Do you recycle? I’m always looking for ways to recycle and re-use. This project makes use of some items that every house has—toilet paper rolls! Yep those little cardboard rolls at the center of a roll of toilet paper. So don’t just toss them, save then up! You can make a cute mini album with them and I’m going to show how.
First thing you’ll need to do for this project is to save some of the empty rolls from the toilet paper. It doesn’t take as long as you think to have a few rolls saved up! You’ll need about 4 rolls for this mini album.
You’ll also need:
- digi papers printed on project paper (I use Epson Premiere Presentation Matte)
- adhesive
- ribbon
- a hole punch
- 1″ ring binders
- scissors or a craft knife
- decorative elements as desired
I used several different kits from the Digichick Boutique. The cover was made using Vita Fortunata by Quirky Twerp. I also used Retrospect 365 Paper Pack by Quirky Twerp and Every Life has a Story Collection by the Digichick Designers. For my project I decided to make it a “year in review” mini, so the vibrant colors and seasonal look to these kits were just perfect to represent the different seasons of the year.
As you collect your toilet paper rolls, you can flatten them. I creased mine and then placed them under the foot of my Cuttlebug to apply weight to help keep them flat. Your paper needs to be printed out at 1″ wider than your roll and 2x the length (opening end of the roll) plus 1″. Which came out to be about 5.5″ x 6.5″.
Now you’re ready to wrap your rolls. Place adhesive on one side of your roll and lay it on your paper as pictured. Next use your scissors to cut small wedges at the corners of the openings. This is going to help make it easier to tuck them inside the roll. Now run some adhesive along the thin strip of paper above the roll and adhere it to the roll.
Apply adhesive and tuck the flaps into the ends of the roll. It might help to first tuck the corners in and then press the middle of the flap in. Be certain to work the flaps so they are smoothly adhered to the roll.
Apply adhesive to the other side of the roll and finish wrapping the paper around. Trim the overhang of paper and then tuck those flaps inside the roll as well.
You’re probably wondering why I have photos on my paper already. I designed my pages digitally and printed them, then just added a few decorative elements. You can do this or you can add your photos after you adhere the papers to your rolls. If you decide to design the pages digitally, keep in mind that you’ll have 2 “pages” on each paper. One will need to be upside-down so that when you wrap the paper around the tube, it will be right-side up.
One of the really cool things about this mini album is that the toilet paper rolls make tubes or pockets, which can hold tags. And those tags can hold more pictures and memories!! So with just 4 toilet paper rolls, you end up with 16 “pages” or surfaces to place photos! That could be a lot of photos!
So let’s make some tags! The Retrospect Tags 365 by Quirky Twerp made this so easy! The brilliant, rich colors of these beautifully decorated tags blended so well with the papers I was using and they are already tags! I just added my photos and digital elements and printed them! I adhered two tags back-to-back. I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole in the end of the tags and inserted some coordinating ribbons.
I also used the crop-a-dile to punch holes in the binding edge of the rolls. I used 1″ ring binders to attach the rolls. ONce you’ve bound the mini album you can slip your tags in the pockets. As you can see from some of the pictures, my project is not yet completed. I still need to do a Fall roll once that season gets here. Using the ring binders makes it easy to add pages as I work on this project. I hope you’ve found some inspiration to turn something that was head for the trash into a treasure and recycle those TP rolls!
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