How To Make: a quick personalized photo album cover

I am in full Christmas crafting, wrapping, painting, cooking madness over here!

I had this last minute gift idea for the angelbabies.  We have a little photo album that was Zella's as a baby that has a bunch of pics of her, and pics of family members in it.  She loved it when she was younger- and still enjoys looking through it- but most of all Moses loves it!  It's sad to say- but it holds true-that the 2nd does get slighted a little bit- so Moses has not had his own photo album to look at- and Zella's is getting a little ratty.

I decided to buy 2 inexpensive photo albums- (that seemed pretty sturdy) from our local drug store. They were 6$ a piece.  I bought them- despite the cheesy (in my humble, picky opinion) writing on the front,  and decided to whip up a quick, personalized collage on the front of each of them to cover up the less-than-favorable writing.

Here it is as it was when I bought it:

Here are the materials I used- various pens, scissors, craft glue, and Mod-Podge (gloss luster finish- shiny is always better;) If you haven't used it- it's a fabulous multi-purpose glue/glaze/sealer for decoupage (technically)- and it's fabulous!  It's what I used as a top coat on my custom drawer pulls on the kids dressers.  All this stuff is available at your local Walmart or arts and craft supply store.

Then I rummaged through my jam-packed scrap paper box in my studio.  In it- there are years worth of scraps- all sorts of papers.  The most exciting thing I save and use frequently for quick homemade cards (I rarely buy a card), gift tags, invitations, etc. is old calenders and book covers.

You see- one day, as Moses was ripping another book cover off of our extensive collection of hardcover children's books- I realized- "hey- I should be saving these and using them for collages"- so, ever since then I have been.  They give a great splash of color in a collaged card!

Below is the calendar page I used for Zella's album cover- it's from our 2009 calendar- which I've used  for at least 10 projects!

It was a Wolf Kaan calendar- love the vibrant colors in his paintings- so beautiful!

Here are the finished products! (they were still a little wet when I shot the photos- but the Mod-Podge dries to a clear finish)

I stuck a collection of their favorite photos in the the first 10 pages or so- and there's room for me to add more photos over time.  I still need to add a little picture of each of them in the front window...

Cute right?