy. I used George and Basic Shapes for the box and the flower, Storybook for the label shape on top of the box, and Paper Lace for the sentiment. The paper is from K&Company.

The box is made up of rectangles and the octagon shape that is just stretched out.

I cut three label shapes – 2 from cardstock and 1 from patterned paper.

After scoring and folding the box, I attached ribbon on three sides – top, back, and bottom.

I cut about an inch from one side of both of the cardstock labels and cut the patterned paper label in half. I attached the cardstock pieces to the top and bottom of the box and the paper piece to the top. Then I used the flower from George and cut it out eight times –at 1’, 1.25”, 1.50”, 1.75”, 2”, 2.25”, 2.50”, and 2.75”. I used the Hide Contour to hide the center circle.

 

I sprayed the white cardstock flowers with Glimmer Mist in Tattered Rose then curled the petals with the end of a paint brush.

The petals were layered with a pop dot between each layer.

I cut the Happy Birthday sentiment and its shadow from the Paper Lace cartridge at 1.50”. I added bling to the flower and the sentiment. And here is the final Box!

But I just couldn’t stop there! I also made a little Birthday Origami Mini Album and a Glass Block to go with it. The design on the glass block was cut from pink vinyl.

I’ll be back later next week to give more details about the mini album and the glass block. Now for the Blog Candy Giveaway! I decided to give something that was appropriate for todays celebration -

That’s right – it’s a Nifty Fifties Cricut Cartridge!

Please just leave a comment and follow my blog to have a chance to win! Thanks so much for sharing a little of my 50th birthday with me!

Now here’s the list to follow the rest of the blog hop! Enjoy!

Angie - http://angiespaperpassion.blogspot.com/ <---Me!
Dawn - http://scrappyrn-scrappyrn.blogspot.com/ 
Janice - http://www.cricutconfessions.com/
Normea - http://mmdezigns.blogspot.com/
Nancy - http://lanancyworkshop.blogspot.com/
Michelle - http://paperaffair.blogspot.com/
Barb - http://craftinginparadise.blogspot.com/
Debbie - http://www.debseclecticthoughts.blogspot.com/
Marcia - http://scrappin-times.blogspot.com/
Veronica - http://www.iteachscraps.blogspot.com/
TinaGale - http://tiggersscrapplace.blogspot.com/
Monique - http://mixonthememories.blogspot.com/

Remember, if you ever get lost on your way, just come back here to get back on track! Thanks again for hopping with us!

Until next time, Happy Crafting,