Ramblings of a Crafty Mom: another mini? sure! How about ... a TUTORIAL!

This is going to be very pic heavy... Sorry. Until I can get a video that my memory card doesn't eat, this is all I've got.

I did a mini to try and find my mojo. I've watched loads of videos, and have notebooks FULL of notes on pages, layouts, and folds, I can't recall where or when I may have seen/gotten these ideas, but I was asked to do a tut by the wonderful ladies at CC (cropchocolate.com should anyone here not know what CC is!) who wanted to try something similar. Its taken a few days ,but here we go! The original is in my previous post, and while some of the things are moved around in this one, its the same basic style.

I used almost 4 12x12 sheets of cardstock, one of which was journal spots that I cut down for tags. This paper is form the Fancy Pants Winterland line. Such pretty non traditional colors!!

This is the paper I chose as the main section of the album.

these are some of the others that I had pulled out... I ended up not using the top one. Oops.

The main sheet needs to be 11 1/2" x 10" I cut mine so that I didn't chop any of my favorite snowflakes ^_^ Score it in the middle of the 10" side, and at 4" and 8" on the other. (one section will be smaller, I planned mine so that the section with one small dark snowflake was the smaller section. You will see why later).
Cut the score line from the top to the cross section score line. Same from the bottom, cut the center score line up to the cross section score line. You will have one strip in the middle that is 4" holding the two sides together. I hope that is easy to understand. If not, let me know and I'll mark the picture!

Fold your paper in half on the score line, you now have a 5" by 11 1/2" paper... we are going to glue the center section around the edges to make a pocket.... glue JUST INSIDE the score lines on the center section. no need to glue the seam, and remember to leave the opening edge glue free. Your top and bottom should be open, and you can fold them back and forth a few times to loosen them up.

We are now going to fold the bottom sections (yes, both of them) up. You can glue the outer edges of the first one down to form a pocket that opens at the top. The other section will be folded back onto itself (triangle in the pic below) and we will make two more pockets here. The first pocket is made by gluing the edge that wasn't folded down to the part we already glued down (it looks like an upside down L here.)

So, the corner I'm holding gets glued down to the seam, and over to the top of that triangle...

and then the triangle gets glued along this seam. Which forms a small pocket.

Here is the larger of the two pockets.

This is the smaller pocket, great for itty bitty tags, mementos, etc.

This will now be the center of your mini, there should be two flaps, one to form the front page and one to form the back page.
We can now start on the other pockets!
*You will need a 4 1/2" x 7 1/2" piece. Score it in half on the long side.
*One 3 1/2" x 11" piece, score at 3/4", 2", and 6" (the hole os from a circle punch, to show where one of the pockets are)
*One 3 1?2" x 12" piece scored at 3" and 7 1/2" (I rounded these corners because I decided that I wanted the mittens visible and wouldn't be making it into a pocket, you can glue the small flap down for a pocket if you prefer)

Here they are with their score lines folded, ready to get glued down, you can easily change their places to give your entire album a different look.

The first one, I attached to the top of the first 'page' I let a pocket under the right side for a tag, and the flap can hold three photos or a combo of pics and journaling.

For this one ( the 3 1/2" x 11") you glue the small flap down....

then the edges of section underneath to form a small pocket.

and then glue the sides under it to form a second pocket...

When you glue it into the mini, you can create a third pocket. All from one strip of paper!

(One pocket faces left, the others face right)

The last strip, I glued to the bottom of the second page, leaving the left side open for ...another pocket.
This is the one that you could glue the small flap down and make another pocket, but I just adore those mittens! I figure it will be great for photos or journaling.