I wanted to share a quick, easy and fun way to use tags as a mini book.
Mini-books are great for keeping similar thoughts, memories and pictures grouped together for sharing or remembering down the road when the glow of the moments has faded a little bit.
The idea for this one was to keep track of some of my youngest sons favorite things for this year, music, video games, favorite foods, clothes, friends, activities and those kinds of things in a way that would be a quick place to jot it down when it happens.
I started with #5 Manila tags and pieces of paper from "The Boyfriend" Cosmo Cricket mini-deck.
Trim the stripe piece between each of the lines so that you have two colors on each of the tabs we will be making. If you want your book a little bigger you will need to cut both pieces in the deck.
Fold each of the strips in half the long way and down the middle making each side even.
Place adhesive on each side of the folded strip of paper.
Adhere the first piece at the top of the tag, and then stagger each of the other pieces down about a stripe until you reach the bottom.
Cut a few strips of each of the other patterns in various sizes, I have one at 1" another at 1/2" and the last at 1/4". Adhere the strips on the backs and fronts of the tags in a random manner to add nice variety to the tags. Then add your lists, notes or pictures. You can do this now or later, the point of the project is to make it easy for you!
For the top page I stamped the title, but of course you can do whatever you prefer.
I used Walnut Stain Distress Ink, the "Playful Alphabet" set, "Number Fun" and the "Birds and the Bees" set from the Kim Hughes collection by Cornish Heritage Farms for all of the titling in this project.
First stamp onto the tag. Then stamp whatever part you are paper piecing onto the paper you wish to use and then fussy cut out.
Repeat for the other elements in the title.
I used the Quickie Glue pen from Sakura, it is easy to control and doesn't get gloppy on your paper piecing projects.
Put it all together and your top page is done.
This is what it looks like after putting the tags through a ring and tying some fun double sided satin ribbon onto the top. The one thing I think I will go back and add are the adorable Ready, Set, Chipboard from The Boyfriend collection. I didn't have any on hand, but will be ordering these first thing! I think they would provide some wonderful dimension and variety to the project, and give it a little bit of extra spunk!
There are many great ways to change this project up, you could make it with the largest tags to create a gorgeous mini-album, or the medium sized as a clever way to organize business cards and notes from people you have met. There are loads of ways to be inspired, I hope you find a way to make it yours!
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