Simple and Easy Holiday Memories Mini Album

A big trend in scrapbooking right now is documenting your holiday season by taking a daily photo and creating an album out of the photos. It is sometimes called a “December Daily” album.

Here is a confession.  I have commitment issues.

I don’t see myself being dedicated enough to take a photo (or two) every day during an already crazy-busy holiday season. But, when I have seen samples of these albums- I did love what was documented. The holiday events are fun to look back on! But more importantly, on “slow” days, when there wasn’t an “event” to document, these scrapbookers took photos of things I wouldn’t normally think about. A cherished Christmas decor item, a silly family tradition, or even a time honored recipe handed down through generations.

These are the things that I want to remember and document. The stories behind the photos.

Remember I have commitment issues?  I didn’t want to spend a lot of time or money. It needed to be easy.

Well, guess what friends? I found an answer!

SN@P! Studios by Simple Stories has an entire scrapbooking line designed to work in these type of daily albums.

The line is pre-cut, and double sided, and perfect for a no-fuss mini album.

I (obviously) chose from their Christmas line, but you could certainly create mini albums from any of their themes- Baby, Family, whatever you desire!

Supplies needed to make your own holiday memories mini album:

• 4×6 Sn@p! Christmas Cards
• 3×4 Sn@p! Christmas Cards
• Sn@p! Christmas Pockets
• Sn@p! Christmas Stickers
• 1″ Silver Binder Rings (2)
• Assorted Ribbon
• Standard Hole Punch
• Adhesive
• Scissors
• Photos

I am going to run you through assembling your own mini album. I put my whole mini album together while watching one DVD. So sit down, turn on “It’s a Wonderful Life” and let’s throw a Holiday mini album together!

There are 24 4×6″ Sn@p! cards per package. They run both vertically and horizontally.

I chose to create a horizontally oriented mini album. Choose a 4×6 page for your front cover, and reserve one for your back cover.

I liked this one that already said “Christmas” on it.

I used that for my mini album cover. There were also a couple of 4×6 pages that had some nice labels printed on them. I used these pages, and cut them apart to personalize  my cover.

I covered up “Merry” with one of the cut labels, and added our last name.

The Sn@p! stickers come with two alphabets.

These are a thick, nice quality sticker.

You can customize your cover however you wish.

One of the 4×6 pages is a December calendar. I made the calendar one of my first pages, so I could add all of this year’s holiday events at a glance.

I swear, whoever designed this product line thought of everything for December! It made creating the book super easy with the pre-printed prompts.

Now, some of the 4×6 pages are vertically oriented, and others are horizontal. This is okay. There is a solid neutral pattern on the back of all of the printed designs.

Here is an example. Remember my mini album is horizontal- and here is an obviously vertical page.

The back side of this page is a solid pattern, but the front would look a little off in my horizontal mini album, right?

Well, this product line also comes with a package of 48 3×4″ double sided cards.

For pages like this, select two 3×4 cards to cover the vertically oriented page!

There’s one.

And there’s two. Done. Covered up, and looking nice!

Keep choosing your pages. Keep in mind how they will look in your finished book. This whole product line coordinates beautifully.

On this next page, I chose to cover up the word “joy”- I wanted to use the pretty green edge of the page to add a Sn@p! pocket.

I moved the left side 3×4″ page inward to leave the edge on the 4×6 page. Then to the right I added a Sn@p! pocket.

I wanted to add a pocket to be able to stuff it full of photos of my family decorating the tree. I knew I would be taking more than one or two photos when we decorate, and needed a spot to include several. Here is the facing page, to show you how the pocket will look.

This smaller sized pocket (the pack comes with two small and one large) will hold 3×4″ photos and they are perfect for wallet sized photos.

I sized my photos smaller for my book.

The Sn@p! pocket pack also comes with one full sized pocket.

I chose to use that page to house my holiday recipes!

Keep in mind, the Sn@p! pages are 4×6″ sized- so you can simply take your regular sized prints and add them to this book. You do not have to get all fancy and make weird sizes. I hole punched some plain old 4×6 prints and added them to the mini album. Easy!

To make your  book interactive, and be able to incorporate lots of photos and journaling, here is a fun technique.

Select a 3×4″ card, and score it 1/4″ down from the top of the card.

Apply a strong adhesive to the inside edge of the scored flap, and adhere the flap flush with the top of a 4×6″ page.

Now you have an area to add multiple photos, or journaling!

Keep in mind, if you are adding “flaps” to the left hand side of the mini album, trim slightly to allow the flap to open, and not interfere with the spine of the album where we are going to punch holes and add rings.

You can see on the above photo- I have a double flap page, but I trimmed the left flap to allow space for the rings along the spine.

Here is the finished page:

Flap number one.

Flap number one opened! This was a 3×4″ photo (half of a 4×6 print) slightly trimmed.

Flap number two opens for some journaling.

The facing page also has half of a 4×6 print.

Continue to assemble the mini album using your Sn@p! pages.

Then you can add some fun embellishments using the Sn@p! stickers. I made my flaps a little more user friendly by taking some of the Sn@p! stickers and making some flap lifters? I can’t think of a better term, so I will just show you what I did!

Here is a sticker folded in half- with the Sn@p! page sandwiched between the folded sticker.

Here is an ornament sticker attached to lift the page. I used an additional ornament sticker placed on the other side of the top sticker- they matched up perfectly!

And here I used a circle craft punch to give this Sn@p! page a little variety.

There are plenty of stickers in the Sn@p! set for you to embellish the mini album- and like I said before, everything matches!

When your mini album is assembled- it will need to be bound.

I chose to use a couple of binder rings.

I used a scrap 3×4″ paper to make a template so all of my hole-punched pages and photos would line up perfectly.

I measured 1″ in from both sides, and about 1/2″ from the edge.

This is my template for my pages and photos.

Then add your rings.

Tie some ribbon to the rings if you like.

Tie a lot of ribbon, if you like!

And you have yourself a finished holiday mini album!

It might be the easiest project you do this season, the most meaningful, and dare I say the cutest?!