Travel Map 1 Sheet Mini Album Scrapbook

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

This idea is great for travel memories, however in this post, it is being presented to you as a perfect guy friendly mini album scrapbook!

Have you ever noticed how most guys like maps? Why, I’m not sure, because we all know that many of them don’t like to ask for directions or read instructions! Maybe it’s all that pirate play and treasure maps. All kidding aside, maps are just cool. Whether it is used to plan a new adventure, look at places you’ve been or plan to go with a new perspective, or just get a look at a part of the world you may never plan to visit! Why not use a map as a starting place to make a guy friendly mini-album?

Many of you have seen the 1 sheet mini album that I shared for a Mother’s Day idea. At first, I thought about creating something like that, on a larger scale, using a travel map. That would be a great idea! However, I decided to give a twist to that idea, and create something that wouldn’t be presented completed, but be a place where a guy could tuck things away and basically save some memorabilia in a way that looks more masculine! Okay, it could also be a sneaky way to get the guys help us do some scrapbooking, but don’t tell them that! That could ruin the fun!

Once you create the basic structure for this, just ink the edges, add some tags, perhaps some matting to add some pictures, and perhaps throw in some Washi tape and a tiny stapler with your gift. Make it easy for your guy to just stick in ticket stubs from the ball game, a concert, a few photos of their fishing trip… or whatever they want! Honestly, sometimes I’m surprised by what I see the guys saving until they decide it is just trash and then they’ll toss it. If they had something to save it in, it could be a nice way to save a few mementos of their adventures.

As you prepare this mini-album, keep in mind that it needs to be useful but simple.

First, you’ll need to find a map; the kind that seems like it has a million folds.

Travel Map

Next, you’ll need to decide which side you want to see inside your album, because they may be very different on each side. The map I used had much more “map” on one side than it did on the other.

Decide which side you will use for the inside. Side 1.

Decide which side you will use for the inside. Side 2.

Now, we’ve got to decide how to fold it, and if you need the whole piece of paper! I decided that I would cut off part of the map, and fold a portion of it to the back, to add more stability.

I cut off the top 6 inches of this map.

I saved this piece to use the map on the back of it.

After cutting off the top 6 inches, you can begin to fold it. Fold the top over the back, out of site. Fold the bottom as shown, for the pocket areas that will be along the bottom edge.

Begin folding to create the main structure for the mini-album.

After folding, adhere the portion you fold over from the top over to the back. Do not adhere any of the pocket areas at this point.

How many pages your album has, will depend a lot on the size of the map. This map is large enough to allow six page sections, in 3 sections of a double layout. Each page would be 4.5 inches wide. I used a score board to score at 4.5 inches, and 9 inches, and had folded it in half to get the middle score line at 13 inches. I then score it on the score board to get a good score at the 13 inch mark. Then I rotated it to again score on the 4.5 and 9 inch markings, which gave me my scoring across the entire map.

At this point, the edges got inked and the pockets completed by snipping and folding and adding some eyelets to some of them. Once you are happy with the pockets, add a little bit of adhesive along the edges between them, to separate them and adhere them to the base.

I made some tags, and used that strip of the map which was cut off to create some little envelopes. Add whatever you’d like! Since I was making this one guy-friendly, I kept it really simple and didn’t add a lot of embellishments because I didn’t figure my guy would use it if I did!

Instead of journaling tags, I found some washi tape that reminded me of duct tape and added some pieces around that could be written on for dates. (You may want to include the roll with the gift.) I’ll be adding more to this, but this give you the idea.

Gray washi tape for journaling tags.

A piece of cardstock is used for the cover, and a 1/2 inch section was scored for the spine of the album.

Score a 1/2 inch section for the spine of the cover.

When you adhere the cover do NOT adhere the spine area. By leaving this section free, you allow the needed movement of the album. You can also see that the “pages” are not adhered to the back of each other, either. If adhered to the back of each other, it makes it too tight to move freely.

Do NOT adhere the spine to the map.

Now, the cover…..
I really struggled with an idea for the cover, and you may look at this and say to yourself, “I can tell!” Yes, I know it seems anticlimactic. However, I really felt that what I put on the front was still going to be important as to whether my guy would really use it! I finally just decided to stamp on a tag with Versamark ink for a tone on tone look, and hand write “fun places” on it. This may still be a work in progress for the cover. I haven’t decided whether to add anything to tie it up to keep it closed. If I make any changes, I’ll be back and let you know!

Tag for the front cover.

Let me know if you’d like to have me do a video of the basic structure of this! If you make one of these, we’d love to know and see it! You can link it up here in the comments or come over and share it on the Artful Adventures Facebook Group!

Choosing a Color Palette for a Project – Going Analagous

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

Good thing you know this about selecting a color palette, otherwise analogous doesn’t really sound like something we want! So far in our series of methods to select a color scheme, we’ve discussed the triad, and the monochrome methods of color selection. Now, what is this analogous method you may ask. It is simply using three colors that are next to each other on the color wheel! Let’s take a look at a very basic color wheel.

A very basic color wheel.

If we take any three colors that are located next to each other on this color wheel, we will have an analogous color scheme.

You may feel like you select color just because you like the combinations, but in reality you are probably using a tried and true, known method, of color selection. Your favorite color combination may be an analogous color scheme, or it may be another method of grouping colors that we will discuss at some point in this series. Even if you feel like you never think about using a color wheel, that you just select colors because they appeal to you, it is still nice to know how or why those combinations work for you. That way, if you are ever stumped, you may remember to look at color selection using an alternate method than something that is perhaps one of your go-to color schemes.

Here is a page I wanted to make using some pictures that were from a special day at my grandson’s preschool. It was an indoor beach party. I thought about using a beachy color scheme, but that didn’t seem to be as bright or vivid as I wanted for the feel of the page. So, the colors scheme of blue, green, yellow as chosen. You can see that it was loosely followed, but it seems to work. The blue is more in line with the Hawaiian leis some of the children are wearing, as well as giving a more tropical blue feel to the page. Yellow was used at the background, and the green pulls different greens from the palm trees in the pictures. The added elements on the page were not particularly for perfect placement, as much as they covered the backs of people’s heads!

What kind of project have you used with an analogous color scheme? Share it with us over at the our FaceBook Group! Remember, it doesn’t have to be a scrapbook page. I’m just in scrapbook mode this month, and it is an easy way to give some examples of different types of color schemes!

Father’s Day Pinterest Challenge Announcement

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

Why is it often hard to find a great Fathers’ Day gift? Let’s share some ideas and come up with some gifts a dad would love receiving!

Several friends and I have participated in a seasonal Pinterest Challenge from over at the Young House Love blog. Their basic idea for the challenge started as a means to challenge people to take an idea they had pinned and actually do it! Imagine that! Since Pinterest is so visual and such a fun way to visit places online that you may not have otherwise found, we have decided to invite everyone to a 2013 Father’s Day Pinterest Challenge, (not sponsored or affiliated with Pinterest.) We will link our gift ideas, visit, and pin!

This is simply an opportunity to share YOUR creative ideas for Father’s Day, and we’ll start pinning them! All you have to do, is make something suitable for a Fathers’ Day gift, take pictures, or even better blog about it to tell us more about how you did it. Meet up back here on Wednesday, May 29th, 10:00 am Eastern, to link up a photos of your project you have made! (You can even use Flickr if you don’t have a blog. We will not descriminate against non-bloggers!)

Now put on your thinking caps, roll up your sleeves, and show us what you’ve got! Please keep it PG-rated! Remember to come back here Wednesday, May 29th, 10:00 AM Eastern Time. Oh, I almost forgot — TELL YOUR FRIENDS so they can join the fun!

Again, this is not affiliated with Pinterest.com.

Selecting Color Themes for Your Projects – Monochromatic

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

Companies that make suites of products for scrapbooking, card making, papercrafting, etc.; have pre-selected color themes for you, so you don’t even have to think about what to use. However, what if you are purchasing items individually, or have left over product? What do you have that those things will coordinate with? It’s all about selecting a color theme! That’s why a company’s product line looks great, and that’s how you can select colors that will work for you as well!

In the last post we discussed how to use the color wheel and use a triad color scheme for a project or scrapbook page. Today, let’s talk about a different way to select colors – the monochromatic color scheme. You may think that a monochromatic color scheme is 50 shades of the same color. That’s true! However, when you move up and down the spectrum, you find that there is more to a monochromatic scheme than appearing to be all the same color.

The open circle is the coral color

For this scrapbook page, I wanted to use a background color that was based on Calypso Coral, but I wanted it to have a little bit different look and feel than the other colors I normally use with it. I picked that color on the color wheel, and look at the other variations that are up and down that line of color.

Here are the colors that pop up!

Monochromatic scheme using coral as the base color.

For some reason, every time I have tried to upload this color strip, it seems to alter the way the original colors appear! One color appears to be more gray than it looks here.

Using a color scheme as a jumping off point for your project, you can then use what you have and take liberty with adjustments as needed. Here is a layout using this method. You’ll see that the paged is not strictly made using only these colors, but you can also see that the majority of the page is based very close to this.

For an easy way to help you create a monocromatic color scheme, here is great website to use: kuler.adobe.com (See below this next photo for a video on how to use it!) Once you try this method and link up your project here or over at our Facebook Artful Adventures Group!

Selecting Background Colors for your Pages

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

Kristie Sloan Artful Adventures Background Color Selection

Background photo color can really make your photo pop!

Do you ever have trouble selecting a color for the background of a scrapbook page or maybe an art journal page? If you have something that you really want to stand out, your background will really make a difference. Often, we look for colors in a photo to pull out and use the same color or a shade of it, to pull colors from the photo out onto the page, so to speak. However, look what happens when you use a color that really isn’t a highly noticeable color in the photo.

You could argue there is an itsy, bitsy amount of blue in the sky in the background of the photo, yet it really isn’t even the color of blue used on the page background, or that there is blue in her jeans. Maybe you’d be right to think that is why it works. Anyway, there is no doubt about the fact that the little yellow Volkswagen in is picture practically jumps off the page!

Triad Color Scheme

The real key to this color scheme is the fact that when you look at a color wheel, one option for a great color combo is to use a triad color scheme. That is where you use three equidistant points on the color wheel. Take a look at the way this looks in this example, and notice that the triad color scheme has been completed on the page by adding the buttons in that third color. The colors used on the page may be nudged a little one way or the other to get the look you want, but they are close enough that you can see the concept at work.

Notice how there is open space, referred to as “white space” (whether it is white or not!) left at the bottom left. Just because a page is 12″ x 12″ doesn’t mean you need to fill all 144 square inches of the page with everything you can think of!

Next time you really want a photo to stand out, try using a triad color theme, and see how your page turns out! Come share it with us over at the Artful Adventures Facebook Group!