Creating an altered book mini album is fun and easy. The only hard part is deciding what theme or topic you want to do the album on.

Once you have decided on the subject of your mini album, begin by gathering the necessary supplies.

Supplies you will need:

• small book
  
• patterned paper
  
• cardstock
  
• embellishments of choice
  
• adhesive
  
• scissors and/or craft knife
  
• paper trimmer

Now that you have your supplies, it's time to start transforming that book into your new album.

Begin by applying adhesive to the book's front and back cover. You can do one side at a time for easier application.

After you have adhesive applied to the cover, lay the book down one side at a time onto your patterened paper of choice and press down firmly to glue the paper to the cover.

Once you have the patterned paper adhered to the cover, open up the book so that you can see the excess paper.

Using your scissors or craft knife, notch the corners of the paper.

Be sure to leave about a 1" overlap of paper to fold in and then cut of the remainder of the excess paper with your craft knife or scissors.

Apply adhesive to the inside of the cover and fold over the overlap of paper you left in the above step.

This is the finished cover of my album prior to embellishment

and this is the embellished cover.

You may wish to wait to embellish the cover until after you have finished the pages inside.

You will use the pages inside the book as your basis for your new layouts. Adhere your cardstock or patterened paper directly to the pages. It is up to you if you wish to have one continues layout (that covers both pages) or you may wish to do one page at a time in which you cut your cardstock/paper to fit the page. Either way is fine and is a personal preference on how it is done.

If you choose to do the continuous layout version, the easiest way I found to apply the paper is to apply the adhesive to the pages in the book and then lay the paper down on top of that going from on edge to the middle crease and then to the other edge so that you allow for the fold/crease of the book's center. Then just trim off the excess and embellish your page.

Here are a couple of pages in my altered book mini album. Others may be seen in my gallery.

Articles on ScrapFriends may not be duplicated, in part or as a whole, without the permission of the original author.

See more of Laura's work in our gallery.