Today I made my first mini album made with recycled toilet paper rolls. I learned a lot along the way and I'll share my instructions with you.
1. Flatten the rolls. Easy enough right? Well they didn't flatten as much as I thought they did. I ran them through my Texture Boutique twice and used a bone folder on them several times and they still bow. Maybe if I'd left them under some books for a day or two they'd be okay, but I wasn't that patient. They did seem to flatten slightly more after adding the paper.
3. I cut the paper to cover them at 5 inches wide by 6 inches long.
4. If you have a Xyron machine I strongly suggest you use it. I did the first roll this way but ran out. This was by far the easiest. I also used a tacky glue, but it's a little messier and more time consuming. Then I tried Zips glue lines which I thought worked pretty well until I found out that the glue lines were exactly where I needed to punch my holes.
5. After you have the paper securely attached all the way around the tubes, make small notches in the corners to make tab-like shapes of the extra paper on the ends. It will make it easier to push the paper around to the inside of the tube giving you a nice finished edge.
6. Use the bone folder to go over all of your edges again to make them crisp.
7. Now use your Crop-O-Dile to punch holes where your binder rings will go. I punched the first tube first, then laid it over the second tube and used my paper piercer to mark where the holes will be on the second. This saved a lot of time measuring, and I knew that all of the holes would line up.
8. I didn't have eyelets that were large enough to accomodate the binder rings, so I cut out cute "reinforcers" from Bazzill cardstock and glued them over the holes. I found these on the Plantin Schoolbook Cricut cartridge.
9 . I also cut the tags for the pockets from Plantin. I doubled up Bazzill and patterned cardstock to make them sturdier.
10. Embellish as you wish. I added a title and little birdie to the front and ribbons to the tags to make them easier to pull out. I still need to embellish the pages and add some finishing touches but this should give you some general direction.
