Making a photo album with your own hands: non-standard ideas. Create a photobook online with your own hands. Tips
Photography is a unique thing. It's not just a picture, it's a whole segment of life. When looking at a picture, memory raises a whole heap of memories from the depths.
You can spend more than one pleasant evening looking at a photo album. You can never expect such warmth and impressions from electronic versions of photo collections. In addition, if the gadget breaks down, the pictures can be irretrievably lost. Isn't this a good reason to continue the traditions of our ancestors and make a photo album with your own hands?
Why own, if you can buy ready-made options? Lots of arguments:
1. Because it will be unique.
2. It can be made in various styles and themes.
3. A piece of your soul will fall into it.
4. And simply because it is an interesting activity.
Interested? Let's look at creating a photo album with your own hands step by step.
Scrapbooking Basics
Like any business, scrapbooking needs pre-planning. The problem is that it is not enough for a photo album to have an aesthetic appearance, it needs to carry a certain semantic load. To fulfill all the conditions, you need to find the best way to implement the idea. And here it is better to stick to already proven techniques and stylistic ideas for designing photo albums.
DIY photo album
It should be noted that scrapbooking is not a cheap hobby, so before you go to buy consumables, you need to think about for a future masterpiece:
- plot;
- composition;
- design style;
- implementation technique.
Plot
It is the plot that will give the idea of \u200b\u200bhow to make a photo album with your own hands. The design of the product will directly depend on the subject. The photo album can be family and gift.
The design of the photo album directly depends on the subject
Composition
For a do-it-yourself photo album, page design ideas must be correctly positioned. The photos themselves and the design elements should appear in visual unity. Here it is important to determine the semantic center of the composition and, in relation to it, select accents or decorations for the page. The subject of the image will help you choose a title and maybe even make a short description of the picture.
All pages of the photo album must be made in the same style.
Stylistic orientation
“Creating a photo album with your own hands, you are free to choose any style of its design”
Fans of opulent decor should focus on the American vision of a photo book. Connoisseurs of antiquity and lovers of immersing themselves in the days of the past will surely stop at shabby chic or vintage. Adherents of minimalism can take a closer look at the European style and one of the most popular ideas for designing photo albums - “clean and simple”.
Making a photo album in the style of "clean and simple".
Creating a photo album with your own hands, you are free to choose any style of its design. Other design options can be used, as long as they can present the theme of the album from the best side.
Technique
There are many options on how to make a photo album with your own hands. Implementation of ideas helps to carry out:
- stamping;
- decoupage;
- journaling;
- cropping;
- distressing.
There are about a hundred more entertaining techniques that allow you to create magnificent copies of photo albums.
Decoupage technique in photo album decor
The presented methods are distinguished by the relative ease of implementation. So stamping provides for the use of applicators and all kinds of prints. In decoupage, plot drawings and ornaments are used. In cropping, they work with the photo itself. It is cut so that only key moments are preserved. Journaling is characterized by supplementing images with original descriptions. Distressing is based on the aging of paper.
Stamping uses a wide variety of imprints.
DIY photo album: step by step
Stage I
In fact, it is preparation for work. At this stage, we focus on the selection of tools and the purchase of materials. What will be required?
Materials:
- thick (500 g / sq; m) cardboard;
- scrap paper;
- notebook;
- synthetic winterizer;
- adhesive fabric;
- ribbons.
Tools:
- awl;
- ruler;
- needle;
- mock-up knife;
- pencil.
Stage II
We sit down to plan the implementation of the ideas of designing a photo album with our own hands. The result will not disappoint if you clearly articulate what you want to see in the end. This is where the notebook comes into play. It is desirable that it be similar in size to the future original. It will become a kind of template for work. On its pages, you can experiment with the arrangement of pictures and decor elements. The most successful options are fixed.
Sketch of the location of pictures and decor elements
Let's start creating a photo album with our own hands by assembling the spines for the pages. To do this, you can use a less thick photo cardboard. Strips corresponding to the height of the sheets are cut from it. Band width may vary. On average, the indicator rarely exceeds 3 cm.
Stripes corresponding to sheets of height
Using a ruler, find the center of the narrow part. We set aside 2 mm on both sides of it if the landscape pages have convex decorations and 1 mm each in other cases. In the same way, we act on the opposite side. We connect the outlines with a ruler and draw a strip not with a pencil, but with a writing pen. This photo album design idea will help you bend the sheet strictly along the given lines. We cut off the corners of the workpiece. Now you can lay sheets in them and fix them with glue. The extreme sheets should not have "partners". The free part of the spine will be required for another.
Fix the leaves with glue
Stage IV
Page finishing. Their decor begins with pasting with scrap paper. Pick the right colors and create a general background, on which the rest of the composition will be located later. The decor for a self-assembled photo album can be:
- applications;
- vinyl stickers;
- newspaper clippings;
- beautiful cords;
- tapes;
- lace;
- beads.
Decorative materials for photo album design
In general, everything that draws your imagination. In the case of an abundance of volumetric details, they should be evenly placed on the pages, then the sheets do not deform, and the product as a whole does not lose its shape. This is another reason to work on a photo album with your own hands step by step.
Arrange the decor evenly on the pages
Stage V
We make binding and fasten the cover. We collect the sheets glued into the roots into a book and glue the first with a piece of bandage, gauze or adhesive fabric, so that one and a half centimeters of free matter remains along the edges of the binding.
Glue the spine with gauze
From cotton tape with finished edges, cut out two strips of the same length as the width of the binding. We bend the rest of the gauze and glue them exactly along the edge. This photo album design idea will help to hide the flaws in the assembly of the end of the cover and will become an additional fixation for the sheets, preventing them from coming off.
Glue two strips around the edge
While the gauze dries, work directly on the spine for binding. If the paper for work is not too thick, then the part can be made as a team. You will have to cut out two components: one strictly according to the size of the binding, the second - with an allowance of 3 cm in width. We lay the smaller strip on top of the larger one so that uniform allowances remain on both sides. We mark the borders and glue the details.
Binding spine
It would seem that everything? But at this stage there are secrets. They will help you make a high-quality photo album with your own hands, design ideas from scrapbooking professionals. What do they advise? A large thickness of the spine will prevent the album from opening. Can problems be avoided? Yes, if you draw longitudinal lines with a step distance of 1 cm along the inside of the spine with a sharp object (the same non-writing pen). This technique will allow the part to bend smoothly.
But the nuances of the topic “how to make a photo album with your own hands” do not end there.
The spine is fixed under the cover
The spine must not be glued to the binding. It is fixed on the cover. The structures are allowed to dry, after which the sheets assembled on gauze are placed in it. We fix the free ends of the fabric and the part of the leaf spine, prudently left when assembling the photo album with our own hands, to the inside of the cover. It is better to make it transparent "Moment". It holds stronger and traces are removed easier. Streaks are simply erased with an eraser.
Inside cover
The creation of the photo album is completed. It remains to decorate the cover and fill it with content.
Thematic photo album design ideas
Pleasant memories require a beautiful cut. The selfie that has become fashionable allows you to make photo albums with your own hands for almost every occasion, but still more often they are created for more global reasons.
family chronicle
She can get the look of a full-fledged photobook. Its content will be not only interesting and memorable pictures, but also newspaper clippings, postcards dear to the heart, things closely related to family history. On the title page it is good to write a motto reflecting the creed of the clan.
DIY family photo album
How to make a photo album about the family with your own hands? For example, in genealogical chronology. Dig into the family archive. There will surely be many pictures of ancestors that you remember and will be able to tell something to your descendants. These photos will form the first pages of the chronicle. History should continue up to the present day. In the future, your creativity can lay the foundation for a whole galaxy of similar photo albums.
Make a series of family photo albums
If the family leads an active lifestyle and does not forget to record everything that happens in it on camera, then it will be difficult to fit everything into one album. In this case, it is worth breaking all the photos into thematic groups and trying to assemble a photo album with your own hands for each case.
Love to travel - make a selection of pictures of the most memorable trips. An additional decor for such albums can be postcards depicting sightseeing places of countries or trophies obtained, like a dried leaf of an exotic plant. The epic of a sea holiday is perfectly decorated with sand, pebbles, shells from the beaches, gull feathers, twigs of algae.
DIY photo album about travel
Do not be lazy to describe what is depicted on the pages. It will be interesting to read about your adventures to posterity.
Start working on a photo album with your own hands, and design ideas will arise in your head. All relatives can be involved in the case. Give them a page and ask them to decorate it however you like. You can ask to compose a poem or write down a story from life, make a drawing with your own hands. In a family photo album, any illustration will be significant.
Make a photo album for the whole family
“Do not think that the term for making a child’s photo album with your own hands will be limited to one day - it will be a long process”
The appearance of a child is probably the most important event in the life of every family, overshadowing even the wedding, so the desire to perpetuate every minute of a child's life is quite natural. How to make a photo album of a child with your own hands so that what is reflected in it causes tenderness even years later? Pay attention to details and correctly plan the sequence of filling with photos. From a pile of pictures, try to select symbolic images that tell about a new milestone in a child's life.
DIY children's photo album
You can start the story from afar. Let a photo of the last days of pregnancy appear on the first page. An excellent addition to them will be printouts of ultrasound. The logical continuation will be shots from the discharge photo session in the celebration hall of the maternity hospital. Followed by pictures with relatives. Only later will they be pasted into the photo album with their own hands: the first smile, the first tooth, the first independent breakfast, the first steps. For every mother, these events simply stick in her memory, and a desire is born to share her happiness with the whole world.
Ultrasound printouts are a great addition.
Ideas for designing photo albums for kids are a lot. They can be made a repository of children's relics by gluing inside a strand of the first hair, ribbons from a bonnet, a piece of a bow with which a blanket was tied. Over time, it will be possible to add children's drawings and crafts and greeting cards brought from the garden and school. Then they will be replaced by artifacts of achievements in the form of diplomas and awards.
An example of the design of the pages of a children's photo album
Do not think that the time for making a child's photo album with your own hands will be limited to one day - it will be a long process. Replenishment of its contents will occur as the object grows.
One more thing. Children often delight us with pearls. Don't be lazy to record them in the same album. It will be a great occasion for fun years later and will decorate the pages well if it appears on them in color.
Wedding photoalbum
The wedding day is special for both newlyweds. Naturally, in the memory you want to save every moment of it. A huge number of pictures from the celebration will require system storage in a decent design. So how to make a DIY photo album as unusual as the event itself?
DIY wedding photo album
It is not trivial to decorate it. This will help the bride's accessories, lace, ribbons, elements of wedding paraphernalia. Photos can be decorated with dried flower buds from a young wedding bouquet. Over the years, such little things will become incredibly valuable and touching. Here are some more photo album design ideas.
1. Recreate the historical accuracy of the wedding celebration by grouping the photos according to the chronology of its course.
Recreate the chronology of events on album pages
2. Do not be afraid to put so-called reportage and staged pictures in the album. They can be quite funny.
3. Try to give the design of the photo album a specific stylistic direction. It can be retro or something more modern.
Give the album a general stylistic direction
4. Select personal pages for the portraits of the heroes of the occasion and VIP guests.
5. When making a photo album with your own hands, supplement it with images of landscapes that served as the backdrop for the wedding event.
Complete the album with images of landscapes
6. Multi-colored pages in the album will look original.
7. Bet on the originality of the pictures themselves. Let them be highlighted in sepia or decorated to look like a painting. Dilute your color shots with black and white.
Dilute your color shots with black and white.
8. In the wedding album, you can use several photos of the newlyweds taken on the eve of the wedding, as well as telling about the ups and downs of preparing for it.
9. Separate the official part and the party. Thus, you will have two albums with photos at once.
10. A photo collage of small format pictures is also interesting.
Photo collage of small format photos
The design ideas used when creating a photo album with your own hands can cause some imbalance in the perception of compositions due to overload of frames by actors. When placing close-up group shots in a self-made photo album, try to place them on a spread so that the eyes of the guests captured on them are directed in one direction. Then there will be no impression that they are looking at each other. Also, the U-turn is not perceived in the best way, literally “littered” with small photos. Use a compositional approach to their location, dilute the pictures with texts and decorative elements. Let your design talents make a splash!
Spice up your shots with text and decor
Conclusion
The proposed options for creating and filling photo albums are just the tip of the iceberg called scrapbooking. Knowing how to make a photo album, you will ensure that it excites memories of bygone days and helps to bring loved ones closer together.
Photo gallery - do-it-yourself photo album
The scrapbooking technique is very exciting and original in its performance. When working with this design technology, original drawings, newspaper clippings, colorful paper sheets, and much more are used. A photo album decorated with your own hands using the scrapbooking technique will be a great addition to your interior or serve as an original gift for loved ones, for grandmother, mother or godparents.
Using scrapbooking materials, you can make a photo album in absolutely any style: retro, nautical or childish.
There are several main types of photo albums in the modern world. One of the first types of photo storage can be called a classic photo album. Such albums have several types of sheets filling them:
- thick sheets of cardboard, on top of which printed photographs are glued;
- sheets with magnetic holders for photos;
- sheets with pockets made of plastic material files into which printed photographs are placed.
Of course, the simplest and most convenient to use is the idea of a photo album with plastic compartments for photos. In them, you simply distribute your printed materials and enjoy the result. However, such albums cannot be called original and creative at all. Guests who will view such a photo album may not be interested in doing this at all.
Photo albums with thick cardboard sheets are less practical, but you can arrange them in an original and unusual way. You can place on a dense sheet of photos of various sizes for a boy or a newborn. You can also add decorative elements to the album page or original caption. 
Albums for photos with "magnetic" sheets also allow you to apply a creative approach, and you do not have to suffer with glue or adhesive corners - you can place photos of different formats on the sheets, and subsequently change their location. However, after a certain period of time, the magnetic sheet turns yellow and scratches, the photos begin to peel off.
It is best to design several themed albums for individual events. Wedding photos, summer vacation memories or childhood photos are best placed in different albums. For a colleague, lover or girlfriend, you can show exactly the photos you want.
Be very careful when choosing the cover of your photo album. The choice of covers in modern stores is the most diverse: oilcloth covers, from various fabrics, with decorative elements, from fur, from artificial and natural leather. Covers with flowers, kittens and dogs are no longer in fashion, choose more stylish solutions. In addition, there are special thematic albums dedicated to a particular event - pay attention to them.
We analyze the ideas for designing a wedding album using the scrapbooking technique
We offer several design ideas and a master class on making a wedding photo album with your own hands. Any couple in love wants to keep wedding memories and moments. That is why it will be relevant to make an original album for photos from this significant event.
The cover of the wedding album can be decorated with kanzashi flowers, the petals of which are made of white satin ribbons. Graceful hearts can be cut out of felt.
Also, between some pages of the album, you can place various cute memorable little things that remind you of bright wedding moments. For example, a fragment of a pillow from wedding rings, lace, bows and other accessories of the bride, several dried flowers from a wedding bouquet.
You can arrange the pages of your album into thematic departments and sections. Also, an original solution would be to add several pages with congratulations from your guests and relatives.
It is desirable to design all pages in a single style. For example, pages made in vintage style or decorated in antique look very beautiful.
To design a wedding album, it is enough to include your creative imagination and imagination.
A selection of videos on the topic of the article
We suggest you watch several thematic videos on the topic of the article. In them you can see in more detail the process of decorating and creating photo albums with your own hands.
We all cherish our favorite memories, whether we like to be photographed or not. That is why it is not very pleasant if photos dear to the heart are stored in dusty boxes, in paper folders. The fact would be much nicer if the photos were stored in a practical and beautiful photo album. In this article, we will tell you how to make a photo album with your own hands.
Basic design rules
The end result depends on the original idea. Therefore, before starting work, it is advisable to consider in detail every detail on the product. In addition, we must not forget what the composition of the work and its plot are, especially if you present such a product to someone. So, let's talk about the main points of the design of the work.
Plot
The plot is called the element of the realization of the idea. As a rule, they think about this component first of all. Usually they create albums dedicated to family life, a wedding, a newborn baby. Also, a self-made album can be presented to a relative, work colleague or loved one.
Composition
Visual unity plays an important role here. Before you make a photo album with your own hands, you need to correctly place all the stickers and photos on the pages, because this component cannot be neglected either.
Compiling a competent composition, you must be guided by the following rules:
- Determine where the center of the composition will be.
- Place bright accents.
- Make sure that the colors on the pages are in harmony with each other and there are places for the signature on them.
- Balance proportions.
- Pick up decor elements suitable for the photo.
- A certain triangle must be observed: “title - photo - description”.
Style
Particular attention should be paid to the style of work. Before you design the pages and cover of the photo album, you should decide which style represents your family or loved one.
The main styles include:
- Minimalism. This style involves a minimum of jewelry.
- The absence of decorative elements is also characteristic of the European style. Its main feature is the variety of forms of photographs that are cut out in the form of one or another object (for example, a heart or a star).
- Vintage style will suit history buffs.
- Shabby chic style involves the presence of various cute ribbons and lace. A photo album in this style would be the perfect gift for a little girl.
- American style is full of many decorative elements.
Techniques
The technique for making a photo album with your own hands can also be different, and you can come up with your own.
The main techniques are:
- Stamping. As the name implies, this technique involves the use of different applicator stamps.
- Decoupage. Drawings, stickers, pictures, ornaments play a special role here.
- Cropping. The main attention is paid to the photos themselves: they are cropped in such a way that the key points of the image remain.
- Journaling. Usually this is the name of a photo supplemented with original signatures.
- Distressing. The key point of this technique is the aging of paper.
Step-by-step production of a gift photo album
In this section, we will talk in detail about how to make a photo album with your own hands step by step for beginners.
Work materials
To carry out the work you will need the following materials:
- Scrap paper.
- Thick cardboard (300 g/m²).
- Single sided adhesive.
- Decorative fabric.
- A little synthetic winterizer.
- Satin ribbon.
- Notebook.
- Needle.
- Awl.
Making a photo album with your own hands - a step-by-step master class for beginners
So, let's move on to the production of the album. In order for the gift to be a success, the following algorithm must be observed:
- Album layout. To ensure that the end result only pleases the user, you need to accurately plan each landscape page. Before proceeding with the procedure, you need to plan everything correctly on a template - an ordinary school notebook in a cage of the appropriate size can play its role. There you can sketch out the approximate location of photographs and decorative elements.
- Now you are ready to bind your photo album. To do this, you need to take the cardboard prepared in advance and cut out three strips from it, exactly 24 cm high. The width should increase in proportion. After that, it is necessary to fold the sheets in such a way that roots are formed, which gradually increase in size (it is better to draw them before the procedure). The end result is a book with a spine. Along the line of this spine, all the details must be glued. Next comes the firmware with a waxed cord. The basis of the photo album with your own hands is ready.
- Now you should pay attention to the design of the pages. This procedure can be done using scrap paper. Additional parts can be glued with silicone glue or double-sided tape. The resulting backgrounds are glued onto the “bare” pages of the album.
Important! It should be borne in mind that the volumetric decor must be placed evenly over the sheet, at the same time, it should not deform the pages of the photo album.
Album's cover
The basis of the album is made, the pages are decorated, but what to do with the cover? The cover of the photo album is the face of the future gift, which means that it should look appropriate.
Important! The cover must be processed, observing the dimensions of the binding. Cardboard, 2-2.5 mm wide, is ideal.
Consider the following course of action:
- Prepare two blanks for cardboard covers with a spine.
- Cut pieces of adhesive fabric that fit the blanks.
- Position the spine between the blanks of the covers, while making an indent of 0.3 mm.
- Fasten the parts with adhesive cloth.
- Cut off the synthetic winterizer corresponding to the size of the workpiece, attach it from above.
- Such a design must be attached to the fabric that was chosen as an element of decor.
- Leave three centimeters of fabric on the sides. They will be attached to the workpiece with double-sided adhesive tape. Where there is none, fix the structure with glue.
The final stage
Making a photo album with your own hands is almost finished. It remains only to assemble:
- First of all, you need to alternately fasten the double sheets of the finished cover. The first sheet must be attached to the cover.
- When the design dries, go to its firmware: opening the album in the middle, you need to outline the places for the holes, then punch them with an awl and stitch them with a beautiful satin ribbon.
- Fix the corners with special decorative corners. Don't forget about additional cover decor.
Making a photo album for a baby
Albums for kids have been very popular lately. It is very simple to make a photo album for a baby with your own hands: just connect your imagination and accuracy.
Natalia Kaptsova - expert in psychology and success
Reading time: 12 minutes
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Who among us does not like to be photographed and photograph loved ones and loved ones? Over time, we accumulate a huge number of photographs at home, which, of course, we want to preserve and pass on to future generations. Therefore, today we will discuss with you ideas for decorating a family photo album with your own hands. It would be nice to make this pleasant activity one of the most, doing all the creative work on the design of the family album together.
Scrapbooking family chronicle - do-it-yourself vintage family album
Scrapbooking is one of the techniques for creating and designing family or personal albums. Where, in addition to photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, buttons, drawings and other memorabilia are added that carry a story about you and your loved ones. Thanks to this art, instead of an ordinary album, we will get a whole story about the life of your family. The cover of the photo album can also be given an original look. Decorate it with some memorabilia - for example, a ribbon to which you can attach an amulet, or yellow maple leaves. On the cover you can put a beautiful inscription symbolizing something important only for you and your family. 
Making a family album in the form of a genealogical tree
Try to make your own family tree of your family and attach it to the title page of the photo album. It will not be difficult - list all the closest relatives that you remember and whose photos you can find in the family archive. First, add photographs of the most distant ancestors to the album, and finish the design with photographs of our days. Such a self-made photo album will be of interest to absolutely everyone - both the older generation and the younger. After all, considering it, you will have the feeling that you are reading a real saga about the history of your own family. 
How to make a family album with children's pages - ideas for designing a children's family album
Of course, one of the most important events in every family is the birth of a child. We always want to decorate this chapter of our life somehow in a special way. After all, even the smallest detail matters. We have a great many photographs of growing children, because we want to capture every moment of the life of a little man. And it can be very difficult to choose some individual photos from them to put in an album. But still try to select the most characteristic photographs that most clearly reflect important moments in the life of your baby. At first, these can be your photos, where the baby is still in your tummy. Next - an extract from the hospital. A newborn baby gets acquainted with family members and closest people. First smile. First steps. Walks. Deep sleep. Breakfast. For any mother, all these moments are incredibly important and everyone will be remembered forever. Also in the photo album you can attach the first hairs of the baby, make decoration from the first booties, ribbons, from a lace baby scarf or bonnet. Do not forget to describe next to the photographs the events that are depicted in them. Over time, it will be possible to add your child's drawings and various school or sports trophies and certificates to the photo album. 
Do-it-yourself wedding family album - lace, satin bows and dried flowers from the bride's bouquet.
A wedding is a very important and special day for every woman. I want to keep in my memory every moment of this happy day. And, of course, we have a huge number of photographs that require a decent design. You can unusually decorate a wedding album by putting satin bows and lace from the bride's accessories into it. You can also attach dried flowers from the bride's bouquet to the photos, if you have them. All these little things will become more and more valuable to you over the years, and when you open a wedding photo album made by yourself, you will return to that magical day every time. 
The idea of designing a family album about a vacation with trophies from long journeys
We all love to relax, and from each trip we bring a bunch of photos. Naturally, these photos are also worthy of their photo album. You can decorate such an album with postcards depicting the countries where you rested, trophies from travels - whether it be a piece of a shell or a dried exotic plant. You can also make an ornament from the sand from the beaches where you sunbathed and took pictures. Don't forget about the descriptions of what is shown in the photos. After all, many years later, your children will be very interested to read about the adventures of their parents on vacation, and see colorful illustrations for this exciting story. 
How to make a family album as a gift to parents - a chronicle of the parental family
A handmade photo album is also a wonderful gift that you can present to your parents for an anniversary, or any holiday, or just like that. Collect the best photos of parents from all family albums to transfer them to one. When adding photos, add some words from yourself for your mom and dad in the description. Tell them how much you love them and how much they are dear to you. You can decorate the photo album with clippings from old magazines and preserved old theater tickets that your parents attended. An album for parents can also be decorated with hand-made decor items - an album cover crocheted or knitted, figurines for decorating a luxurious antique style, made by yourself. The album can also contain homemade collages, appliqué and decorative elements in vintage style, with antique lace and velvet. The flight of fancy here is simply limitless! 
DIY creative album - creating a family chronicle with photos, drawings, poems and stories of all family members
And, of course, every family should have a common album, looking at which is so warm and comfortable to spend time surrounded by loved ones. There are a great many ideas for creating such an album, and all members of the family will have to work on their implementation. Add your favorite photos to it in chronological order. Accompany them with poems of your own composition, let each of the family members write stories about some significant events. You can also collect children's drawings to put them in an album, small memorabilia. Bring all your creative impulses to life! In the photo album, in addition to photos, you can add everything that matters to your family. And then you get a real family illustrated chronicle, which can be left to posterity as a keepsake. 
A DIY photo album will breathe new life into your memories captured on film. After all, what if not viewing family photos on winter evenings, so brings family members closer making you appreciate each other even more.
Hello, dear friends, readers, guests of the Domovenok-Art blog! If you have not forgotten, our blog was originally dedicated to needlework and not only. Therefore, today a real master class awaits you, as in the old days. We will create a simple photo album with our own hands.
I look for myself. The farther, the more often there is a desire to print photos. Digital technologies, of course, have greatly simplified our lives: we now take pictures of anything, anywhere, and as many times as we like, and then we dump gigabytes of photos on a hard drive and often forget about them safely because of the abundance of information, until we feel like something to do something. It's simple, but it misses something important.
📷 Photos as such have ceased to have any value for us. Remember what feelings you had when film photos were printed and how pleasant it is to pull out album after album and plunge into the moments experienced. Material photography - it seems to take on life. And these are completely different feelings than when you look at them through a soulless monitor screen.
And now imagine that your precious moments, memories not only became tangible with your fingers, but acquired a chic material shell in the form of a photo album 📘, made with your own hands, made with love. After all, you can put your own zest there, revive it with your uniqueness, and no one but you will convey that range of feelings as accurately as you feel it.
In general, I propose to resume the tradition and go to a photo studio with good print quality (well, or turn on your printer📇)))). And before that, of course, prepare a place to accommodate fresh memories. That is, to make a photo album with your own hands.
Speak out))) Now to the point!
Materials and tools:
- thick pastel paper or cardboard (cardstock);
- background paper;
- binding cardboard;
- glue Moment crystal;
- PVA glue;
- glue stick;
- ruler, scissors;
- creasing (knitting needle, non-writing pen);
- a piece of thin fabric;
- fabric for the cover;
- decorations.
How to make a mini photo album with your own hands
The format of the photo album shown in the photo is 10x10 cm.
Photo album page block
We cut the cardstock into 10x10 cm squares. From one sheet, 6 squares are obtained.
We cut strips of 10x2.5 cm in quantity by 1 less than squares. Attention! If you are planning a voluminous page decor, then the width of the stripes needs to be increased.
In the middle of each strip, we draw 2 lines with a creasing tool (the distance between them will depend on the volume of the page decor). In this version, no additional decor is expected, only a photo, so the distance was taken about 2 mm.
We cut off the same angles from the fold lines for each strip. And then fold them and iron the folds well.
We begin to assemble a block of a photo album with our own hands. Using Moment Crystal glue, we connect the strip along the fold line with the first square.
Glue another square on the other side of the connecting strip. Here we have such an element of a mini photo album.
We continue in the same way. We glue a new strip on the other side of the second square, and then the next square. And so on, until we connect all the details. We try to do this evenly, for this it is worth pressing the pages to the table along the fold lines and aligning the edges with the already glued pages, do not do it on weight.
We got the bottom of the album.
Now let's reinforce this block. We cut out a strip of thin fabric (gauze can be used, but thin fabric will still look neater) a little larger than the resulting block, so that about 1.5 cm is added to the hem on each side, and the fabric should go in width by 1, 5-2 cm per album block.
First, we fold it in height so that the fabric is literally a little larger than the height of the album block.
Life hack: in order not to create an unnecessary pile of fabric, I recommend making a hem only along the width of the block, and cut off what will be found on the sides, moreover, as if at an angle.
We fix the folds with glue.
Then we glue all this fabric on the Moment Crystal to the workpiece. For clarity, how it should look right, I will also post here a photo from another album. An experience)))
And this is not very correct.
The album block is ready!
If you do not plan a lot of decor on the pages of the album, you can paste the background leaves at this stage. They will be approximately 9.5x9.5 cm in size. Quantity \u003d (2 number of sheets) - 2.
DIY photo album cover
The first step in creating a do-it-yourself photo album cover is spine. The first experience taught me how not to make a spine, so I will demonstrate the process of creating a cover using another album as an example.
So, for the spine we need a piece of ordinary cardboard. The height of the spine should be commensurate with the height of the album block. The width is calculated from the width of the block + 2-3 cm overlap.
Cut out this rectangle. In the middle part, we draw several scoring lines at a distance of 1-2 mm from each other. So we will create a smooth bend of the spine without creases.
On the reverse side, on the fold lines, it is also worth drawing a couple of deep lines so that there are no problems opening the photo album.
Cut out the fabric for the spine (this is the fabric that will go on the cover). It should be slightly larger than the cardboard, from top to bottom - a margin for a hem of about 2 cm.
Life hack: if there is no special interlining that is glued with an iron, you can use adhesive tape, which is usually used to hem the edges of trousers. Just tear off a few strips and iron the second piece of fabric in the center. This will give a more aesthetic look to your photo album, the stripes on the spine through the double fabric will not show through as much as if the fabric was in a single layer.
We connect the fabric with cardboard with the help of PVA or the Moment of the Crystal, we make the bends of the fabric inward.
For the cover, it is better to use binding cardboard. We cut off two pieces of cardboard, equal in height to the spine, and slightly larger in width than the album block. Here it is better to try on directly and give a little margin (3-5 mm).
By the size of the cardboard plus a couple of cm for the hem, cut out the fabric for the cover.
First, glue the front part of the cover on PVA. You can directly on the cardboard, or you can put a filler inside and give more volume and softness to the photo album.
If desired, the fabric can be combined by sewing two pieces on a typewriter or gluing them with a Moment, having previously folded the edge of one of them.
Inside, we immediately glue the side parts without pulling the fabric. If, as planned, some ribbons will decorate the front part, it's time to glue them too and bend them inward.
- We squeeze the corner with our fingers, making a fold.
- We press along this fold to the cardboard.
- Cut off the resulting middle fold.
- We smooth the extreme fold well, try it on. If it's too much, cut it off.
- If everything is ok, fix it with glue.
- And then glue the entire corner.
In this short video, I explained a little more:
We glue the extreme corners immediately, while leaving the inner corners (which will be in contact with the spine) only prepared (that is, at stage 5), but not glued.
We insert the spine into these places. Its outer curves, which we made earlier (the edges of the curves), should coincide with the beginning of the cover (you can even push them out a little). Now you can glue the corners.
The cover for a mini photo album with your own hands is ready. And here is a small gallery, click on the photo to see the covers:
And now it remains to paste the block into the cover. This is done as follows: glue the outer sheet of the block with glue and insert it tightly into the cover. This must be done with the album closed. In this case, the spine should remain intact, and it will follow the contours of the block inside. Do not forget to pay special attention to the internal junctions of the cover with the page block.
If all the previous calculations were done correctly, then after gluing both parts of the cover and drying the glue, the album will open easily and freely. If something did not work out and it is difficult to open, you may not have worked out the folds to the end, or the spine is not proportionate to the block, or more has stuck. what you need. In any case, it's an experience and the next album will be better for sure.
It remains to work a little with the decoration of the cover. You can draw a picture on it, stick different images, wooden, metal, fabric elements, ribbons, etc.
That's all! A simple do-it-yourself photo album is ready! As you can see, everything is quite accessible, and if there is a desire, then it is quite feasible. And the materials used are available. Well, then - we give free rein to imagination.
Albums with ribbons were made as a gift. They have a soft cover, and according to the plan, photos were simply pasted into them.
The album with a gray cover included 2 concert memories of 2016. Of course, it took more time to create it, because each page was individually thought out, but the result is very impressive. Here are a couple of his pages.
Yes, photos for the album will need to be pre-prepared, cropped and brought to the desired size. This is done quite simply. If anyone has any questions - write (in the comments below or through the feedback form
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