Allison Cope is here to show us once again how thinking outside of the box will not only get your creative juices flowing but you may end up saving the world too!; think reduce, reuse, recycle!

Here she is with her “3 R’s” project:

One of the reasons I love to scrap over all other crafts is that I get the instant gratification of having a finished project in only a matter of hours. So browsing a scrapbook publication I came across a fun mini album idea by Jessica Acs using coffee cup sleeves and I knew I just had to make this my next fun mini project.

 

Coffee Cup Sleeve Creation

1. I took 9 coffee cup sleeves and punched and bound all of them together using my Zutter Bind-It-All machine. I used a 1 inch binding to ensure that the pages in my mini album had enough clearance to flip back and forth.

2. I then decided to keep a few things uniform and easy to assemble. First I decided that I would use a fun label shape from one of my Spellbinder’s Nestabilities to use as the platform of each of my journaling pages. Then I decided to use a slightly larger version of the same shape as the base for my photo pages. That made the process quicker; I didn’t have to fuss over what each page would look like.

3. Then I picked some fun Graphic45 papers and die cut tags; some having a travel theme on them to keep the feel of the mini album uniform. I also found some fun transparent tags from Little Yellow Bicycle that fit the colour scheme of the papers and the theme of my album.

Coffee Cup Sleeve Creation

4. So I began by decorating my front and back covers. In addition to the Graphic45 papers I used a 7Gypsies photo corner and a cute little label holders by Making Memories.

5. I die cut each 2 page set of label shapes, ensuring they looked okay with each picture. I inked all the edges of the papers and the photos and then applied any fun transparency items of die cut shapes.

6. When all the pages were done, I added a few colour coordinating ribbons to the top binding ring of the mini album. As a finally finishing touch, I took the 2 stamp canceling stamps images from my Stamp BOX sets and added some fun marks to each page to further distress them. This mini album only took me just over an hour to complete.

This type of mini album would be great to use up some of the scraps you have in your scrapbook stash. And I know you need an excuse to go and drink more coffee treats too! And here’s the finished project….

Coffee Cup Sleeve Creation

Oh the PLACES We’ve Been….