Graphic 45 - Film Canister Album - In Campagna

Ok, so first off I have to say...I do NOT have the attention span for mini albums!!!  And the sad thing is I fully intend to create at least another 2.  I think it was working in miniture that I found difficult.  I am definitely a 12x12" Scrapper or a maker of Off the Page items...however now it's finished I'm pretty happy with it.  The Metal Canister hasn't been decorated yet.  I will be doing that later and when finished I'll post more photos.

This is a mini album about 2 trips I made into the Sicilian country-side with friends to a small house owned by the family of some of these friends.  I hope I captured the highlights of each of these days.

So, to begin with, I won't be posting a step-by-step on this.  Just a few general ideas of how it was all put together.  If anyone has any questions don't hesitate to contact me and I'll try and answer.

 

Materials used:

• Graphic 45 Metal Canister Album
• Prima Doodle Deux Paper, Wood Buttons & Alpha Stickers
• Prima Trinkets;
• Melissa Frances Trim;
• Ranger Tim Holtz Crackle Paint - Weathered Wood;
• Prima Flowers - Firefly Blue Ochre & Velvet Rainbow Vintage;
• Want 2 Scrap - Strip Bling - White Pearl with Black Rhinestones;
• BoBunny Rhinestones & Button;
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads & Pens;
• patience...something I was a bit short of!

 

The Prima Doodle Deux paper is something I've been wanting to try since it was released and I have to say I really love it and I'm pretty sad now that my stash is now all used up!  I might have to see about getting hold of some more.  A lot of the embellishments for this were made by cutting out flowers and birds from the paper.  I did think of covering them in Glossy Accents, but in the end decided to leave them plain.

The first thing after deciding which papers I was going to use was to cover the accordian album.  I used the album itself to trace the outlines onto the side of the paper not being used and then cut them out using my Tim Holtz Non-Stick Scissors.  After adhering to the album, I sanded the edges with a sanding block including the edges of the folds between the pages.  After which the edges were inked with Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads to match the paper colours...in this case Weathered Wood & Black Soot.

 

On the first page I added some Weathered Wood Crackle Paint around the edges and distressed with Rusty Hinge ink.  However being a small album I decided it was going to be overboard if I did this on further pages so decided to leave it for page 1 only.

 

I'm fairly sure that "normal" people would use only the one side of this album, leaving the back blank, but I had to go the whole distance and add photos to each side.  The photos are small (8x6") and I managed to put 2 photos per page.  (we'll call it value for money, shall we?)

 

Assembling and layering more or less the same as I would a normal layout (but much smaller).  However, I didn't have room for proper journalling so I added words and titles from the matching alpha sheet to capture how I felt about each page or to tell simply what was going on. 

 

However, I did make a few mistakes...so here are a few tips for anyone wanting to make one of these albums:

• I went too elaborate on the first side and basically laid out each page individually.  On side 2, I laid out all pages together and then when happy with how it looked I stuck everything down...right down to the embellishments.  It was much easier and I think I much prefer side 2.
• My embellishments are too bulky...I didn't think things through properly and most of the embellishments are towards the bottom...this means that the tin won't close properly without help.
• Maybe I put too many photos on, but if you saw how many I had to select from you wouldn't be surprised.  Next time I would make the photos a bit smaller.

I hope you enjoy viewing the photos...plus a bit of an insight into the traditional sicilian barbeque and lifestyle.  Some similarities, but many differences!  Both great and lots of fun... :)

Veronica