The Padded Room

Thursday, September 3, 2009

I'm home from my impromptu trip to the States!!! I some great new projects lined up for you, and the new fall Magalog - "Inspiration Avenue" to share! Click on the link to the left to see some "sneak peaks"!

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Toilet Paper Roll Mini Album Tutorial

We had a great Stamp Camp! Here is the tutorial for the mini album so you can make it over, and over, and over......

Supplies:
4 (or more) empty toilet paper rolls
Patterned paper
1/2" binding wire (or binder rings)
Bind it All (unless using the binder rings)
Cropadile
Corner Rounder
Coordinating Ink and ribbon
sponge
3/8" (large eyelets)
Embellishments
Strong Adhesive (we use Xyron tape)
Instructions:
1) Make sure your toilet paper roll is as clean as possible without lots of scraps of paper hanging off of it. Flatten them.
2) Cut four pieces of patterned paper 4 1/2" x 6" . Run them through the Xyron machine, or apply adhesive to them, making sure to get all the way up to the edges of the paper.
3) Wrap around flattened toilet paper roll, overlapping just a little bit. Trim off any excess.
4) Cut out four pieces of paper 4 1/4" x 2 3/8" for the tags. Using the corner rounder, round the edges.
5) Using coordinating ink, distress the edges (and backs of the tags, if you wish) of the tags and toilet paper roll. Get just inside the edge of the tp roll by using a sponge to apply the ink.
6) Punch binding holes in your tp rolls, one at a time, using the bind it all machine. you may want to practice the hole placement on a spare roll. You can also do this step with a Crop-a-dile or a strong hole punch.
7) Determine the order you want the pages of your album to be in. Then "turn the page" of the first page of your album, so that now you are looking at the second page of the album and the first page is on the back.
8) Snip off five links of binding wire and thread through the holes of the stacked tp rolls. Place in bind it all and squeeze the handle to bind. (For further instruction on how to use a bind it all, check my "links" section for a you tube link.) You can also use a binder ring at this point instead of wire. Tie ribbon on rings.
9) Using the Crop-a-dile, punch 3/8" holes in your tags. Place and set your eyelets in these holes. Thread your ribbon through them and tie into a simple knot. These are the "pull" tabs for your tags.
10) Stamp and embellish as desired! I used my tags for journaling, so I stamped journaling boxes on them and used a white gel pen (Souffle pen) to enhance it. I also used the tag sheet that came with the paper pack to create embellishments and the title. You can also cut out individual images (like a flower or a frog, or whatever) from the patterned paper and use it as an embellishement. I did this (see the flower on the album cover?) and used Crystal Laquer to make it shiny and dimensional. Word stamps are also great - I used "More Abundance" for the title.

Have fun and make it your own!!!