How many photos do you take on a typical family outing? Tara Whitney takes hundreds, but she doesn’t keep them all. “To keep my photo files streamlined and manageable, I make a habit of reviewing them right away and weeding out those that don’t wow me,” she explains. “During this trip to the beach, I took more than 200 photos, but I kept only 80.” Because Tara had already narrowed down her beach shots by the time she made this album, choosing photos was a breeze. She simply selected 14 favorites and ordered 5 x 7 enlargements.

Tara adhered one photo to each left-hand page, stapling in colorful fabric tabs every few pages. To speed the journaling process, she freehanded messy lines across each right-hand page and jotted down a few sentiments about each photo. To dress up the album, she added artistic strokes of acrylic paint and other miscellaneous embellishments, such as rub-ons and monogram letters.

Tara also inserted tags and die-cut frames sporadically throughout her album. She used pliers to open the spiral binding just a bit; then she pulled out the pages, added the tags and reassembled the book. To create a unique title page, Tara trimmed down a slide holder made of heavy-weight vinyl and inserted it at the front of the book. She filled the pockets with an eclectic assortment of embellishments, including a pressed flower, chipboard words and small die cuts.

Materials: 5 x 7 album, cream tag, phrase sticker (7gypsies) + acrylic paints (Heidi Swapp, Making Memories) + stamping inks (Clearsnap) + “4” sticker (Doodlebug Design) + “A” sticker (Chatterbox) + chipboard brackets, “4,” “m” and “n”; plastic “d” (Heidi Swapp) + blue tag (Li’l Davis Designs) + die-cut frame (My Mind’s Eye) + rub-ons (7gypsies, BasicGrey) + “play” circle (KI Memories) + rubber smiley face (Around The Block) + pressed flower (Pressed Petals) + slide holder + chipboard words + other tags + fabric tabs + staples + album by Tara Whitney, Mission Viejo, CA