There are instructions on How To Make a Paper Bag Album in my previous article, so in this piece I will look at various ideas for decorating a Paper Bag Book for a teenage girl.

It is important to know the taste of the young person you are making it for. If they like everything to be black then they will not appreciate a pink design, remember you are making it to suit their taste not your own! If possible ask the young person to choose some papers and embellishments that they like, this will help you to choose a colour scheme and theme for the album. In this case the person liked patterns and sparkles. I used stick on gems as accents and a fine brush to outline a few parts of the pattern with glitter glue. Be careful not to over do it.

My instinct was to calm the patterns down with solid blocks of colour, that is one reason for the white reinforcement borders to cover the punched holes.  It is important to remember that when you provide pouches items will be placed inside them and will break up the effect of the pattern. Each insert should fit in with the theme, but should also be attractive when removed from the album, so even if the insert is in a plain colour it will need an accent or an embellishment to tie it into the theme of the album.

You can use index cards (intended for card index boxes) to make inserts, just cover them with whatever scrapbook paper you choose. I chose patterned paper with plain edging for one side of the index cards and plain paper in the other so that she could stick photos on the patterned side and write (probably in sparkly gel pen) on the other. I made the small tags in a similar way. 

It is OK to make pretty inserts for frames because the person can then pull the insert out turn it round and stick their photo on the plain side.  Keep in mind how the album will look with the photo there instead of the pattern.

Even if you have a lot of pattern to cope it is still possible to use texture. I tried to restrict the texture to plain colours this included satin ribbon, chunky lace and corrugated card tags (they are flat on the back so you can write on them).  Given the choice I would never have worked with so much pattern, but I chose to write about this design because if you make a paper bag album as a gift you will probably have to work with designs that you are not entirely comfortable with.

How to Make a Christmas Themed Paper Bag Album

How to Make a Simple Friendship Album 

How to make a Paper Bag Album

How to make a Tag Album

Photo Box – An Easy and Attractive Gift To Make