Made in America (Design Team Project)

By Kathy Berger

Made in America

My daughter was a member of the Children of the American Revolution for a number of years. When I saw the wonderful American Made papers from My Mind's Eye I just knew I had to create a memory book for her. She has photos and membership cards, pins, and ribbons that are currently just sitting in a box, but I thought a CD folder album would be a great way to not only keep the items, but also to showcase them!

I started with 3 plain white CD folders. I cut a piece of the American Made papers to 10" x 5", scored it in the middle, and attached it to two of the folders so they formed a mini-book. I then cut another piece of the paper to 12" x 5". I scored that one at 5, 5 1/3", 5 2/3", 6", 6 1/3", 6 2/3", and 7". I accordion folded the paper on those scores, and then glued the accordions together to form 3 flaps in the center of what was then a 10" x 5" piece of paper. I then used this paper to glue the mini-book to the final CD folder, creating my full album.

I sealed 3 different envelopes (red, white and blue, of course!), then trimmed them down to form pockets, and glued them, staggered, to the ribs I had created.

I used various American Made papers to cover the insides of the CD folders and the front and back covers. Then I used the American Made Accessories and stickers from K&Company to decorate the pages. One fun discovery I made is that all of these papers have a tiny bit of pattern on the page label that is printed at the bottom of the page (to show the pattern on the reverse side)... I used these little strips of pattern to add great little bits of contrast to some of my pages. I hate to let any little freebie like that go to waste (see the strip of trim on the left hand page!)



I am going to let my daughter decide which photos she wants to include, and then I will mat and mount them, and finish embellishing the pages. I will also be putting photos on tags to put into the pockets of the CD folders.

So, this album is not really "finished", but this is the perfect way to give it to her, so we can complete it together!

I hope you will find some patriotic inspiration in these wonderful papers. They are just perfect for the upcoming Independence Day holiday, but they are just terrific as a base for an All-American girl's (or boy's) scrapbook!

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