I have a confession. Only a few of my friends know this. I do not like ring bound albums. There I've said it. Most of the mini albums that I have made in the past that had the ring binding, I have given away. I just don't like how it's hard to turn the pages because they are always getting caught on the ring and I really, really don't like that the albums won't close and sit on a shelf like a normal book. I know there are others who love the ring type albums and that's okay but they are just not for me. There is one exception though. If the album is teeny, tiny (3"x4" or so) then I do like the rings. Weird, I know. And while I didn't like the ring type albums, I did make them and took classes for albums made with them because, well....if you liked the album and that's how it was bound, you made it. But one day I discovered the hidden hinge, stack the deck hinge etc. and now that's all I want. So, on Saturday as I was looking at my mini album collection, I picked up this one that I made at an inclusive class for NSD in 2013. Yes, it had those dreaded rings that I didn't like. I loved the album and all the things I added extra inside--the different little doodads that we got at the retreat like the flamingo glasses, etc. I just wished it was a hidden hinge album. And then, I decided to change it and re-make it. Lucky for me, the holes that were punched could easily be hidden with the hinge and a bit of Washi tape magic. I may even be able to add in a few extra pages. I created a spine for it, used the covers as they were, attached them to the new spine and added Washi Tape to hide the holes. Then I added hinges to each page and ta-da!!!
You can see where the new hinges are but since they are covered with cute Washi tape, it just doesn't matter and now the pages lie flat!
I did have to trim off the top and bottom edge of that curved page as it was made to stick out of the album. I wanted it to stand up like a book so I used my craft knife and trimmed it down.
That's a pocket above on the left side that I need to make a tag for. And the section on the right that's tied with a ribbon is a fold out photo page.
I used the straws to make short legs on this flamingo. This is more of a full size page so I used longer hinges and several different prints of Washi tape.
The sunshine in the last page is a pocket for the large photo tag and on the inside back cover, I used another straw to create the flag pole.
I loved this album before but now that it's a hidden hinge album, I love it even more. I'm sorry that I didn't create a video tutorial of this in case there are others out there like me but I wasn't sure if it would work so I didn't film it. Now I don't have another one that I can re-make as the few other ring bound albums would lose too much of their detail on the edges if I were to change them now.
Here's the thing...if you have something you've made on your own or in a class that you would like a little better if you changed it or tweaked it some--go for it!
Happy Crafting,
