Skinny Card Album and Momento Box

I am kind of proud of what I made for both Jason's Grandma and my Grandma for Christmas so I took some pictures and decided to share it here.

I first saw these skinny box albums here at this crafting blog. I purchased some and made two of the same album for each of our grandmothers. Honestly, what do they really need and I know both of them would prefer pictures of the kids. I thought this was a nice way of presenting it to them.

You can purchase the blank skinny box and cards here or at Robert's Crafts. I did this the digital scrapbook way, but you could easily do this with paper if you are a regular scrapbooker. First I designed all my layouts 2.44 x 6.9 inches. For this particular book I used pictures from the last year and also added some little sayings called "Life's Little Instructions" which I found hanging on the wall at Jason's parents house. When I was finished I uploaded them to Costco and had them printed with a matte finish.

Then I cut out each layout, rounded the corners with a corner rounder punch. I also marked where the hole would be for the little chain that holds them together and punched a hole. I glued the layouts to the cards. When I was finished with the cards I coated each one in Mod Podge to protect and seal them.

I covered the box in a similar way. This time I just printed the matching paper from the kit I used on my layouts from my own printer. Measured the sides of the box and cut papers to fit on the sides. I coated these in Mod Podge as well. Note, if I were to do this again (and I will because I have two more of these blank books in the closet) I would also print just the papers at Costco. When I used the Mod Podge on the ones I printed from my own paper I felt as though it discolored the papers and made them kind of pinkish.

Finally, after everything was dry, I added some ribbons to the box and to the chain on the cards to embellish. Viola. I nice little memento book. Here are the digital images of the layouts I made: