My First Mini-Album

My husband and I took a short overnight trip for our anniversary this past weekend.  We went to Peddler's Village in Lahaska, PA.  It's a quaint shopping village with unique stores, restaurants, and an Inn.  We had been there once before last October, and really liked it there, so we went back.  After we had returned from that trip last fall, I knew I wanted to preserve the memories we had made with the many photos we took.  I had been wanting to make a mini-album for some time and this was the perfect reason to do it.  I had just gotten my Cricut Expression back then, but hardly had any experience with it.  Since I already owned a Sizzix BigKick, I decided to get a die that was an "Album Cover and Page" to make a mini-album. 

This die was perfect.  I liked the shape of it, and it punched 3 holes down the left side on each cut.  So all I had to do was put 2 diecut pieces of cardstock together with adhesive, and voila, a two-sided page.  Then I added my pictures and embellishments. The size of each page is 3" H x 4-1/4"L.  Now remember, I made this mini-album last fall, not just now upon our return from our mini-trip!  That would be pretty amazing if I had made an album in one day, now wouldn't it!!  Here's the cover page.

All the patterned papers came from the DCWV Amber Autumn matstack, 4.5x6.5, so not much waste of paper.  I used textured cardstock for all the solid color pages.  Here's a few more pages.

My husband is on the left and that's me on the right.  Notice all the beautiful flowers.  The landscaping was so beautiful throughout the whole village and so well maintained.  I used butterfly and dragonfly mini-punches to decorate the edges. 

I did some journaling (typed on my computer) and created a pull-out card from behind the picture.  Had a few of these throughout the album. 

The flower shapes were cut using my Cricut and the Accent Essentials cartridge.  I probably only had 4 cartridges then--the ones that came with my original bundle!  The back cover is green to match the front cover, and left un-embellished. 

So that's my first mini-album; in total there were 19 2-sided pages, and 32 pictures!  Glad I could share it with you. Yes, it's simple, I know.  But that was my first one and now I kinda know what I'm doing, so I should be able to improve upon the next one!  Thanks for looking; appreciate all your comments.