by Sunday Lamdin

I love Mini Albums... there... I've admitted it! LOL

My enthusiasm for these little gems (some not so little!) is because they are so flexible. Also, because I am a bit of a "quick fix" merchant I like to make things that I can complete quickly.

Creating a Mini Album is one way of feeling you have completed a whole project in a fairly short space of time.

The beauty of this Random Mini Album is exactly that... it's Random! There are no constraints to your creativity, you can make as many or as few pages as you like, how you like, what shape you like, and it doesn't matter what the previous page looked like, there ARE NO RULES!

Woohoo, scrapbooking freedom, at last! However, I am aware that to just say to people... "do anything"... can be more daunting than giving constraints, so therefore I came up with an example of loose rules for you to follow to get you started.

Keep it a manageable size... I have made an 8x6" album with covers. You may like to start with 6x6, but I thought the 8x6" works well for containing lots of different shapes and dimensions of pages, short and fat, long and thin... you know what I mean, right?

Enjoy using mixed media... This is just a posh way of saying... use different things to make your pages. Inside my album are various pages made from paper, acetate, "raw" photographs, die cut tags and more.

Try something new... For instance, I have used digital scrapbooking to make hybrid pages (mix of digital and traditional scrapbooking). A Random Album is a great place to add your "Trying something new" layouts.

Use this album as a way to gather your creativity... Place things that you like, such as papers, etc into this album to await your creative flair at a later date... the pages don't have to be completed before they are added. This should be your constant "Work in Progress". A place to store ideas.

As I have made three videos for this article (on a separate Videos page), I will not duplicate here what's in those videos, but I will say...

Video 1 shows you how to make a cover, with a tip about how useful it is to make yourself some cropping templates, and my interpretation of a "bone folder" tool - I bet you're intrigued now, eh?!

Video 2 shows you how making yourself a "Hole Positioning Template" is a particularly good idea for this type of album because of the different sized pages and other memorabilia used.

Video 3 looks at the different shapes and sizes of the pages within my "Ongoing Project", to give you an idea of where to start.

When I demonstrated how to make this album at one of my Crops, it was lovely to see the enthusiasm of the scrappers as they realised that "anything goes". One lady commented that it was actually quite addictive and you can spend hours of fun creating endless possibilities.

Don't forget that you can also include the usual items of scrapbooking... memorabilia! A special card, or receipt, with or without embellishment, are great additions and add lots of interest. The eyes and fingers are made to go on a journey through all the twists and turns of different shapes and sizes of pages!

A truly interactive Scrapbook Album... I love it!

I will post more pictures here as I add to my album.