Quick Summer Mini Album and Gift Bag

Hello everyone.  Today is my big design team debut on the Pebbles blog.  I hope you'll pop over there and say hi!  

I'm super excited to show you a quick gift I made to give to my girls.  We love our  beach vacations and I thought it would be fun to give my girls a little care package to document all our summer activities.

The creative aspect of this care package includes the gift bag and mini album / journal.  These are relatively easy to make if you have a die cut machine or template you can follow.  The Fun in the Sun collection is perfect for this project.

To get started, I knew I needed to begin with the beach bags. The bags needed to be able to hold the album and other little goodies so I made it fairly large, measuring at 6" x 8".  Choosing a design that allowed for a 2 tone pattern gave it added interest.  Then it was time for the really fun part - decorating!

Each bag includes buttons where the straps attach to the bag, a fun sentiment and a coordinating embellishment or two. You could also hang a tag off one of the straps but I am letting my girls decide which ones they want.  Of course, I designed these with my girls' style and colors in mind so we'll see how it goes.

I designed the mini albums to be 4" x 6" to easily fit into the 6" x 8" beach gift bags. To create these, simply cut a 8" x 6" cover and several inside sheets measuring 3.5" x 5.5". I used 5 sheets for the inside to make 10 pages. Center the inside sheets so that there is an 1/4" border.

Then I stitched it together in the center. Once the mini album is together, it's time to decorate again!  I added a tone on tone background to cover the album and then I used the fun sentiments from the 3" x 4" cards pattern paper, framed it out and then added a dimensional sticker.

I can't wait to give these to my girls.  We're taking a road trip soon so I may even print out a few photos from the summer and put a little craft kit together to keep them busy on our way to the beach.

Supplies: Pebbles Fun in the Sun Summer Days (732850) Fun in the Sun Popsicle (732859) Fun in the Sun 6x6 Paper Pad (732862) Fun in the Sun Shaped Cards / Popsicles (732832) Fun in the Sun Puffy Phrase Stickers (732833) Fun in the Sun Layered Stickers (732836) Bazzill Cardstock (309026) American Crafts Cardstock Primaries