A "Thrilling" Halloween Pocket Mini Album

Hello once again fellow crafters!  Today I'm sharing a mini album that I made for Authentique.  I've used papers from their Thrilling collection to create this Halloween themed album.  I spent two very long evenings/nights working on this mini.  When I mean long--I mean long...one night I started at around 6:00 am and didn't go to bed till about 2:00 am.  Needless to say several cups of coffee were drunk during this lengthy craft session.

I wanted to give this mini that extra special touch since it's going to be used to store photos of my son's first Halloween.  I plan on dressing him up as a little lion!  :-)  I can't wait for that photo session to begin!

All papers & sticker elements/embellishments used are from Authentique's Thriller collection.  The chipboard binder is by Basically Bare & the paints used are by Art Anthology.

I've used two stencils on this page & both are by the Crafter's Workshop.  One is the 12x12 Halftone Borders & the other is the 12x12 Mod Spirals.  In this closeup you see both in action.  I gave the border the dotted effect with the Halftone Circles & the bold circles in the background were made with the Mod Spirals.  I've used Marmalade & Black Soot Distress inks for the dots & Shabby Shutters distress ink for the circles.

Orange twine was randomly placed behind all of my elements.  To highlight some of the stenciled dots & a few dots from the background paper itself I've used Clear Dust Stickles.

These flowers are by Petaloo (except for the yellow mulberry one).  The bright orange one was actually an off-white flower--I ended up spritzing it with a bit of Juicy Colorations spray by Art Anthology to give it that bright orange color I needed.

What I love the most about chipboard binders is that you can punch holes through it!  With my crop-a-dile I punched four holes along the top edge of the binder's seam.  I then strung several ribbon & tulle through it.  This is a really simple way to dress up any chipboard album.

Creating the effect on the album's seam was a lot of fun!  I basically got down n' dirty with two dimensional paints by Art Anthology (Black Leather Jacket & Frost).

First I brushed on the black paint in a pouncing motion & heat set it just a bit with my heat gun.  I didn't dry it all the way.  While the black paint was still fairly wet I pounced on the Frost paint.  This pouncing motion with the brushes ended up giving me an almost granite effect.  The paints have a touch of glitter to them so in person the seam has a shimmery look to it which really adds a nice touch.

If you follow my work you'll notice that I'm a big fan of dimensional embellishments.  I know I'll be adding embellishments with some dimension to them to my album so I needed a way to keep this binder closed.  With this in mind I hot glued black ribbon to the chipboard cover & then applied my papers on top to further secure it.

Now for the pages of the album.  This album consists of three different types of pages.  They're full of pockets...whether big or small--the point is that they have pockets!  lol  I'm very much a fan of journaling/story telling.  I like to document special moments/events in life so I'm always needing space to store my journaling.  With this album I wanted pockets as my storage.

The first type of page is a combination of a pocket & flip pages to store several photos.  Here's the top which consists of one large pocket & can also be used to mat a photo.  I've pulled out my tag just a bit so you can see it.  By the way, the journaling tag is an element that I've cut out from the Forewarn paper of the Thrilling collection.  Authentique's papers always seem to have elements on them that can be easily cut out & transformed into a tag.

Turn the page & behind the pocket there's a cover that flips up revealing another place for a photo & yes, another small pocket.

This same page in turn flips out revealing yet another mat for a photo.  So to summarize this one page holds at a minimum four photos, one large journaling tag & any additional tags or elements you may want to store in the inner smaller pocket.

Here's my second type of page.  This one only has one flip page & one small pocket.  The border seen on the right hand side is a small pocket.

The top smaller square on the left flips over revealing a secondary place for a photo--plus you have the base of the page for more photos & embellies.

My third page has no flip pages or pockets!  GASP!!  How did that happen?  Instead I decided to go simple with this one & just make it out of corrugated cardboard.  I gave it a bit of texture & color by mixing the black & frost paint again & then spritzing it with a bit of Juicy Colorations spray by Art Anthology.

Here's a closeup of the effects the paint & spritz gave the cardboard.  It's hard to capture with a camera.  In person there's a shimmery effect that I really liked!

The best part about ring binders--is that they're expandable!  As you can see, I've barely begun--there aren't even any pictures in it & it's already fairly bulky because of the two mulberry flowers I've added to my large journaling tags.  When complete--I'll be lucky if I can tie this mini closed in some way!  :-)

I hope to find the time to create brief tutorials on how I created the two types of flip/pocket pages soon.

Thanks for stopping by & enjoy the rest of the week!