How to make a paper bag album

• Take 3-4 paper lunch bags and fold them in half so they make a 6x6 (approx.) surface. Crease the fold.
• To keep the album together while you're working, stitch (by hand or on the sewing machine) down the center fold. Use a brown thread so it doesn't stand out, but your binding will cover the stitching later.
• Embellish! You can use the open edges of the bag to hide journaling and tags.
• Wait until your finished with the album to do a finishing binding with ribbon, brads, etc.
  
  
  

Paper bags are not acid-free so use photo-safe materials to cover the brown bag surface to ensure that your album lasts forever.

Simple Paper Bag Books

Supplies:  Each Paper Bag makes 4 pages – 2 for the cover of the book. So if you use 2 bags, you get 8 pages – 2 for the cover, so a 6 page book.

• Paper Bags – 4 for this sample (makes 2 books)
• 4 sheets of pattern paper
• 2 sheets of cardstock
• 12 feet of ribbon cut into 6” strips (various styles of ribbon)

Assembly Instructions:
 

• Cut the 4 sheets of pattern paper into 5 ¼” squares. Save the scraps. You should have 16 squares, 4 long strips of paper, and 8 short strips of paper when finished cutting.
• Cut the long strips of paper in 1 ½” squares until you have 10 squares.
• Cut four 4 ½” x 4” rectangles from the cardstock. These will be the inserts into the bag openings.
• Cut four 4” squares from the cardstock. These will be mats.
• Add embellishments and mats and last add the ribbon to the spin and any where else you want ribbon.

Paper bag album  You will need 1 bag for the front/back covers and as many other bags bags as you want inside pages, divided by 2. So if you want 4 inside pages, you need 3 bags- 1 for the covers and 2 others.

Fold all bags in half. Stack the bags on top of each other, placing the folds together, alternating the open ends of the bags with the bottoms of the bag at each end.


To secure the spine you can:

• stitch through the folds with a sewing machine
• punch holes along the spine and tie or thread with ribbon or fibers
• use a prong fastener from an office supply store
• punch holes and attach eyelets through holes
• staple along the fold from the inside of the bag
• staple along the fold while the book is folded shut
  
  
  

Once you have the spine anchored you can embellish the book however you want. Some people embellish before they secure the spine to make sure the paper covers the whole bag, but it is your choice.

The open ends of the bags form pockets that can hold large tags for writing or photos.

To help even out your paper bag album. The spine was about a 1/2 inch thick and the opening edge was about three inches thick.

Take a piece of fun foam at the craft store. Make a spacer about one inch wide and how ever long your paper bag is. Place holes according to the template and punched them out of the foam. That is how to add a space to a paper bag album. For best results Put one foam spacer after each paper bag.

Paper bag albums can be made in any size that bags com in you can also do 12X12 bag just use the large grocery bags. This way there are large pockets in one side that you can slip memorabilia in, such as cards or flyer or maps.