All About 8”x8” Albums
By Sara Naumann

Maybe you don’t have a lot of photos of a certain subject. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable with facing that big empty 12” page. Or maybe you just want to make something smaller and more compact. Mini albums are a great option.

What’s a Mini Album?
Mini albums come in all sizes, with 8”x8” being the most popular. They’re often themed, as for wedding, baby, vacation or heritage. Sometimes there’s a thread of continuity in terms of design: The papers match the album, for example, or the scrapper uses the same alphabet stickers throughout. (However, this doesn’t mean every page in the album must use the same background paper or exact same layout!)

Why I Love Mini Albums: Real-Life Scrappers Tell All
Overwhelmed by the thought of devoting time, money and energy to a giant scrapbook, more and more people are starting small. Here’s why:

Mini Albums are Manageable
Like the idea of a project with a definite beginning and end? Me too. I love the idea of creating one album that’s focused on a certain theme, like a vacation, my parent’s heritage photos or my baby nephew’s first year.

The pages are fast and easy to make, too—something I was grateful to realize when creating three duplicate memorial albums. Because the 8”x8” page is large enough to hold 1-2 photos (or one photo and journaling) plus embellishments, I was able to get pages done quickly. Yet even though I was making 4-5 pages per evening, they still looked great—proof that “fast and easy” doesn’t have to mean “boring”.

Mini Albums Organize Your Photos the Same Way You Shot Them
Keeping photos and memories organized is a huge reason for themed mini books. “I take most of my photos at events, occasions or trips,” says Natalie from Texas. “It just makes more sense for me to scrapbook my photos the same way I take them.”

I agree. I’d much rather have a separate album for that family vacation than to sandwich the trip between random non-themed pages. (This also makes it much easier to show others my photos of the trip—I can just pull down the vacation album instead of flipping through a big family book.)

They Make Great Gifts
I probably give away more scrapbooks than I keep! Mini albums are perfect for this—they’re ideal gifts for a co-worker, friend or family member. Carolyn in New York recently made a themed scrapbook as a retirement gift for a colleague. “I used photos from office functions, copies of special awards she won and lists of projects she worked on, then snuck around and took photos of her office. Other co-workers wrote messages and special memories, then we gave it to her at her retirement party.”

When You Don’t Have a Lot of Photos
When scrapbooking photos from my husband’s childhood, I found myself with a very limited number of Polaroid pictures—some of questionable quality. A 12” album page would overwhelm these smaller, darker photos. Yet somehow, an 8”x8” book presented them perfectly. Putting the photos in a smaller album fit the photos better in proportion and allowed each one to shine. It also filled the book, as I was able to put just one photo per page and add some journaling.

This is especially true for heritage photos, which are often small. Scrapbooking just one or two on a page is far better presentation than fitting 8-9 photos on one large album page.

When You Have Too Many Photos
Margaret was organizing her photos when she came across duplicate school pictures of her children. “I had already put the school photos in our family album so I was at a loss as to what to do with these extras,” she says. “I realized when the kids leave they won’t have their own albums to take with them, so I decided to make a school album for each child.” Margaret wanted to keep the project simple—especially since her oldest child was headed for college in just a few months!

Now that you’ve seen why scrappers love these mini albums, you might wonder how you can get started. Because I don’t want to drive all over town to shop for products, I love the Mini Album Line from Hot Off The Press, which has decorated 8” albums, plus paper packs and cardstock. You’ll find themed, coordinating supplies for Kids, Heritage, Wedding, Birthday , Baby, Vacation, Friendship and Disney.