Today I am excited to share a mini album that I made to document the growth each month during my daughters first year. 

I used paper, stickers, ribbons & embellishments that are all part of the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook collection by American Crafts.  I love the bright colors, beautiful flowers and all the lovely black outlines used in this collection.  It was the perfect choice to use for this mini album.   

On the front cover I wanted to keep it simple so I just used three different strips of paper.  The one with the round flowers on the top half is my favorite so I found a way to share it on the front cover. 

I used a tag & the love brad to write a personalized message giving the book to Gwen.  Added a strand of green & pink bakers twine to tie it to the ring. 

I used the lined paper for the bottom half of the cover.  I wanted a paper that was simple so that the title would stand out.  It has this lovely sketch of a black flower and to add a touch of color I added a sticker die cut below.  

For the title I used three different sticker sets.  I love how the teal & fascia letters sparkle.  This is an 8×8 chipboard 7 Gypsies album that I got a few years back. I made three for our puppies (their first year photos too) and have loved using them since for mini books.

There are 5 rings on this notebook.  I put different colored mini strips of ribbon on each ring, black/gray at the top, blues, hot pinks , greens & yellows at the bottom.  Getting to use so many different colors & patterns of ribbons might be my favorite thing about the collection (along with the flowers on the front cover).  I think there were 8 spools I didn’t get to use.    I’ve never seen such a huge pack of ribbons to go with one collection!  

I used the same circle element on each page for the title.  Because they are thick from the stickers I rotated them from the right to left side of the page.

To create the circles….I used my 3 inch scalloped circle for the pink outer circle.  For the inner, in word I made circles with the teal dashed line circle & added the typed words.  I punched each circle out with a 2.25 circle (keeping the dashed line inside my punch).   The teal shiny thicker number shines nicely on the white cardstock.

Pages inside mini album: 

The owl design started last year when I was creating the baby room and found these cute owls.  I got them so that we could use them to sit with Gwen for her monthly photos.  (we used an elephant for Gavin’s monthly photos the first year)

Since there were extra pages I decided to start the book when Gwen was in my belly (right at the end). The shower theme was owls too. This cute invite is from Twig & Thistle. There’s a momma & dada owl, a boy owl on the branch. Then the baby is little egg in the nest. She added the egg in the nest since we already had one child.

These photos of big brother were taken when we were decorating the baby room.  He was nursing (using an airline neck pillow for support)  his baby monkey & baby doll and they were too cute not to share in the book and have a page showing the proud big brother.

Starting with the first month I took photos every month from there on out.  It was fun to have that day where we’d take these photos. 

On the pages in the album you’ll see I used the same design over and over. The left side of the page has three vertical strips and on the right side there’s one 3×7 piece.

I wanted to have the photos be the highlight of the pages.  I tried to keep the design simple and let the beautiful patterns create a nice layout with the photos.

The invitation (purple one below) for the first birthday party was my inspiration with the rounded corners on the square invite. I printed the hero photo each month in the same size- 5×5 and then rounded the corners. On the left page the little photos are 2×2 squares, rounded the corners of these too.

For the last page I used the owl thank you card that was on the gift bags at the first birthday party.  It was a good way to have a copy of the owl that was part of the theme from that special day for Gwen to when she’s older.   

Hope you enjoyed seeing this mini book.  I had so much fun taking the photos each month and then being able to pull them all together in one place like this. 

For Gavin’s first year photos with the elephant, I did a scrapbook layout where they are all on one page in 2×2 squares.  I think I am going to go back and make his into a book too though because it will be a nice keepsake and fun to see how a boy version will turn out. 

Supplies:  Font-Pea Sarahloo, Corner Rounder-We R Memory Keepers Crop a Dile, 8×8 5 ring mini book album- 7 Gypsies, White circle tags-made in word with 2.15 inch circle, punched with EK Success Circle Paper Shapers Punch 2.25, Patterned Paper, ribbon, sticker letters, brad-Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Collection by American Crafts, Pink paper that’s the 3 inch scalloped circles (all except two of them)-Sultry by BasicGrey