Paper Bag Album

Written and Created by PaperCraftCentral Susan

Making a Paper Bag Album is easy and fun. It's a great way to create an album with lovely hidden pockets and flaps. And it is thrifty recycling at its best!

"I am not unorganized...
I just need a bigger scrapbook room."
~Stickers 'N' Fun Scrapbooking Quotes

How to Make a Paper Bag Album

What you will need:

All you need are some paper sacks, some adhesive, some scrapbooking paper and embellishments, and your photos/memorabilia.Oh, and your own imagination. :)

The tutorial for making these cute scrapbooks can be found in the video below.

It won't take long to create your handmade photo book and it makes an excellent gift project as well.

This little project lets you make extra pages to be stored inside the pockets of the sacks, so you can add in some surprise or private elements if you like.

You could place memorabilia in the pockets, for example, such as

• movie tickets and programs, set out on their own page
• journaling pageswhere you tell the story about the photos
  
• more pictures, (maybe the more private ones?)
• copies of letters, printed out emails, notes that you may have
  
• tags, small cards
  
• a set of handmade cards as a gift
  
• the words of songs, poems, or
• a combination of anything that suits your project.

The  video below shows you how it is done.

I recommend you watch the video, then gather your supplies and watch it again, and then make your own. That's what I did.

Or you could play the video and pause it at each step so you can follow along.

As long as you have your supplies ready, know the message you want to create with your photos and stories, you will soon have a sweet little completed scrapbooking project on your craft desk, all ready to be decorated.

Suggested list of supplies:

• Five paper bags to form the basis of your album
• Adhesive such as Tear'nTape, Mini Glue Dots, Stampin' Dimensionals and Tombow Liquid Multipurpose Glue
  
• A couple of pages of designer series paper to decorate
• Other embellishments of choice, including two little catches as shown in the video, and bling, ribbon, lace, twine, whatever suits your theme
• Your photos and memorabilia
• Your story for journalling about the photos and memorabilia
  

Now watch the video and see how ot make your album.

You can change the size and thickness of your own album to suit your purpose, of course. I have made paper bag albums with quite small paper bags and I made one bigger than an A4 page with manilla envelopes once. The instructions should  work for you regardless of bag size.

Other Ideas:

I've used these little beauties in making Circle Journals. They make an inexpensive and light item that can easily be sent through the post.

Another use for them is to make one to be used at a going away party or similar event. Decorate with photos of your special guest and people who will miss him or her, then make a page for people to sign or comment on. Present the completed item to your guest as a special memento instead of (or as well as) giving them a handmade greeting card. You could set the album up so that photos of the event can be inserted.

If you have a photo printer, you could even take and print the photos for the album during the party! I have fond memories of attending a 50th birthday party where the birthday girl's children took photos of all guests and printed them out, then added them to an album page and invited us to write our own comments to our birthday friend. What an easy way to journal. It was all done by the team of guests at the party, and by the honoured guest's own children!

Below is an example of an album I made for my mother's 80th birthday party. The birthday girl had all of her four children at her party day and a few of her grandchildren as well. Each guests wrote their own tag out to their mother and grandmother.

We took photos of the day including a group photo that was printed on pearlised paper. We preserved tickets to the show, the cruise out to the Barrier Reef and dinner in the pockets of the album. 

It remained a special memento of the day for everyone involved. I am so glad I did it. We no longer have our lovely mother and grandmother with us.

I hope you have fun making your own paper bag album. Remember to write and tell me when you make one.

I would love to see your unique spin on this idea.

Or if you have more ideas for how to use recyclables in your papercrafting, please tell me that too.