Fabulous Fabric Photo Albums

I just adore creating these albums. The great thing is you can completely chose how you want to make them.. with different fabrics and embellishments. I was in the mood for creating these and did two yesterday,  Im going to share the tutorial here with you today! Just a warning, I took a lot of pictures! 60 to be exact. So hopefully they will be a lot of help. :) You can see other examples of my photo albums here. :)

Here are the two I made yesterday:



So here are the Supplies you will need:
-Binder I used the 1"
-Batting
-Spray Adhesive
-Glue gun
-Fabric 2 yards (you can do one solid pattern or use two fabrics)
-Cardboard crafts frame (optional)
-Lace Trim (about 2 1/2-3 yards)
-Photo Album Inserts





These are the fabrics and lace trims I used for the 2 albums I made. You most likely wont use the full 2 yards of fabric.. bits its nice to have extra to make your own embellishments.. as you will see me make later.


Start out cutting your fabric out using the binder as a guide.
Leave plenty of extra fabric around the binder, it has to cover the binder and the batting!

You will need 2 separate cut outs.One for the outside and one for the inside. I used the damask pattern for the outside, and a plain matching pink fabric for the inside. But you can make it how ever you want.. same pattern inside and out, or different.


Do the same with the batting.. except you dont need to have excess hang, it should be cut to fit the binder perfectly.

You will use the spray adhesive to cover the outside of the binder, then apply the batting.





Lay the batting covered binder on the fabric you cut out... making sure the excess over hang it equal on all sides.



Then start gluing it on.. I always start with the bottom, under the binder rings. Add some glue then fold over the binder and under the ring bar to secure.



Then Add about an inch or so of glue at a time.. and keep folding over the binder. Doing it an inch at a time insures you have clean smooth straight coverage of the binder.





Keep doing this until all sides are secure. The corners can be difficult.. just fold and crease to make it look neat and secure.



Here is how it looks from the front:



I used a very pretty black lace trim with adorable crystal embellishments, its on the expensive side being almost $3 a yard.. but you can find lace trim a lot cheaper than that.

For this lace, I need to make sure the crystals will be facing the front/outside of the binder.. so i turn them upside down as im working on it.



Again I start from the bottom under the ring bar. Making about a inch line of glue and applying the lace slowly and evenly.



Keep going all along the sides of the binder, folding and creasing at the edges to make it curve along nicely.



When you get back to the start, then cut the lace slightly over lapping the start so you dont notice the change.



Outside view:


Now its time for the inside to get covered. Open the binder rings, and then lay the inside fabric over the binder. Use a pencil to mark where the binder rings open.





Then fold and cut along those lines, make them long cuts so they have room to open and close.



Turn the fabric over horizontally (because one side is longer than the other.. you want to keep that the same) so that the pencil markings will not show. Then fit the holes to the rings.





As before start at the bottom and fold the fabric under before gluing down to the binder.





Then keep folding under and glue along the edges until complete.





Some up close detail:




Once that is done here is what you will have:



Its completely covered and looks beautiful. You can leave it as is, or add a frame or embellishments:



You can find these frames for about $2 at craft stores. You want to take them apart as shown:





cut some fabric with plenty excess over hang to fit the top part of the frame. use a pencil to mark the inside corners. I drew lines across to, to help me know where to cut.




fold and cut following the lines as a guide. Put the frame on top upside down.


Use the glue gun:




Then I just used the thin scrap pieces of fabric to cover just the edges of the bottom part of the frame. Its mostly covered.. so it doesnt have to look perfect.

Bend the top part of the frame slightly so that when its put over the bottom... there will be space to add you picture. :) Use the glue gun to apply glue to the edges of 3 sides.. then add the top piece.

(not pictured) You can add lace around the edges of the bottom half of the frame before applying the top half of the frame to add some detail. Thats what I normally do. But this time I decided to do something different.


Then center and glue it to the top of the binder (make sure its the correct side of the binder. :)


Details:


I knew I wanted to embellish the album with flowers, and thought about making some ribbon roses. Then reconsidered, instead of using the extra lace to go around the frame as I normally would, I decided last minute to make some fun flowers with it, also using some scrap pieces of fabric too.



For this I just quickly dabbed hot glue then folded and creased the lace a little bit at a time and repeated adding glue then folding, until the lace went all the way around into what looked like a flower. I folded and glued a small square piece of fabric into a round-ish shape for the center.

For another flower, I took a long scrap of fabric and folded and glued the top part over so it would appear neat, and did the same thing, but on a bigger scale.



Folded/creased and glued around


This is what I got:


Then I used some of the damask fabric, and did the same thing.

Added a small piece of lace and a fabric center:



Glued those 2 together:



Glued them to the photo Album:


And here it is completely finished! Im totally LOVING it!! I really adore how it turned out. :)

The second one I made yesterday was just for fun. Walmart was having a fabric sale! They had a whole aisle of fabric in 5 yard bolts on sale for only $5!!! I couldnt pass it up.. and bought a couple different bolts. I just loved the bra and panties fabric. I thought it was just so cute, fun, flirty and oh so feminine! I knew I wanted to use it for an album. Here is how that one turned out:





I used flattened marbles for flower detail. Just found a cute spot on the fabric to show through, added a dot of hot glue to the marble, and stuck it right on and cut around it! Made the Lace flowers same as I did above and glued the marbles to the center.



You can see there.. I used the same fabric inside and out.



And Im just so thrilled with how they turned out! :) What do you think??

If any of you make one, please come back and share! I'd really love to see what others come up with, and the cute fabrics you find and use!! :)

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the tutorial!! :)

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