mini-books, major love

mini books are poppin' up all over the interwebs - pinterest, blogs, etsy. i was introduced to these lil babes by Elise Joy & her impressive collection of them. mini books are a great way to supplement traditional scrapbooks, or replace them all together (depending on how crazy you are with taking photos). i've used mini books to organize the excess pictures & things that didn't make it into my larger Project Life albums, and they seriously make the perfect personalized gift.

one of the many millions of things i love about these little books are that you can finish them in one day (if you choose) and they can be as simple or as complicated as you care to make them. some of my books are ongoing projects, and others have a very distinct ending (example, the 2012 holiday card book below). another thing i love love love is that you don't have to have a super extensive supply collection to create mini books either. some of my books are full of words and color and journaling, while others are strictly pictures with captions. mini books are whatever you want them to be, which takes away the pressure associated with traditional scrapbooking and memory keeping.

here are a few samples of how i've used this project:

i love weddings, but i hate throwing away all of the paper products that go into wedding planning because a) they're cute and b) i know they cost the bride and groom some $$ to send them all out. to solve this dilemma, i've created mini books using the announcements/invitations/thank you cards, in addition to a few pictures i snapped at the actual weddings.



along the same lines, i'm always searching for creative ways to store holiday cards. i feel badly throwing away pictures of family and friends, but i also feel like a bit of a hoarder for hanging on to them in shoeboxes years down the road, if ya catch my drift. in 2012, i cropped and punched all of my holiday cards, photos and trinkets into a mini album and threw it into my collection.



last year i went through my boxes and boxes and boxes of old photos. i collected all of the ones of my BFF and created two books; one for me, and one for her. this project took me a few hours on a lazy sunday and i had hers mailed out by monday afternoon. do our books match? nope. did i use the same pictures? nope. did i journal the same funny stories? no way. i created two unique BFF mini books that perfectly describe our friendship. and boy did she love it.





moral of the story : mini books, get on it! i'll help you get started.

DIY mini books // coming soon!