Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Refreshed Photo Albums




As a birthday gift for my mom, I offered to put all of our family pictures in photo albums for her.  Little did I know that this would be a huge endeavor.  The box of photos probably weighs as much as I do.  After scoping out the price of albums, I concluded that this would be an up-cycled project.  Thank God for Goodwill!  I brought home all the photo albums that I could find from the thrift store along with a roll of wood grained contact paper.

I covered each of the albums with contact paper -possibly my favorite craft supply- to make a uniform set of books.  Nothing says 'old school' like wood grain, right?  Its eerily similar to the wood panels that lined the hallways in my parent's old house.

Because this box includes everything from snap shots of my high school prom all the way back to embarrassing pictures of me in the bathtub as a toddler, I will need to sort and organize them.

For album labels, I drilled holes in the covers and attached metal book plates from the craft store.  Pieces of an old folder make great tags to tuck in the book plates.


My mom has always loved roses and the color pink, so I was thrilled to find this tube of vinyl tea rose wall clings while wandering around at Jo-Ann Fabrics.   I was disappointed to discover that the decals are translucent, but I still think they look good.




Now that I've made a few books, I guess its time to start sorting out the pictures- that's the real challenge with this project.





Its me as Baby Heather!   -------------------->
(Even though this was taken many, MANY years ago, I don't look too much different today)




3 comments:

  1. That is such a great idea. I love the wood grain look. My grandparents also had wood panel walls. I have been trying to get a little crafty and I was thinking about making a nice photo album for my grandparents. They live far from me and I don't get to see them much so I thought this would be a gift. Do you have any advice or ideas for a beginner? Thanks for the great blog!

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  2. Hi Mackenzie, I love online photo albums! That is a great idea! Because the album is online, you have so many possibilities to work with! You can ad other images, besides your personal photos, like pictures of places you've gone on vacation or events you have gone to together.
    So if you went to New York, for example, you could find generic pictures of the New York skyline online, or an image of a Postcard that says New York to upload to the album. Even though they won't have familiar faces, they will still bring back good memories.
    This would also be good a good way to share special memories that you don't have photos of. You could find great images for camping, road trips, beautiful beach images, carnivals- almost anything! You could also add images from movies that you saw together, or the front cover of a book you enjoyed reading (Amazon has good book cover images).
    Another nice addition would be quotes, inside jokes or lines from movies or books like this one from Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/85427724151169369/.
    You could also take snapshots of your own special things or places to add, such as pictures of gifts you've been given, things you've made, images of cards they've sent to you, ect.
    If you decide to make an actual book rather than the online album, you could print all of these images and add them the book, too! I hope this helps a little, good luck with your project! I'd love to see it when your done if you want to share!
    Heather

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    1. Thanks for the reply Heather. You really gave me great ideas. I am so excited to get started on my photo album now. I love the adding quotes idea!! Thank you so much for all your help, I cant wait to show you the finished project.

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