3" x 3" Mini Book - Simple Version

As promised, here are the directions for a homemade version of the Bazzill Mono Mini 3" x 3" albums. (Do they even sell these anymore? I couldn't find them on the website to link!)

This is what you'll end up with when you're done. Cute huh? I used only papers from my scrap bin for this.

Every so often, Blogger gets a wild hair up it's butt and turns my photos sideways. I can't figure out how to make it NOT do this. Sorry!

Anyway, cut one 12" by 3" piece of cardstock for your cover, and five pieces of 5 1/2" by 2 3/4" of whatever paper you like for the pages. Just make sure the backsides look nice if you decide to use patterned paper, because you will see both sides of the paper in the finished product.

Fold all five pieces of inner pages in half, one at a time.

Stack them all one inside the other, and set aside.

Now, take your cover piece, and fold in half. The neater/sharper/more precise your folds, the nicer the book will be at the end.

Open it back up, and fold the ends in toward the center. (hee hee, look how swollen my poor fat fingers are!)

Do the same on the other side. Now it's folded into quarters.

Trim 1/4" from each end of the paper.

Go ahead and fold the cardstock in half again, and punch a small hole about 1/4" in from the folded edge. Make sure it's centered.

Open it back up, lay it vertically in front of you, and fold the top quarter down.

Next take your folded inner pages and center them on the cover.

Attach them with one staple in the center of the spine. I have this really cool stapler that I found at Staples (haha) that staples FLAT. I love it. Totally worth the ten bucks if you use staples in your paper crafting projects, I'm telling you!

Fold in the covers, if they've come unfolded, and punch a small hole 1/4" from the folded edge. make sure they're centered.

Take a length of thin ribbon, and thread it through the holes nearest the spine of your book, OVER the outside staple.

If you want to make the peek-a-boo window on the front over, use a ruler and a pencil to mark where it will go. If you don't, well, just skip this step!

Use a square punch to punch that out. Be careful just to punch through the cover, and not through the flap/folded part! (Guess who's done THAT before?)

Go ahead and fold that flap back over, take one end of the ribbon you threaded over the spine, and thread it through the last set of holes. Do the same for the back cover.

I cut another little scrap of white cardstock and tucked it into the cover to kind of highlight where the opening was. You could stick a photo back there, patterned paper, etc.

There you go, another good use for scraps!