CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM DIY PHOTO ALBUM

In today's digital age, our photo albums often lie dormant at the bottom of our phones and hard drives, getting lost over time. Weddings, births, trips, birthdays, family reunions...

To preserve these wonderful memories, find out how to make a made-to-measure home photo album. Photos, invitations, birth bracelets, confetti, pieces of bridal veil, plane tickets, dried flowers... all these elements will find their place in the pretty layout of your personalised scrapbooking photo album.

Here are a few ideas and inspirations for creating your own tailor-made paper photo album.

Build your own scrapbook or handmade photo album

There are lots of ways to make a diy photo album. You can decide to use a ready-made album or build it from scratch.

In all cases, one detail is essential: the number of pages must be able to accommodate thickness, at least that of the photo paper, or even bulkier items such as a folded invitation, a lock of hair, a piece of fabric...

That's why commercially available photo albums have thick bindings, to absorb a greater thickness than their single pages.

Now that you've got this thickness requirement in mind, here are a few ideas for making your own photo album.

Easy and decorative: the accordion photo album!

The Rose et vert blog offers a tutorial for creating an accordion album to the measurements of your souvenir photos.

A simple concept for an original handmade photo album. Dress the cover in a pretty patterned fabric, glue your beautiful photos to both sides and close the album with a pretty knotted ribbon or a fancy elastic band.

Once unfolded, this album doubles up as a photo frame and will look great on your coffee table or mantelpiece.

Mini scrapbooks: keep your memories close at hand!

On Liberty Scrap Magazine, Mélanie explains how to build a small format album. Play with patterned papers, stamps and embellishments specific to the world of scrapbooking. The album is closed by two eyelets linked by a knotted ribbon.

A Japanese binding

Easy to make, the Japanese binding plays with the colours of the sewing thread and the patterns created by the stitching. Opt for a soft cover in a nice thick paper and pages in Ingres paper, for example. This album is a beautiful object in its own right. Please note that the Japanese binding is not, in principle, designed to hold thick content such as photos in an album, so plan to make a home-made photo album large enough so that the pages can be squeezed together on the binding side while remaining free on the edge.

There are many tutorials on the web on how to make a Japanese binding.

Beautiful cardboard work

You can build your photo album from A to Z using cardboard. Follow Éclat de verre's detailed tutorial to make a classic photo album, horizontal format with black inner pages and hardback cover covered in pretty patterned papers.

Customise a classic album

Many brands offer photo albums that you can dress up and personalise to your taste. In kraft, plain paper, with a window to slide in a photo, spiral bindings, ribbon fastenings, elastic...

Follow the guide!

Finally, if you're afraid of taking the plunge and making your own diy photo album, there are pre-filled albums, boxes to build them in and software to format your photos and print them out directly to create a souvenir photo book.

Participative photo album

Some specialised websites and applications allow you to collect photos, comments and geolocation as you travel, so that you can edit them in the form of a collaborative souvenir album or travel diary once you're back home.

Similarly, there are logbooks that can be shared by several people and which allow you to save your photos with captions as you go along, so that every month, for example, you can publish all the posts you have made online on paper. These applications are very popular with families, as they allow grandparents to get news on paper from their technology-savvy grandchildren!

An album out of the ordinary...

Many applications allow you to print the photos you want in Polaroid format, for example. You're then free to put them in an album or hang them with clothes pegs on strings... This way, you can develop your memory album over time.

A cover that reflects you...

With your best feather

Play it simple and ride the lettering wave! Initials, a first name, a place, a nice quote.... Write the title of your album on the cover with a beautiful brush lettering.

Follow Aladine's tutorial to see how to make a birth illustration using a stamp, watercolour felt pens and embossing ink.

If you don't know how to draw, don't hesitate to use the beautiful postcards that exist to illustrate the cover of your handmade photo album.

Simply cut off the back of the card if it is a double card, leaving only the single card. Glue the card in the centre of the album, then create a pretty frame around it using gold felt, for example. You can also cut out a window in the album cover smaller than the size of the card and stick the card in the back of this window.

For a diy travel photo album, don't hesitate to cover the cover with a map of the country you've visited.

Dare a paper art cover

Paper cut-outs are very much in vogue. If you're comfortable with the material, you can make your own paper creations to illustrate the cover, in 2D or 3D.Scrapbooking brands sell cut-out paper embellishments that let you create pretty photo album cover designs.

To avoid the anxiety of a blank page...

Now that you've designed the structure of your album and its cover, let's move on to the content!

This raises the question of form and content. Here's my advice: list everything you want to accumulate in your handmade photo album, both by theme and by type of object. First of all, of course, file the photos, then associate the best memories with them...

For the wedding, it will be: the invitation, the table plan, the beautiful photos of the place where you proposed, the photos of the preparations, then of the ceremony and the evening, the Polaroids taken by the guests on the big day, the little words that accompany the gifts, the photos of the honeymoon, a few grains of sand as a souvenir, a dried flower from the bride's bouquet, a piece of veil....

For a birth scrapbook: the birth announcement, a lock of hair, the maternity bracelet, photos of the first few days, notes from friends and family, and possibly blank pages for the baby's first birthday, first tooth, first steps....

For a souvenir album of your trip: plane tickets, a map of the place with your journey dotted on it, food wrappers, a dried flower, grains of sand, museum, underground or bus tickets....

For a birthday album: a candle, confetti, a garland, pieces of wrapping paper, a ribbon....

Once you have drawn up this list, you can organise the content as you wish.

You'll need lots of fun accessories to get in shape: glitter markers, masking tape, stamps, coloured inks, photo corners...

Stamps and designs to download

At Créations & savoir-faire, many brands will be on hand to help you choose the stamp sets you need to illustrate the inside pages of your diy photo album.

Ampersand and blackboard

A black background can enhance your photographs. Choose an album with black pages. Use white Posca markers to write the captions and create doodling illustrations. Black and white is always a good choice for adding an elegant touch to your album.

An album of treasures!

Another way of preserving precious memories without having to stick them in your album pages and never being able to touch or use them again... is to store them in an envelope, itself stuck in the album.

Strands of hair, birth bracelets, wedding confetti... Choose a pretty envelope, decorate it and title it to indicate its contents.

It's up to you!

Now you've got everything you need to get started on your personalised photo album!

If you're still hesitating to take the plunge, list everything you want to include and go to the Créations & savoir-faire show with this list so that the exhibitors can guide you in your choices and share their ideas, tips and know-how with you.

FAQ - Everything you need to know to create your DIY photo album

How do I create a homemade photo album?

To make a homemade photo album, start by choosing a format (accordion, cardboard, Japanese binding), then select your best photos and memories and organise them according to the number of pages you want. This diy photo album lets you personalise your album 100% with a soft or hard cover, decorated to your taste.

How do I make a photo album on my phone?

To create a photo book from your phone, use specialist apps or websites that offer DIY photo album templates that you can personalise. You can import your digital photo albums and choose a flat opening to show off your best memories.

How do I paste photos into an album?

In a scrapbook or handmade photo album, use double-sided adhesive, photo corners or acid-free glue to avoid damaging your beautiful photos. Tip: allow for thickness in the number of pages if you add other souvenirs (paper, fabric, etc.).

What is the best paper for a photo album?

For photo album scrapbooking, choose a thick, acid-free paper (such as Ingres paper or black paper) to guarantee the durability of your photo albums. This paper offers a professional finish for an original handmade photo album with stamps, stickers or lettering.

What is the ideal photo format for scrapbooking?

The 10x15 cm or Polaroid-style format is perfect for a scrapbook: easy to fit in, it leaves plenty of space for decorating, annotating and personalising your album. It's the perfect handmade photo album idea for telling a visual story around your best memories.