13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit. #10: Waterfall Album

We're on number 10 of 13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kits and this method is one of my favorites for its aesthetic appeal and functionality. The Waterfall Album takes a little extra care to make sure the dimensions are right, but the effect is fantastic! And it's interactive, which always gets me excited. 

If you're just hopping into this blog series, we've done 9 page kit revamps using various techniques. You can check them out here: 1. Embellishments, 2. Inking, 3. Pop-Up Dots, 4. Expansion, 5. Sewing, 6. Journaling, 7. Pop-Up Photos, 8. Secret Flip-Up Space, and 9. Color Changes. Some of those techniques have drastically changed the page kit and some have just given them a little punch and personality. Check them out!

For this method, we're using our newest travel kit, And We're Off, and I couldn't think of a better one to add additional photo mats to! After all, we all take way too many photos when we're travelling! And I never want to cut them down. This one has a little bonus - there are 3 versions! We don't all travel the same way, so we've got the plane, the car, and the ship. The waterfall album is the same no matter which one you use, but I've got to show you all of them in their original form - they're just too cute!

And We're Off - Plane

And We're Off - Car

And We're Off - Ship

Aren't they the best!? I love the vibe. On the original layout, there are 6 photo mats, which is pretty great, but like I said, 6 is just never enough for me. A really simple way to add more photos without adding another entire page is to add a waterfall album. They're interactive, they look great, and they do the job well!

Below, you can see the finished product as it flips through.

Let's see how it's done.

Personalization Option #10: Waterfall Album

First, gather your products. You'll need a ruler, a pencil, glue, and your cardstock. I wanted to have 5 photos, so I had (5) 4" x 4" brown squares, (5) 3 3/4" x 3 3/4" cream squares to double mat, and (1) 1 1/2" x 12" strip of squash cardstock. If you don't want to double mat your photos, you do not need the 3 3/4" squares.

Everything you'll need to create the waterfall album

Once you have your supplies, we'll focus on getting the cardstock lined up. You'll need to take one of your 4" x 4" squares and your 1 1/2" x 12" strip and line the square up with the short end of the strip, like below.

Line up the first square with the bottom of the strip

 Mark a line at the top of that square. You'll use this line to measure from in our next step.

 Remove the square and set to the side for now.

Next, you'll use your ruler and pencil to mark out the lines for the rest of the squares. Mark one mark for each photo square 1 mm apart from the original line. I had 4 additional squares (after the original square), so I marked the edge 1 mm apart for each one - 4 additional marks in total.

Use your ruler to mark one 1 mm mark for every additional photo square 

Next, mark 1 mm for each photo on the other side of the strip. Then you'll connect those lines using the ruler and your pencil.

At this point, you can set aside your ruler and pencil. Fold the strip along each penciled line. You will fold away from you. If you have 5 lines, you should have 5 folds bending backwards.

First fold. Fold along each line bending it away from you.

Second fold. Just keep going until they're all bent.

The strip should look like this at the end. Again, you'll have as many folds as you have photo mats.

Next we'll add our photo mats to the strip. If you have not already, now would be the time to adhere your mats together if you're double matting them.

Photo mats all ready to go!

Place your adhesive on the bottom of the strip - stopping before the first folded line. Then take your first photo mat and place it on the strip. It should fit perfectly, since the line was drawn to size. Make sure the strip is placed down the center. 

Do not put adhesive above the first line

Line up the photo mat with the bottom of the strip and the line at the top and press down.

As best you can, line the strip up in the center of the photo mat. I eyeballed this. You can measure if you want to.

After your first mat is adhered, we'll move on to the next. For each additional mat, you'll put adhesive on the strip between the folded lines. Then line the top of the mat with the line and line the sides with the mat below. Repeat this until you've adhered all of the additional mats.

Adhesive placed for the second mat

Second mat adhered 

Adhesive for 3rd mat

All photo mats adhered

All photo mats adhered - back view

After all mats are adhered, take the remaining strip sticking out the top and bend back, creasing at the top of the highest mat, and folding flat to the back of the mats.

Folding the strip back behind

Strip flattened to back

And you're done! This is how it should look when completed.

Completed Waterfall Album

 That tab that sticks out the bottom is your pull tab! You just pull gently on the tab and your photos will begin to flip up. It's like magic! 😉

Gently pull the tab and watch your photos go by!

Taa-Daa!

Pulled completely - bottom photo

Now, you can place your waterfall album on your layout and enjoy!

And We're Off with Waterfall album

And We're Off with Waterfall Album opening

Pro tips: when you adhere your waterfall, there's a couple things to keep in mind. First, make sure you place your adhesive on the bottom photo mat only. You don't want to place your adhesive on the pull tab - or it wont pull! And make sure to only put it on the bottom mat or the top ones will not flip up.

Also, the adhesive you use makes a difference. Make sure you use heavy duty adhesive if you can. This will help the waterfall hold up over time - and over many pull tab pulls. We like Supertape by iCraft, pictured below. You can find it here: Supertape on Amazon, or pick it up from your local craft store. 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you'll give it a try! Stay tuned for our final 3 ways to personalize your page kits through the end of January!

13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit. #9: Color Swap

Since we turn THIRTEEN this year, we're releasing 13 new kits this month and for each kit we release, I'm blogging about another way to take that page kit and make it your own. We've shown the versatility in our page kits with our first 8 releases and their revamps. They are great on their own for the scrapper who is in a time crunch, or they are a great starter kit for those who want to use their creativity to take them to the next level. We've explored  embellishments, inking, pop up dots, expansion, sewing, journaling, pop out photos, and secret flip up space as ways to make these kits your own. 

We've got yet another way to revamp your page kits this time AND we're using one of our birthday month weekly specials to do it! This week only (January 19-25, 2019), we're introducing Color Bundles in our online shop. These $5 packs include cardstock, patterned paper, bakers twine, and sequin embellishments in matching shades of the color you desire. They make it easy to make your layouts match your team colors, your party colors, or even just your favorite colors! I'll show you how we did that with our newest page kit, Cheer.

Personalization Option #9: Color Swap

Original Layout: Cheer Blue

Original Layout: Cheer Red

Our new Cheer page kit comes in two color options, Blue or Red. It's difficult to do sports pages that work for every team - there are just so many different color combinations - so when we do use team colors, we often try to use the most common school and team colors. But we know that doesn't work for everyone. So what can you do? That's where our new Color Bundles come in! Find the colors you desire and swap them into the kit to make it work for you.

Here's a look at what you get in our Color Bundles (and they're available this week for just $5!): 

Just choose your desired color - for teams, for weddings, to match family portraits - and swap them into your layout!

My family lives in the small town of Osseo, Wisconsin - home of the Osseo Thunder. Our colors are orange and black, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to show how simple it is to take this layout and make it work for the Mighty Mighty Thunder!

First, I took the brightest orange color from the Orange Color Bundle and a bit of Black cardstock from my stash. I also started with Cheer Red because I knew I could use the white pieces included in my layout. 

I chose Cheer Red because I can use some of the white pieces in my layout, too.

Orange Cardstock from the Orange Color Bundle, and Black Cardstock from my stash

After I gathered my paper, I took note of the photo mats and strips that I was removing and cut replacement strips and mats from my cardstock. You can see that the layout has white photo mats and white strips along the sides. I could have kept all of those from the original layout, but I decided that, since our colors are orange and black, I wanted to replace the white strips with black to make it more like my school. I did keep the white photo mats, though. It broke up the color a little bit. 

The red, white, and gray will be set aside and replaced by my orange and black.

After taking care of the large pieces of cardstock, I took stock of the die cuts. I decided that most of the die cuts could just be transferred to my layout because they were dark grey and white. I definitely needed to change the red megaphone and the pom poms, so I pulled them off of the layout and got to work.

I started with the megaphone. I decided I wanted it to be orange, so I pulled out some orange cardstock, and the die cut and began to trace. 

In order to avoid pencil marks, I flipped both the cardstock and the die cut over to have the smooth side up, so I could trace without worry.

Trace the die cut carefully

Fully Traced

Once my die cut was traced, I cut it out with scissors.

Megaphone cut out

Original megaphone with new, orange megaphone

Once that was completed, I traced and cut out the other die cuts that I wanted to change. 

Tracing the pom pom

Original pom and new orange pom

With all of the red pieces replaced with orange or black, I'm ready to assemble my page kit! I also decided to swap the background color to a light kraft paper to look more like a basketball court. So here's the final product!

Color Updated Left Page 

Color Updated Right Page

Color Updated Layout - Perfect for my orange and black Osseo Thunder!

You can see how some simple color swaps remade this page kit to match perfectly with my orange and black team! And I still have the majority of the color bundle left to swap other projects and make them work for me! This is such a simple thing to do with any page kit to make it work for you. You get all the basics and the design done for you and you can just swap in a few colors here and there to make it work for you. Such a great option! So check out those Color Bundles, available this week on our website for just $5 and stay tuned for more revamps throughout the rest of the month!