Paper Bag Album

I love making paper bag albums because they are fairly easy and there are endless possibilities in terms of design and decoration. They are made from strong paper bags (the sort sometimes used for packed lunches). You pile 3 or 4 bags on top of each other and sew a seam down the middle to make the spine of the book, before doing this you will need to use a hole punch on each folded bag to make holes that fall on either side of the spine, I usually tie these with ribbon to make the spine stronger. I buy my paper bag books ready sewn from ebay, it saves the effort and they don't cost much. The open ends of the bags create pouches so you can add larger folded documents or card inserts depending on the theme. I usually reinforce the inner edges of the pouches with patterned card. I have done several books with a family history theme and I have used the pouches to store a folded family tree, maps and larger photos. The album illustrated below was made for the recipient to add photos etc, I prefer making completed albums but you can choose either depending on who the gift is for. The Eeyore pictures and phrases used in this album came from one large sheet of Eeyore scrapbook paper, bought from an online craft store. Most of the other paper and card came from Tesco and The Works.