Christmas Mini-album

 This is a mini-album that I made with the possibility of using it for a swap at the A&M group on facebook.  The papers and most of the ephemera are from My Mind's Eye Comfort and Joy collection.

The front cover is approximately 8 inches X 7 1/2 inches.

It is decorated with the chip board pieces from the Comfort and Joy collection (along with one cut apart which is raised up on a piece of chipboard), burlap snowflakes from Hobby Lobby, a piece of paper doily and a banner of plain card stock.  

The spine is 3 1/2 inches by 8 inches and is decorated with a piece of the Comfort & Joy chipboard:

And the back with a piece of chip board from another collection:

The goal was to keep the covers, so that the book will still fit in a bookshelf and hopefully I have achieved that.

The front (and back) covers I left plain except for the Comfort & Joy buffalo check paper.  The pages are approximately 7 1/2 by 6 inches.  The front facing page is a 2 pocket page.

Close up of the embellishments:

A photo (or journaling) card is stuck in the largest pocket while the small pocket contains some gift tags from the Comfort and Joy collection:

The signatures are made as pocket pages

 

The next pages (and the back of the photo/journaling spot in the pocket page):

The flaps on the left page are magnetic:

Pocket pages with photo/journaling cards:

The next pages have a pockets and a flap (magnetic) on the right:

I couldn't think of a way to decorate these pages without making them too thick.

 Each of the pockets have a little photo/journaling folder:

 The folders open:

Next pages (with the pocket page card on the left):

I messed up these pages and then didn't have enough designer paper of the same pattern to fix it right (so the paper is a little small of the right page -- the left edge of the right page). 

The next pages are flaps that fold up on the top and have a pocket on the bottom (with a flap).  All are magnetic.  They are decorated with only a chip board button on each flap.

The top flaps oepen:

And with the pockets flaps open:

Another flap page (with tuck spots):

There are cut a parts from the collection in the pocket page:

Next pocket pages with cut a parts and a photo/journaling card:

The page on the left is wavy for some reason, I didn't notice it until after I already had it in the book.  The only thing I can figure is that the black cardstock wasn't as thick as it was suppose to be.  (It didn't get wet or have too much glue).  The right side has a water fall.

Showing the photo/journaling card in the right pocket page:

Pocket pages with cut a parts:

The last page is a repeat of the first page:

I haven't figured out how to get the pages to lay flat when it is open and the black cardstock that I used to make the pages with isn't the quality that I would like, although the package said that it was 110 lb.  

I forgot to ink around some of the pages.  I am not happy with the hodge podge look of the front cover.  All in all, I have a long way to go before I will be truly satisfied with a mini-album I made.  As far as the group swap goes, I don't know if there will be other newbies to mini-albums in the swap, so it may not be good enough to swap.  And one of the directions for the swap was to put at least 3 embellishments on a page and I obviously couldn't do that and still leave room for photos.  If I do get in the swap, I will send all the remaining pieces of this collection that I have to my swap partner -- maybe they will be better at decorating!