How to Make a Mini Photo Album

I decided to make this small photo album keychain for my boyfriend's birthday this year. It has 8 pages, holding 16 - 1.25" x1.75" photos, enclosed in a faux leather cover with a closure strap. Finished photo album size is 2"x1.5" and can be made into a keychain.

Here's what I used to make it:

• Cricut Faux Leather - I already had this - you can use whatever you feel would work well

• Colored Paper - for inside cover of book

• Sheet Protector

• 16 Photos - 1.25" x 1.75"

• Scissors

• Tape - I used packing tape, you want this to be pretty transparent

• Needle/Thread - I used upholstery thread

• Button Snap

• (Optional) Keychain

We're going to start with making the album sleeves. These hold two photos each.

1. Take your sheet protector and cut it along the width of the sheet protector at the height of your photos (1.75").

2. With this row of plastic, add one of your photos in one of the closed ends of the plastic and tape the bottom, putting a piece of tape halfway onto the front of the plastic and pressing the other half on the back.

3. Cut the plastic on the other side to the width of the photo - it should be a little larger than the photo.

1. Tape up the open side in the same way you taped the bottom.

2. Take another piece of tape that is the height of your photo - the width of a scotch tape roll (I just used scotch tape for this as the transparency does not matter for this step).

3. To make a tab for your sleeve that we're going to sew into later, add the tape to one of the sides of your photo, only hanging on to the edge of the front of the sleeve.

4. Fold this piece in half and place the other edge of the tape on the edge of the back of the sleeve.

   

   with tape tab added

   You can do this however you'd like, this is just how I made the sleeves with what I already had at home.

   
   

Continue making your photo sleeves until you have as many as you would like. At every four pages, I taped them together again in the same way as before.

Once the pages are complete, you'll sew them all together and add the cover.

1. Line up all of your photo album pages.

   At this point, I had already added my photos to the album. I'm not sure if that makes sewing easier or not.

2. Take an arm's length of thread and a needle to add an overlock stitch through all of the pages.

   
   

   

   
   

3. Cut your cover to size.

   I didn't like the back side of the faux leather I used so I used glued a sheet of colored paper to the inside. (if you're going to add a lining, make sure you add the closure strap first so you can cover the stitches)

   
   

Again, you're going to sew the book into the cover now by opening it flat in the middle. I used a backstitch for this.

Then, I added a closure strap with a button snap.

1. I cut a piece of the faux leather to 1.5" and rounded off one of the edges.

2. Place the flat edge of the strap about 1/3 of the way away from the edge of the back of the cover and sew in place.

3. Sew one part of your button snap onto the rounded edge of the strap.

4. Mark where the button lines up with the front of the book and sew the other part of the snap into place on the cover.

You can add a keychain if you'd like (I just made one with stuff I had) and then you're finished!