Monday, July 8, 2013

Girls Camp Paper Bag Album



It is done!  I stayed up until 3 am finishing the kits for the girls so they could have them today as they headed to Wisconsin for camp.

Brace yourself for lousy pictures and terrible grammar travesties thanks to my overwhelming lack of sleep.  Madison woke me up to the fact that the dryer didn't dry her clothes and she was an hour from leaving for camp.  I woke up just enough to tell her to put them through the dryer again, only to find out a half hour later it still didn't dry her clothes.  I tried to hold my tongue as long as I possibly could before the "you never wait until midnight the night before leaving to wash your clothes" speech came tumbling out of my mommy mouth.

Dad discovered that there was a huge, huge ball of lint in the dryer exhausty thingy...speaking of exhaust...um...yeah, OK, so we ran Madison to her ride to camp and dried her clothes.  I will be running them to the second load of girls going up to camp and then finally getting a little more sleep...if Emmers will let me :0)

OK, so I made up 15 kits.  Surprisingly, these albums only cost just over $1 each to make.  I did use some supplies I already had on hand and did not include them in the cost breakdown, but they really were cheep to make.

I made the books out of 8 paper lunch bags.  I will show you how to assemble a book at another time {really want to do our Disney books this way FINALLY}, but for now you will have to settle for the lousy phone pics of the pages.  My camera was dead when I set about taking pictures last night.  After staring at the wall for like 10 minutes I remembered that my phone takes pictures too :0)  

I am telling you, it was a very late, very non-brain-involved night.

OK, Front cover.  You will notice that the clipart I made last week is used throughout the book and has been colored with colored pencils {thank you Madison!-gotta love slave labor}

I ended up using my sizzix to cut the bag-opening-end of four of the bags so you would notice the note cards inside just a bit better.

The leaders requested extra journalling space, so I just used 4x6" index cards.  They were so fabulous I used them on most of the pages as well.

Tent Sweet Tent
Notice that the tent clip is glued onto a half page, made by gluing the folding ends of two paper bags together.  Love the half pages!

The "S'mores" clip is on the other side of the half page from the tent.  I used my sizzix to cut the scalloped circle shape into 4x6 index cards. 

Girls Camp Buddies

Next is the leader set of pages.  Above is the page for adult leaders.  The white card is also an index card.  It sure cut down on my work making the kits to just use the pre-cut index cards!  And they are only $1 for 100!!!  

I figure they can either glue a picture over the index card, or use these books more like a yearbook and have leaders and friends sign the books.

Page for the Youth Camp Leaders

Canoeing.  Again, either put pictures here or journal about the water fun.

Hiking.  I thought it was a little funny that I made the clip are say "I hike by faith" and then found out that our theme this year was Faith.  I did worry that the "hike by faith" thing was a little cheesy, but Madison assured me it was fine.  We will find out if she is right.

Random page...

Campfire songs and archery pages.

And the last two, a journaling page and a page for the testimony meeting.

I figure the girls can either put a picture here or write their testimony, or both!

I bought all my paper at Joann's last week when it was on sale 5 for $1.

I left the back blank.  The paper lunch bags come 100 to a pack, so if you do 8 bags per book you can totally get 12 from one $3 pack of bags.  Nice!

Now, when you put the pages together, you can do it so you don't need to bind them.  Since this is a book about camp and rustic is totally in for that theme, I went ahead and just tied each page into the book using hemp string.  Then I tied some random ribbons on the binding for added flare.

Here is a top view of the paper bag album.  Had I just a tad more time, I would have made these cute bands to hold the books shut...
shown over at FabYouBliss.

Here are some of the tags.  I only did four in my sample book, but all of the bag pockets are open so they can be stuffed to the brim with pictures, handouts, and random bits of nostalgia.  

I originally punched holes in the tags, but ended up just stapling the ribbons to the ends.  I would recommend that method to anyone :0)

So, just in case you missed my clipart post, 
The file is free to download HERE with dropbox.  No account necessary, but after using dropbox for a few months, I really can't think of a single reason why you WOULDN'T want to use it! 
 I {HeaRt} DropBox!!!


4 comments:

  1. I can't figure out how to get the clip art to print. The place where is says "HERE" doesn't let me click on it. --Am I just being low tech(dumb)? :)

    Thanks for this. It's awesome. My daughter wants to make one for her secret sister.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello! I am at encampment right now, so I will do my best but am limited to what I can do on my phone. I will tell you that the clipart is also on the post just before this one, so if you click on "previous post" or older, whatever it says, you might have better luck getting the file from that page. The other option is to email me at vanessa.cam5@gmail.com and I can email the file to you.

      I had down time this morning and took pictures of the book assembly. Once the pics are uploaded and we get another frre time I will get the instructions posted. I am so glad you liked the camp book and think it is a fabulous secret sister gift! What a great idea!!!

      Delete
    2. Hello! I am at encampment right now, so I will do my best but am limited to what I can do on my phone. I will tell you that the clipart is also on the post just before this one, so if you click on "previous post" or older, whatever it says, you might have better luck getting the file from that page. The other option is to email me at vanessa.cam5@gmail.com and I can email the file to you.

      I had down time this morning and took pictures of the book assembly. Once the pics are uploaded and we get another frre time I will get the instructions posted. I am so glad you liked the camp book and think it is a fabulous secret sister gift! What a great idea!!!

      Delete
  2. PS- We're excited to learn how you put the book together too.

    ReplyDelete

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