Hello! Are you ready for some mega- mini inspiration?! Today we, the Cocoa Daisy team, are excited to share some of the ways we have been using our kits to make mini books! Some of us love to use the bits and pieces and loads of patterned paper and alphas and create tiny albums to spotlight all sorts of photos and topics. We hope to bring you this Mini Book feature each month on the blog. Hopefully you will be inspired to make mini books of your own, or if you don’t like to make mini’s, hopefully you will still find lots of techniques or ideas in them that can be translated to pages and cards too. No matter how you look at it, our hope is that you will see new ways to bring the goodies in your kits to life!

So here I go with a short tutorial for making a mini using some very basic scrap supplies. I dug into my February Double Feature kit and Feature Presentation patterned paper add-on as the basis of this mini. There are often papers in the kit that come with a variety of little ‘pages’ on them. I love when that happens. It’s like the mini book has already started to make itself before I even make a single cut! The other ‘trick’ that I am happy to share with you is that sometimes the packaging itself lends itself well to be used in your project. I happen to love a variety of textures and a more random look to the mini books I make. So in this book I used several glassine envelopes that hold tiny embellishments and extra items in the kits each month. I like that mini books can really be made of anything; it’s a great way to use up some of the favorite pieces that you hold on to!

To begin, as I stated, I cut one of the papers that already had a mix of patterns on it. I didn’t even resize them. I simply cut them apart and decided that they would be perfect ‘as is’. The photos I planned to use for my book were tiny, so the page size wasn’t too much of a concern for me. Once I had my envelopes and papers cut and gathered, I played around with them until I liked the order of their patterns and then it was on to step two. Step two can be a lot of things, but for this mini it was all about washi tape! I love {and have lots of!} washi tapes. Some of the kits have been including tape recently too, so this is a fun way to use it up. Again, my technique isn’t too involved- I just starting taping up the facing pages and using different patterns as I liked. I scrap to have fun, so as long as I like the things I am using, I just go with it. I didn’t measure or even line up the tape evenly at times. On some pages/spreads I had to use a few pieces of tape to make the pages hold together well. I used the envelopes as though they wee just squares of paper too. So nothing special had to be done in regards to adding them into the book. I just taped, taped and taped, until all the pages were attached to one another. Like this:

I knew I had quite a bit of text/journaling, and I also knew I had several photos to use too. But I didn’t actually have a clue how many pages I would need. I just knew I wanted a sort of bulky book, and I would make the pages/photos work as needed! I am pretty sure Tim Gunn would be proud that I embrace his “Make it work” method for my scrapping. Like I said, I am about having fun as I create; I’m not so worried about a perfect outcome. It’s more exciting for me to be ‘surprised’ at the final product too. Maybe I am crazy for doing it this way. But that’s my way, and I just want to let you in on my process.

So, now my pages were taped and the base of my mini book was ready to go. I love this phase- it means I get to start filling in all those cute ptterned pages next! This is the part of the process where you start to use up all the amazing little detail pieces and stamps that come in your kits. I am sure you all have lots of alphabet stickers and tags and sequins and tiny banners and doilies, and well, you know. ALL the fun stuff that you love about the kits! Mini books are a fantastic way to use your collection of favorite things!

February’s kit “Double Feature” has some of my current favorites in it- including the tiny wooden arrows and the corrugated alphabet stickers. I could hardly wait to put them to good use! The pages started to shape up easily as I laid out which photos I wanted to coordinate with the page text. I put all the photos into the book first, and then went back and added the text and went to town on adding all the details too. Sometimes my biggest problem is knowing when to stop putting more things into my book. But really, you can’t go wrong. Here is a link to the entire mini book I created. I have to thank my friend, Sarah Bowen, for letting me download and print and use so many pictures of her cute pup, Napolean. He was such a fun subject to scrap! Honestly, the book was based loosely on the photos of him, but more than that I wanted the message of “You” to be for anyone who flips through the pages I made. It’s a good message for everyone! I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial and peek at my mini book. {Edited to note that this minibook was requested for publication and so the images have been removed until permission is given to repost. They will be reposted after Oct. 1, 2013. Our apologies for any inconvenience, and our thanks for understanding!}

Here is another adorable mini created by Mandy Kay using the Pemberley kit from January. Her process is a simple, but wonderful one too! Mandy Kay says, “To create the base for my minibook, I started with a plain manilla folder and cut 2-2 1/2″ off the bottom. To create the pockets, I folded the bottom edge up, about 3-3 1/2″. Then I folded the book backwards at the midline(pockets out), I scored a line down the middle of each side, and folded them back over, creating a 4-pocket, accordion style book.”

Mandy Kay’s accordian mini book

And just like that you have a nice little pocket album that can be used in so many different ways! I also made a mini using the Pemberley kit- so it is similar in style, but mine was to document my word of the year { My word is soar.} and include little notes and quotes that I wanted to keep in mind as 2013 kicked off. Here is the link to that gallery too.

And a paperbag mini from Lisa too also using the January Pemberley Kit.

Lisa Says, ” Each year I always keep tickets, random notes and receipts form special occasions, but they end up in a basket and alot of the time that’s where they stay. So this year I’ve decided to change that and I’ve made a mini book to keep them all safe inside.

I’ve taken 12 paper bags and stuck back to back. Each envelope is a month to hold the bits and pieces that I will collect.

Each side of the bags have been decorated with newspaper, mod podge, inks and glitter. I’ve then used these wonderfully bright papers from Echo Park ‘Todays Story’ to decorate. I couldn’t just join the book together on the spine side as all the tickets will fall out when I start adding them, so I’ve made a hole on the spine side and threaded the ribbon that came with the kit through and fastened accross to book in a bow to kit everything safe in side.

 I know there are more amazing mini books in the Cocoa Daisy gallery besides these few. If you have made one, or if you make one in the coming weeks, please post here and let us know! We hope that you have been inspired by these different designs in more than a few ways. Mini books may be small, but they almost always pack some mega fun and inspiration! Have a blast scrapping a mini and using the favorite things from your stash too!

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