Mini Albums as Scripture Books

I made these Scripture Books while I was at the Cricut Stampede back in March.  I had a blast while there, and am somewhat surprised that I actually finished a project!  These books are for the ladies in my Jr. Mission group at my church.  I wanted to give them something they could easily slip into their purse and carry their special, personal Scripture verses with them.  I used papers from the Faith paper stack by The Paper Studio that I found at Hobby Lobby.

The book itself is a Meander mini album, made with a 6x12 sheet of black paper.  The album has 5 pockets.  I ran across the idea for this album on The Paper Trail.  Laura gives great instructions on the assembly of this album.

Take your paper, and on the 6" side, score lengthwise at 3".  Turn the paper onto the 12" side.  Score every 2 inches.  You will end up with a grid of 12 squares.  In the photo below, I've drawn lines showing where to cut the paper. 

With your paper oriented horizontally, you will cut from the edge of the paper to the horizontal score line, alternating top and bottom halves.  Hopefully the photo makes sense of that previous sentence. 

I am a visual learner, so in the next picture I've labeled each rectangle on the paper to help with the folding instructions.

Take A and fold it down behind G.  Fold G over on top of H.  H then folds up behind B.  Fold B over on top of C.  C then folds down behind I.  Fold I over on top of J.  Fold J up behind D.  D folds over on top of E.  E folds down behind K.  K folds over on top of L.  Lastly, L folds up behind F.  You should now have a little stack with A on one end and F on the other.  The A and F flaps will be attached to the front and back covers.

To seal the pockets, I cut small strips of paper and wrapped them around the open sides.  I then used a circle punch to cut the notches for each pocket.

To make the cover, I used two 2 1/4" x 3 1/4" pieces of chipboard.  I cut the paper used for the cover to 2 1/2" x 7".  I placed the chipboard pieces as shown below, leaving a 1/8" border on the sides, and a 1/4" space in the center.  This gap will be the binding for the book. 

After attaching the 2 1/2" x 7" paper to the chipboard pieces, I attached the A and F panels of the album to the front and back covers.  I then used two 2 1/8" x 3 1/8" pieces of paper to cover those panels and give the book a finished look.


 
I printed each Scripture on white paper and cut each verse to measure 1 7/8" x 2 7/8".  The papers easily slid into each pocket. 

I am very pleased with the way these books turned out.  I wanted them to be small enough to be easily carried, yet sturdy enough to withstand being in a purse or bag.  I didn't want to over-embellish them, again to keep the size to a minimum, but also because the important part of this project is on the papers inside the pockets.  I felt that using the Faith papers with the printed words was all the embellishment that was needed.

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