Articles : Tutorials - Paper Crafting

KaiserCraft Mini Shelf and Albums

Instructions for an adorable shelf!

This tutorial will show you how I made this cute KaiserCraft mini shelf and their coordinated albums.  I will be covering three of the albums (one set) but the rest of the books can be completed in the same way. 

The main ingredients you will need are this:



And one set of these:



In addition I am using one each of these papers:





And these rub-ons:



- This is enough paper to take care of the first set of books but if you want to do the other sets of books in the same patterns you may want to order more.

- If you want to use your own papers and embellishments to tailor this to fit your theme that is fine! I am doing my shelf for the first 12 months of my baby's first year but this shelf would be awesome for any theme!!

- You will want some Mod Podge or other wet adhesive, some acrylic paint to match your papers and perhaps some ribbons and other matching embellishments from your stash.

Prep Work

For the books:

- break each sheet into the four parts
- use a craft knife or sharp scissors to trim the nubs off
- sand the edges smooth
- paint just the thin outside edges of the "pages" with acrylic paint that matches your paper

For the shelf:

- you'll see that it comes in pieces
- it fits together like so:



- you need to paint: all the thin, outside edges, the full back side of the large back panel...



- and these two shelves, front and back:



If you are using the same papers I chose: I painted the shelf pieces in a light teal that matched the papers and the books in a reddish orange. I like the contrast but it's up to you!

The Shelf

After your shelf pieces have dried you will start to cover them.  Choose three patterns from your papers (you can see my choices below) and decide which will cover the back panel and the inner and outer sides of the side panels.

I like to use my ATG gun for everything!  You could easily use Mod Podge or another wet adhesive or any strong tape runner.  I prefer dry adhesive because it makes less of a mess and I don’t have to wait for it to dry!

You can use several methods to cover the panels with paper.  The one I used was to simply put adhesive around the entire edge of the shelf panel, then lay the paper down, and then use a craft knife to cut around it.  I very lightly sanded any bloopers or funny edges.  You could also trace the panel onto the paper itself, cut it out, and then adhere it.  It’s up to you!

Cover the INSIDE of the side panels first and remember to cut out the little tab hole.  Also cut the tab hole in the back panel.  BUT… when you cover the outsides of the side panel do NOT cut out the holes!  The way the shelf fits together makes it so that your paper will cover those tabs.

My panels looked like these:

(back)

(inside sides)

(outside sides)

And then entire shelf looks like this when assembled:

At this point you may want to use some good craft or wood glue to permanently glue the shelf together.  It will be much more solid that way!

All that I added for embellishment on the shelf was a piece of ribbon across the middle shelf and a sweet rub-on at the top of the back panel (see top photo).

The Albums

Now we will work on our albums!

By this time you should have all twelve pages separated and the edges painted. 

You first need to cut twelve pieces of the pattern paper, each 6 ½” x 3 ¼”.  I cut one of each pattern (two from each sheet of paper).

Now choose three pieces to be the *covers* of your books and cut those in half so you have two 3 ¼” pieces of each of the three patterns.  

Begin with one of the cover sets… grab one set of pages (4) for your book.  Put adhesive around the edges of two of the covers and adhere two of the matching cover sheets to them.  You will need to trim the edges.

Set aside the now covered back.  Take the front cover and set it in front of you, paper side down.  Now place a new, blank page against the “spine” directly to the right of the cover page.

Put adhesive around all the edges of each page, including the center where they meet.  Adhere a full sheet of the 6 ½” x 3 ¼“ patterned paper across BOTH book pages, making sure the pages remain tight to each other.  Trim the edges and fold the page in half.

Set this aside and pick up the back cover.  We are going to do the exact same thing but this time remember that this is the BACK cover and it will be on the *right* side (face down) and the blank page goes on the left.  Adhere and fold like we did for the previous page.

Now you will have two halves of the book.  Abut them together with the blank sides tight together and add the final 6 ½” x 3 ¼” page to the two center book pages.  Trim and fold in half.  Now you will have a fully attached book like so:

Cut three pieces from scrap paper (they won’t show) each 3 ¼” x ½”.  Continue to work on the same, one album even though I am showing you all three.  You can go back and do the other two.

Adhere the scrap strip to the spine of the book and trim.

Cut a spine cover piece to 3 ¼” x 2 ¼” to coordinate with the cover of your book.  Fold it across the spine so it overlaps with the front and back covers evenly and adhere it.  Now your book is fully bound!

To embellish the spine: I highly recommend not using stickers on your spine (been there, done that, failed!) because when you bend the book to open it the stickers don’t stay flat.  It is best to use rub-ons, stamping, or your own writing.  I used month rub-ons and number stamps on mine:

To embellish the covers: Remember that you are trying to fit a total of twelve mini books on this shelf eventually.  That means that you do not want to add bulky embellishments on the covers OR the inner pages because it will make your books too thick!  Stick with stickers, rub-ons, stamping, flat ribbons, etc.  I pulled some stickers from my stash and used a ton of the fabulous Cosmo Cricket rub-ons that match the paper collection I chose.   They are small enough for these albums.

To embellish the inner pages: These albums are all about cute, not packing in tons of photos.  My plan is to put a picture on the left side of each of the three inner pages and some journaling on the right side.  My albums are meant to just be a highlight of my baby’s first year (so obviously I will add pictures later when I have them!) so you should plan to not have this be a photo heavy project… although with twelve books on the shelf that ends up being 36 photos. 

I cut uniform journaling tags for the right side of the pages with my Cricut but you could cut them the old-fashioned way too.  I doodled around the edges and added more of the great rub-ons from this collection, leaving plenty of room to write.

Complete the other two books the same way you did the first… and then the rest of the sets of albums to get to twelve, eventually.  This shelf is simply adorable and really can be adapted into a ton of themes… talk about a GREAT gift!  

About the author ...
Jess began playing with scrap supplies decades ago but has only seriously scrapbooked since 2004. Besides playing with paper she also enjoys baking cupcakes, entertaining at home, traveling abroad, and making French beaded flowers. She has a degree in Theatre with a concentration on Costume Design and remains active in her local theatre scene. Jess lives in Framingham, MA with her husband, Ryan, and three naughty cats.

Published on 09/02/2009. Submitted by ScrapGoo