Baby Shower Guest Book & Mini Album

Hello! Kristie, Paper Issues' resident pocket scrapbooker, here! A few weeks ago I became an aunt again.  My sister-in-law gave birth to my adorable new niece, Emersyn Kelli.  As I have been giving her all of my daughter's hand me down clothing and baby gear, I needed to come up with an awesome and practical gift.  It was when I was cleaning and destashing a bit that I came across this gorgeous mini album and decided to make her a baby book that could double as a guest book at her upcoming baby shower.  

I love the color of the album and knew instantly that it would pair well with the Hazelwood collection by 1canoe2.  My sister-in-law is not a fan of pink.  Little does she know that that is about to change!  You really have no choice when you have a baby girl!  Pink is inevitable.  What I love about the Hazelwood collection though, is the mix of colors paired with soft, pretty pinks.  This collection has lovely shades of green, blue, yellow, red and pink as well as pops of black and white.   

This album came together quite quickly as I broke it into smaller steps.  The first step was gathering my supplies.  On hand I had a few 12x12 patterned papers from the collection, the 6x12 sticker sheet, the chipboard stickers and the gorgeous, gold foil Thickers.  You don't need to have the entire collection to make a project look cohesive.  Don't get me wrong!  It certainly does help, but I can be a bit frugal at times and so I wanted to include some other items from my stash to fill the album.  

The idea and aim of the album was to include a few photos of Emersyn for guests at the baby shower to look at, but also allow space for my sister-in-law to fill in photos throughout baby's first year.  I also wanted to allow spots for guests to sign or write a sweet note or words of wisdom.  As I only had a few patterned papers left from this collection, I went to my huge stash of Project Life cards and picked out cards with coordinating colors and that allowed space for writing.  I didn't do any writing myself as I wanted to give my sister-in-law the opportunity to write baby's stats and information in her own handwriting. 

Once I put the photos in, I started filling pockets with papers from Hazelwood.  Then I slipped in the cards from my stash.  I tried to balance colors and patterns as best I could to make the album look as cohesive as possible.  You can see that on these pages the 4x6 cards act more as a filler or decorative piece, whereas the 3x4 cards are where the journalling and "signing" would be written.  

After the album was filled with photos, paper and cards, I set to do the embellishing.  I didn't want to get too carried away as this album has pages that are sewn in and it allows very little room for thicker embellishments.  I used the gorgeous, gold foil alphas on the first page to write my niece's name.  Had I used them throughout the album it would have been quite thick!  Luckily, the stickers and chipboard are on the thinner side and worked perfectly.  I went through the first few pages and added stickers and chipboard where I thought they best fit.  Even though this collection is not baby specific, the sentiments and icons worked very well for a baby album. 

I really loved the larger chipboard phrases as they added just enough embellishment to some of the patterned papers in the collection.  The florals are stunning and I didn't want to take too much away from them by adding lots of extra pieces.  I also wanted to keep it simple so that my sister-in-law didn't feel pressure to add lots of extras later on.  I finished off the album by filling the remaining pages with Project Life cards suitable for journalling.  I also included the remaining papers I had from Hazelwood so the album is cohesive from start to finish.  If my sister-in-law decides, she can easily move cards around or remove certain ones to include photos of her sweet baby instead.  

I hope this post gave you some ideas and inspiration of how you can use items in your stash paired with the latest collections to create a unique and treasured gift.  The possibilities are endless - whether you create a mini album for a baby shower, anniversary party, birthday, etc.

Thank you for looking!  If you'd like to purchase the products used in this album or any of the latest collections please visit the Paper Issues shop and use the code KRISTIE to save 20%.  If you'd like to see more from me, please follow me on Instagram and YouTube where I share all of my pocket pages.

xoxo Kristie