Toilet paper roll mini album

Oh boy!  These little things are so much fun!  I saw these on YouTube and had to make my own.  My first album is so very basic and not nearly as embellished as some of the beautiful ones I've seen but for my first, I'm happy.  Besides which, I made it at 1:30 a.m.!

As the title states, these are made of the inner cardboard core of the toilet paper roll.  In this example I've used 4, though the way my family goes through toilet paper, I've saved enough for about six albums so far.  First you have to flatten the rolls.  This is harder than you'd think.  These things have memory!  I tried using a bone folder and even ran it through my Cuttlebug!  This is the flattest I've been able to get them.  I then covered the rolls with scrapbook paper and some little scrap embellishments I had been playing with earlier that evening.  I tried to make things match but I was tired and just wanted to see what one looked like all done up.  Apparently, not all toilet paper rolls are the same size but to make these I cut my paper at 5 1/4" x 6" and covered the rolls with 1/2" extra on each end to tuck inside the tube to finish the edges.  I found it easier to do if I cut notches out of each side.  Then I punched holes and inserted eyelets in the ends of the rolls for the book ring to go through.  All that's left is your pictures, journaling (if you do that), and tags.  I cut my tags on my Cricut using the SCAL program but you can easily just cut them out of cardstock by hand.  I think mine measured 2 3/8" x 4".  Just make sure you don't cut them too small or they'll fall right out of your album.  I took two tags and glued them together for stability.

When I showed this to my husband, he thought they'd be great graduation invitations for our moms.  He's so smart!  That's why I married him!

I found great paper at my LSS in a masculine style in my son's school colors that I'm going to use.  I think I'll make him one, too, since he's leaving for college shortly after graduation.  I want him to remember what we look like!

In my next post, I'll show how I'm now making these without using the actual toilet paper rolls!  It's not recycling, but I do like them better since they don't take any more work to make and they are flatter than the toilet paper rolls!  You will be able to make a 4 tube album using only 2 pages of cardstock and 2 pages of scrapbook paper - 8 1/2" x 11" or 1 page each if they're 12" x 12".  Even better!