Create your own Christmas Card Keepsake Album

  

If you're like us and you hate throwing out cards, especially handmade ones, then you'll love this idea.  We've adapted it from a fantastic project in the new Scrapbook Trends Baby Idea Book, which is now in stock and selling fast!

Hope you enjoy this very useful way to store those precious cards.

To make the cover you'll need:

• a chipboard sheet or two (leftover from a pack of paper),
• Colorcore Cardstock in Poinsettia and Forest,
• Basic Grey Wassail paper (Merry Happy and Turtle Doves)
• a yard of red Bazzill ribbon
• Ranger Inkssentials White Pen for doodling around the edges
• Bazzill White cardstock to print the journalling

1. Cut 2 pieces of chipboard to half an inch bigger than the width and length of your largest card.  These will make up the bases for the front and back covers.
2. Cover one chipboard cover with Colorcore Poinsettia Cardstock - front and back.
3. Cover the other chipboard cover with Colorcore Forest Cardstock - front and back.
4. Cut a piece of Merry Happy paper (plain dark brown side) to half an inch smaller than the chipboard/cardstock, centre it and stick to the front of the red cover.
5. Cut some small parcels from the Merry Happy paper (patterned side) as shown in Diagram 1 below.
6. Print some journalling on white card.  We printed the title "Christmas 2008" using the Scriptina font and the journalling is a quotation from "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.  Distress the edges of the white cardstock with Ranger Distress Ink (we used Antique Linen).
7. Stick down the journalling and stick a selection of parcels around it (see Diagram 1 below).
8. Tear 2 pieces of Basic Grey Turtle Doves paper (Diagram 2 below) and stick to the top left hand edge of the Merry Happy paper.
9. Doodle just inside the edges of the album as shown with a Ranger Inkssentials White Pen.
10. Gather up your cards, place a cover front and back and punch a hole in the left hand corner of both the covers and all of the cards and hold them together with either a chain or a large bookring.
11. Tie everything in place by wrapping a yard of Bazzill ribbon (or whatever type you have) around the whole book and securing in a bow at the front (see Diagram 3 below).

Diagrams 1, 2 & 3:

   

You can decorate the inside of the front cover and the inside and outside of the back cover if you wish. 

Check out the Scrapbook Trends Baby Idea Book article for further ideas.