I came across this idea in a newsletter from www.scrapjazz.com. As I usually do all my scrapbooking digitally, I immediately liked the idea and saved the info and let it percolate.
Then early this week inspiration struck. With Valentine's Day coming up, this would make a great Valentine. Next I had to buy more ink for my printer and discovered that Canon has a rebate offer and also another free package of 5 6x4 inch photo paper. I have never really used them and just saved them, but now I knew exactly what I was going to do with them. So I set out to design my 'fan album' in MS Publisher. One reason I like MS Publisher to print out photos is that for some reason the output is usually really good and I don't have to worry about DPIs.
The albums can have as few a 2 pages or as many as you want. My instructions are for 4 pages, made from 2 6x4 inch photo pages. Albums with fewer pages are easier to mail.
The original design was much bigger, but I seem to like things smaller.
Wanna see how my fan albums turned out:
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valentine's fan album 1 | | valentine's fan album 2 |
- 2 sheets 6x4 inch photo paper
- 1/8 inch hole punch
- 1 brad
- flower or other shape to put below the brad (optional)
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fan album ms publisher template |
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I created the template to feed the page through the printer in portait, ie. 4" wide x 6" long.
Creating the Template
- Open a blank full size MS Publisher page, all the content will be put in the top left corner
- Set the margins to .25" all around
- Create a rectangle that is 6x2 inches and give it a light grey border so that it is visible
- Create a rectangle that is 4x1.5 inches and give it a different border, I used a dashed one
- Create a 1/8 inch circle, by holding down the SHIFT key when drawing it, so it stays round. If you make it too big, resize it afterwards.
- Put the circle exactly 3/4 inch from the bottom end of the larger rectangle and centered in the width of the rectangle. This marks the spot where you punch the hole for the brad.
- Group all the objects and duplicate and place next to the first one. You have now 2 halves of the 6x4 inch page.
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ms publisher template with content |
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Adding Pictures to the Template
- Pick your picture you want to use, it doesn't matter if it is portrait or landscape, either way it will have to be cropped as the.
- Size your picture to the length of the smaller box 4x1.5 inches, if it is now too wide crop it. I found the easiest way to do that is to put the picture below the dashed rectangle and the crop.
- If you are only making a 2 page album, put the info about yourself in the second rectangle, like I show here in the example.
- If you make a 4 page or more pages album, put the info about yourself on the last rectangle to make it easier to keep track.
- Now you can fill the other rectangles with more pictures as I did in the 'Greetings from Halifax' or add some journaling or a quote in the other rectangles like I did in the 'Valentine' and 'Hug' ones.
Note:
Before printing remove the guides. The best way to check how it will look in print is to go to 'View' and uncheck 'Boundaries and Guides'. Once you are happy with the way it looks you can print it.
Assembling the Album
- Print the album
- Cut the page in half lengthwise
- Punch a hole on each piece where it is marked
- Stack the pieces
- Take a flower or other shape and thread on brad
- Push brad through hole and open
Here are the links to 2 templates:
- The first one is the one shown above for 6x4" photo paper pages. It has a second page with an example of an image added.
- The second one is the template to use a full sheet of photo paper and make the fan from 5.5x4.25 inches. So one sheet makes 2 4 page fan album.
If you need any help email me.
If you would like me to make one for you, creating the design is $20 and you get to keep your template and then have it printed where you live.
