Gift Bag Wedding Album or Favor

In Paper, Scissors, Death, my protagonist Kiki Lowenstein creates custom photo albums as “favors” for a bridal shower. That’s lots of fun, but not everyone has a wealthy mother willing to pay for such an extravagant gift. If you are invited to a wedding, here’s a budget minded way to create a lasting memory for any bride! These also make great "favors" for the bridal party.

1. Untie and remove the ribbon handles of a 5” x 6” gift bag. Keep them for later.

2. Carefully cut off the bottom of a gift bag. (Tip: The bottom is usually reinforced with cardstock. Tear that out first. Then, pry up the folds. Flatten those out and cut them off.) Now cut apart the bag so you have two rectangles, 5” x 6” each. These will be your album covers.

3. Cut two "liners" to hide the “wrong” side and to reinforce your two covers. (Tip: Make your liners a complementary color of paper. Run a gold pen around the edges of your liners before you adhere the liners to the inside of the covers.)

(Above is the inside of the project.)

4. Go to the clip art section of MS Word and find a wedding image you like. Create inside pages for your album by using clip art. (Tip: When assembled, your album cover will fold open. Any image on your inside pages must fit inside. So, for my book, the inside page had a 1” left hand margin that I kept free of words and images. That margin was bound into the spine of my book.)

5. Assemble your book. The holes where the ribbon handles were are now the holes for your brads! I used heart-shaped brads and backed them with flowers. (Tip: Punch holes through your inside pages that are in line with the holes on your covers.) Add cover art if desired. (Tip: Reprint your clip art and use it in a larger version on your cover. I used the ribbons from the handles to accent the wedding bells.)

When Your Project Just Refuses to Co-Operate!

Since this is the blog where I share with my scrapbooking buddies, I can give you the straight scoop--

I agreed to do a page to be auctioned off Malice this weekend. The work goes to help the John Gildner charity which works with severely emotionally disturbed adolescents.

I decided to duplicate the page as I made it. In part, so I could test ideas on Page 1--and have a fall back to Page 2 if things didn't go as I wanted. Here's an admission: One of my favorite portions of the Design Team pages for ScrapBook inspirations is where the artists tell you what they tried that failed. It's very inspiring to think that their beautiful creations didn't just come together easily. At least, it's inspiring to me!

So I started work by pulling out all the papers I had in the official Malice colors. Then I changed the color on an orangish piece of paper because I liked the skull--very Malice since it's a gathering of mystery lovers. And finally, I created my own papers.

Along the way I had this super idea to add a small glass bottle to represent the poison that Dame Agatha Christie (who is the mystery author who spawned the genre that Malice honors) worked with. All was cool--until I tried to put the finished page into the frame I'd purchased. It was a "no go," because the small glass bottle caused the frame to sit lopsided. I fussed and fumed with it. Finally, I reverted to using Page 2--to which I added the customized flower and the AC initials.

Inside the small album is room for 8 photos (4" x 6" size). The cover of the album is sewn with sequins sprinkled throughout. The papers were customized and colored just for this, and the "not everyone's cup of tea" paper was custom made. The upper right with its overlapping letters pays homage to Agatha Christie's many books. The three red drops of blood lower right are in homage to the Killer Hobbies blog in which I participate. The tea bag on the left has glitter "inside." Agatha's portrait was sewn on by hand. The name of my book--Paper, Scissors, Death--appears on the page.

I'm also offering to review three chapters of someone's manuscript as an auction item.

Last week, the naming rights to a character in Book #3 of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series fetched in excess of $500 (we think it was $750, but we can't confirm that yet) for the Guardian Angel group here in St. Louis.

I'd love to hear about your adventures with pages that just didn't work as planned!