Fabulous New Folio Album

 Hi Crafters

Today I am sharing with you a new folio File I made. As you can see from my recent posts I love to make Journals, mini books etc and the embellishments for them. I admire the many journal style books I see made by other crafters  with coffee stained papers and the shabby chic look, but I find when I start to do a layout or design for an album or book of any kind, my designs veer towards a simpler page leaving a clean look for the photographs with practical and pretty embellishments.

The Folio style book is one of the simpler styles to compile as it requires no binder. The only downside is that it does not allow for additional sections to be added as there is not the room for expansion that there is in the binder style books. If you use Envelopes for the base part of the album you can still have several flip pages so the finished item can hold a reasonable amount of pictures and memorabilia.

This album has been made using Stamperia ‘Time’ papers. Stamperia is an Italian company that make the most beautiful double sided papers, they are lovely quality and for the 12 x 12 sheets they cost £1 a page if bought in the pack and approximately £1.50 a page if bought separately. I get mine from DaliArt.

You start the album by choosing a selection of envelopes to use. This one has 2 - C5, 1-  5” x 7” and 1- a little bigger than C6. You can use up your accumulated odd envelopes or you could use scrap envelopes such as those that come in junk mail or return envelopes that you don’t use, It is good to have a selection of sizes as they will sit onto the one underneath. Lay the envelopes out on your table and see how you want to configure them then use the flaps as hinges and glue the envelopes together. 

Then cover the envelopes with a base card, and top with your selected papers. 

Originally I had one C5 envelope and once I had put the base together I decided to add a second C5 envelope by glueing the top flap to the back of the first to give me  something to adhere the cover too. 

The cover is made of 2 pieces of 12 x 12 papers glued together and then cut to fit the height of the album, The papers are then folded to make the folio style cover with any extra width being cut after you are happy with your flap sizes. Round the corners and glue to the back of the base envelope. The 2 pieces of 12 x 12 used to make my cover was from a DCWV pad as this was heavier card stock. It was one sided so required covering in my selected papers to finish the inside flap. 

So here is the layout of the open album.

The construction of the envelopes means that you have storage areas inside the envelopes and these are made by having V shaped envelopes on the sides and gluing the black card panels to the V shape allowing the opening of the envelope to be the opening for your storage area. you can then add additional photo mats and tags etc to the inside. Once the album is in use they can store photographs or memorabilia. 

You can see the lace piece from the tag inside the left envelope just peeping out. 

 Here the album is opened up completely so you can see the base envelope and the side pockets on the inside flaps of the folder. The top 3 envelopes folds down with the side envelopes folding in.

Here we have the envelopes folded down, and the layering mats that are tucked into the storage space, showing at the top of the picture.

I have also made tags and decorated paperclips in matching papers.

On the outside I have added construction tape to the fold of the file to add additional strength. The closure is an elastic toggle style to allow for expansion. The toggle decoration is a black leather flower that I made  and has been sitting in the craft room waiting for the appropriate project. 

There is plenty of room on the front if you wanted to add a message.

I really enjoyed making this folio and whilst it was fairly simple, you can decorate and embellish with your own style of items 

If we are able to do craft fairs later in the year I will be making some to go on my table.

This one is available to buy on Ebay and in my Etsy shop. It is listed as a Folio Album

You can see many different style of the folio album on YouTube. 

Dee