Desktop Flip Album - Guest Post by Juhi Khanna

Hi this is Juhi from Juhi's Handmade Cards. Last week I received a box of gorgeous goodies from the Itsy Bitsy store, there were boutique elements flowers, ribbons, Patterned Paper, Laser cuts, cinch binding wire among other things. Going with this month's theme everything was in the Itsy Bitsy Logo colours, I couldn't wait to get started!

What I came up was this

a desktop flip photo album featuring my 15 month old daughter Kriti.

I had got the We R memory keepers Cinch Binding Machine from Itsy Bitsy last year but this is the first real project I have made using it. Here's a short tutorial on how to make the base of the flip album. 

I started off with 2 pieces of heavy duty cardboard measuring 6.5x8” and one piece of heavy duty cardstock measuring 4.5x8”. Make sure that the 6.5x8” pieces of cardboard are tough enough to take the weight of your album (embellishments et al). 

Score the 4.5x8” cardstock at 1", 2.25" and 3.5".

Create folds as shown in the picture below

Stick fold 1 to one 6.5x8" piece of cardboard and stick fold 4 to the other cardboard piece.

 Cover the base with patterned paper and your album base is ready. 

For the pages I’ve used 8x6” blue cardstock.

 I used the Cinch Binding Tool to bind everything together; I am not going into the details on how to bind as the instruction manual of the tool gives all the steps in great detail. But I would like to give a few tips that I found really handy for first time users.

a.    Read the instruction manual carefully and also if possible see some YouTube tutorials before using the tool for punching holes, especially if the dimensions of your project are greater than 6”.

b.    The tool requires some practice. Always practice on scrap paper first. I managed to damage a set of completed scrapbook layouts while trying to bind them.

c.    For greater than 6” project stick to the dimensions mentioned (), this helps in getting even binding at both ends.

d.    Match the diameter of your binding wire exactly with that on the tool’s dial. The diameter of the binding wire is mentioned on the packaging of the wire.

I used 0.75” binding wire for my desktop flip photo album project. While binding press very slowly and keep checking if you are getting a perfect circle.

This is what my album looked like after binding.

Finishing the pages was a breeze with Itsy Bitsy embellishments. I’ve used boutique element flowers, butterflies, self-adhesive paper frills, patterned paper, giant crystals, pearls, laser cuts and also some die cuts all from the Itsy Bitsy store. Here’s a collage of the completed pages.

The following pictures show the details of Itsy Bitsy embellishments on 2 pages (I'm too lazy to edit images of all the album pages :P)

I had so much fun making this; I hope I have inspired you to create something for this month’s challenge!

Supplies Used: Please Click on the image to visit the product page on our website