Brown Paper Bags and Tim Holtz Christmas Blueprint

Hi Everyone

This is a scheduled post as we are away visiting our family's latest addition, Evie, just for a day or so.  I hope the scheduling works!

I have been making brown paper bag albums for 6 or 7 years now, always at Christmas because I think it is the one time of year where family memories are important.  I have been pondering for a while now what to do with my new Tim Holtz Blueprint Christmas stamps other than just making cards or tags and this is what I came up with.  I hope you like it and will have a go at one yourself, they are such fun to make.

To start off you need some brown paper bags, American lunch bag ones are best as the ones in the UK are not such good quality but I have added some Kraft card to the front and back cover to make it a little more sturdy and that seems to work quite well and the album holds it shape better.

This is how it starts off.  My bags are approx 13.75 inches long and just under 7 inches wide so when folded in half it is nearly square.  You need to fold it so that the top opening of the bag is facing to the right hand side as you can use this opening to store things in. You will see this later on.

This is the folded bag.  You can add as many bags as you want, for my album I only used two.  At this point I punch holes (five in this case) evenly along the non opening side.  This gives you an idea of where to put your layers up to and not obscure the holes which will later hold the album together.

 

The next step is to start and decorate your album.  You can matt and layer as I have or leave the pages quite simple, it is your choice.  I have chosen the Blueprint Christmas stamps and various die cuts.

 

These are the inside pages.  I have added pockets to the left hand side as this is where I will be storing all my tags that I have made for Christmas presents for the family and where, after Christmas it is where I will store tags from presents that I receive (hopefully).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 

The  picture below shows one of the pockets created by the top opening of the bag,  This is useful for storing photos taken over Christmas - and I don't mean the ones we leave on our PC/Laptop/IPad/Phones - but real ones to remind us of the event.  Using two bags creates two big pockets like this, three bags will give you three pockets and so on.  In the past I have used up to five bags which makes a really thick album.

 



To finish off I tied two lots of ribbon and a piece of Tim's Sparkly Tinsel Twine through each hole to bind the album together.  You can use a bind-it-all machine but I could not be bothered to get mine out and I quite like the ribbon!

The cover is decorated with Tim's Bigz pinecone die, the 25 is from the Mini Reindeer Movers and Shapers die and a stamped word 'Christmas'.  The inside is decorated with various dies and each of the Blueprint stamps has been stamped onto white card, coloured with Distress Inks and then decoupaged onto Kraft card, stamped with the same design.

I hope it all makes sense.  I had the devil's own job doing this post with so many photos and trying to juggle the words!  Here is a final picture of the album standing up.  It really is quite sturdy.

Thanks for taking the time to look, assuming you have got this far!  If you do visit I hope you will leave me a comment, I love to read them all and they do inspire me to carry on.  I always do my best to return the compliment, as long as I can find you.  Crafty hugs, and will visit you when I get back.  Anne x