You will need:
- 1 piece of felt (more if you would like to use some to embellish your album)
- A double sleeve photo album
- Sewing machine
- Embroidery floss
- Pattern paper, embellishments, buttons etc.
- Photos
Step One:
You will need to cut a few pages out of your photo album. It won’t ruin your album if you just cut them out with your exacto knife. I used three and I find that it worked really well. You can add more if you wish. It’s really important that the pages of your photo album look like this with one photo sleeve on top and one on the bottom, because you will fold it over to make your album. These photo sleeves will become the page protectors for your album.
Further explanation: You need to take a few pages from a photo album (The ones where you slip the photos into the plastic sleeves) to use as the page protectors for your album. I think you can pick these little photo albums up at the dollar store if you don’t want to cut one out of one of your albums. I just had one on hand so I took a few pages out of it. Just using your exacto knife you just cut the pages out the same way you would if you were taking a page out of a magazine, just an example.
Step Two:
Lay your page protectors over a piece of felt. Leaving about 1cm of an edge around your entire page protector sheet. Trace and cut.
Step Three:
Secure the felt and page protectors together with paper clips. This will keep your album from moving around while you sew it.
Step Four:
Using a sewing machine, sew a straight line down the spine of your book. I went over mine a couple of times for extra support.
Step Five:
Trim off any stray threads. Now your book is ready to embellish any way you wish. This is the fun part!!
I chose to stitch around the edge of my book by hand, just to give the edge a more finished look.
Then I cut a circle from felt using a different color. I attached it with a little bit of adhesive (to hold it still) Then I hand stitched around the circle.
The rhinestone monogram I used is an iron on.
Now you can fill your book! Either with just photos, or by making 4×6 size layouts.
By Melissa
*Originally posted January 2007
