Pin-spired Monday: Crayon Art/Library Pocket Mini Album

Today we are starting a new segment here on the blog! You all have shown that you love our "Earth Friendly Friday" segment, so we wanted to try something fun for our Monday posts as well! I give you... "Pin-spired Monday!" All Monday posts here on the Authentique Paper blog from now on will be inspired by projects found on Pinterest! Our design team loves Pinterest, and we cannot wait to bring you great projects with tutorials to make your own pin-spired project every Monday!

For my post today, I have been eyeing a couple of techniques to try on Pinterest. So I thought I would combine them into one really fun project!

Here are a couple of the pins that I had saved for my "pin-spiration." 

Original Pins on Pinterest:

Melted Crayon Art

Library Pocket Mini Album

A few months ago, my mother-in-law (who is a librarian) gave me a huge box of library pockets. I wasn't sure what I would do with them,b ut I said sure, I can stash them and probably come up with a project later! 

A few weeks ago I remembered that I had those library pockets in my craft closet, so I searched "library pocket" on pineterst. Lots of neat ideas popped up, but the album (shown above) really popped out to me. I love to make mini albums, they are one of my favorite things to do when it comes to crafting... but I'm always looking for a new type of mini album to make. 

So I tried the library pocket album and it worked out! I wanted to do a little more to my album to make it unique. I had seen the crayon melting art all over pinterest and wanted to give it a try. I figured that adding it onto the cover would be something different and it would really show off the colors in the papers from the "Curiosity" collection. 

Here are a few simple steps  to make your own!

- You will need about 5 library pockets. Ink the edges to match your paper.
- Cut 2 pieces of cardboard for your front and back cover. I used a piece of a box.
- Measure the height of your library pockets and cut a 6 inch wide strip of paper. Score the piece every half inch.

-Glue your library pockets to each notch on the scored piece of paper. It should look like the first photo when you are finished.

-Glue the front and back cardboard covers to the scored piece of paper. 

-You should now have a book base as shown in the last photo.

- Measure your covers and cut papers to fit. Also cut a 3 inch wide cover for the spine. You will need to score this strip so it will fit over the spine.

-Attach the patterned papers to the front and back, then attach the strip to the spine.

-You should now have a covered album.

-Now it's time to make the crayon art.

-Find crayons that you want to use on your cover. I used crayons that coordinated with my papers.

-Unwrap and glue crayons to your cover. If you use hot glue, make sure you use a low heat setting, if not, the crayons will begin to melt.

-Take a heat gun or hair dryer and blow heat on your crayons. It does not take much heat before the crayons start to melt.

-You can move your album around to get the wax flowing in the direction of your choice.

-Once you have the desired look with your crayon art, let it dry for a few minutes and then you can embellish your album.

I added some flowers, ribbons, and stickers from the Curiosity details sheet to dress my album up a little.

I also added some tags to the inside pockets.

I plan on adding photos later. Since my daughter just started pre-school last week, I haven't had a chance to develop photos yet, but this is going to be my very first "back to school" album for my daughter.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you were inspired! Make sure you stop by our Pinterest site and "follow" us! 

Products Used

Authentique- Curiosity: 6x6 Bundle, Details 12x12 Stickers

May Arts Ribbon- 377-38-15, CC03, 382-34-27

Petaloo-  Flower Layers Tulip Yellow
Imagine Crafts- Memento Teal Zeal
Epiphany Crafts- Round 14 Tool