Amy Tangerine Projects Blog Hop: Mini Tag Book

Hi Scrappy Friends!  One thing I always love is bringing home some new scrappy goodness and some of favorites to tear open and get to playing with are by Amy Tangerine.  I belong to an Amy Tangerine fan group on Facebook and today a few of us getting together to show off our projects made with her lines from American Crafts.  Here are the other ladies' links:

Ruth: http://www.scrapmachine.com/
Shay: http://www.shaytibbs.com

My project is a cute little tag book with a ribbon closure, all about the first time we took our two year old son to one of Michigan's Great Lakes for a day at the beach.  This is very much a summer tradition for many families in Michigan, including ours.  Since it was his first time at the "big" beach, as opposed to the smaller inland lakes across the state, it was a special memory and certainly deserved it's very own mini book.

The dimensions are around 3 inches wide by 6 inches tall when closed.  I learned the technique for making these from Donna Downey's book Creative Albums so I can't provide a tutorial but it's simple so you can probably figure it out from the pictures.  But if you can't and have any questions let me know and I will try to clarify.

The front and back covers were made by covering chipboard and then layering the photo and elements on top.  I disassembled the "Let's Go On An Adventure" sticker to remove the foam tape because I like to keep small projects like this as flat as possible.  I've just found they hold up better when they aren't so bulky since they won't be in a photo sleeve to help protect them from wear and tear.  Plus then they are easier to store.

You open up the mini book and there are four pockets, each with a hand cut tag inside.

Pocket 1:

• I punched a small circle out of the same paper I lined the book with to reinforce the hole.
• I love those mini puffy stickers!
• Wouldn't it have been nice if my husband had managed to put on a smile?  Oh well, at least our kiddo is cute!

This is the back of the first tag.  The orange lined "paper" I journaled on is actually part of the sticker packaging.  Waste not, want not!  In hindsight It might have been better to journal with the grey pen but it's more readable in person.

Pocket 2:

•  I love using lined paper to journal on, pretty and functional! 

On one side of Tag 2, I have a photo of my son with his age and on the back is one of his sister with her age.

Pocket 3:

• I made sure I trimmed my orange paper so the "paint" marks on the paper would be included on the piece I used.  So fun and a great place to "ground" the circle sticker.
• Aren't those itty bitty hearts adorable?
• The photo (not shown in this post) on the other side of the tag shown above, isn't the best but I wanted to include that we used a new sun tent and that he ate big boy sandwich.
• I had to use the ribbon and skip the hole because I didn't want to place a hole right in the middle of the little guys forehead.

 Pocket 4:

• Love seeing the sand on his fingers, so glad he was willing to get all dirty.
• The half circle I journaled on is leftover from being punched out of the second pocket.
• On the other side of this tag, which I forgot to photograph, I used some black "washi", which is really the strip of paper at the top of a 12X12 piece of paper trimmed to mimic washi.

On the back I left the camera paper as is, because seriously it's super cute as is, don't you think?  I added a picture too wide to fit on a tag or the inside on the back two middle panels.  And yes, I am totally wearing a bathing suit under that towel!  Whenever I look at it, I think it might look like if I dropped it I'd be flashing all the beach goers.  Note to self take pictures in beach cover up from now on!

There you go, that's my mini tag book, a one night quick project.  I have made several of these over the years but always given them away as gifts before.  I am really glad I finally made one for us to enjoy and love how it turned out!  Thank you for visiting and I hope you go check out what the other ladies have made.  Here again is a list of the participants.

Ruth: http://www.scrapmachine.com/
Shay: http://www.shaytibbs.com

A Note of the Supplies:

The book uses papers and embellishments from a couple of Amy's lines.  All the patterned papers, stickers, and pens are from her.  The supplies that are not are the washi tape (various companies), ribbon (unknown), one little striped scrap on the cover, 2 sun shaped brads, and twine, but the twine is still by American Crafts.