I had an amazing time at the SNAP Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah last week. Making and giving gifts is one of my favorite activities so I signed up to be a SNAP secret sister. I was thrilled that my assigned secret sister is a talented papercrafter because I love paper! I decided to make my SNAP sister a custom chipboard word album using papers with her favorite colors: coral and turquoise. I designed and cut the custom chipboard word album with my Silhouette Portrait.

Looking through my scrapbook stash revealed that I didn’t have any paper or ribbon in coral or turquoise. I headed to the craft store and found the perfect Coral Couture stack from Die Cuts With A View. I also bought some coordinating ribbon.

Supplies:

• 12×12 Coral Couture Stack by Die Cuts With A View
• Silhouette Portrait
• Silhouette Portrait mat
• ATG adhesive (or other strong paper adhesive)
• two 1 inch book rings
• four 8×12 pieces of thin chipboard (I used pizza/cereal boxes)
• coordinating ribbon and flower
• rhinestones
• paper trimmer

Instructions:

1. Design your Silhouette cut file for the chipboard word album. My word album measures 5.75 inches x 9.75 inches.

2. Use the Silhouette, mat and thin chipboard to cut out the four separate layers for the chipboard word album in Silhouette Studio. I used the Silhouette Studio cut setting for Coverstock. Only cut one letter on the cutter mat at a time. Select and drag the other letters off the mat. I cut the four chipboard pieces alternating the design side face up or down. This pattern makes it easier to see the design for the tutorial. In practice, I recommend cutting with the design side down so it will be less noticeable if you don’t adhere the paper perfectly. These are the individual cut letters.

These are the letters stacked on top of each other.

3. Each letter will be covered by paper on the front and the back. My personal preference is to use the same paper on the front and the back of each letter. The paper I used is thick so I the Silhouette Studio Cardstock – Plain cut setting. Cut the front side of the letter. Then flip the letter horizontally in Silhouette Studio to cut the back of the letter. To flip the letter horizontally, right click on the letter and choose Flip Horizontally from the popup menu.

This is the flipped image.

Cut the backside of the letter with the Silhouette. Repeat this entire step for each letter.

4. Adhere the paper to the front and back of each chipboard letter. The best method to do this is to put the adhesive on the chipboard. Use the ATG or other strong adhesive to go around the entire perimeter of the letter and add some adhesive in the middle.

Set the chipboard on a level surface, line up the patterned paper and adhere. I used the left side and the holes to line up my paper and chipboard. Repeat this entire step for each letter. This is what all the letters looked like covered.

5.   Embellish some of the covered letters with paper mats for photos. I didn’t add any photo mats to the S, the front side of the N or the back of the P. I didn’t want the paper mats to show. That might make it harder to read the chipboard word album. Write the dimensions of the photo to be added in pencil on each photo mat. This removes all the guess work later.

6. Add buttons, ribbons and flowers for embellishment of the chipboard word album. I keep the embellishments simple to let the beautiful papers and photos shine.

7.  Layer the letters, line up the holes and add the book rings.

8. Complete the chipboard word album by adding some double knotted ribbon to the book rings.

Below are the embellished pages. The back of the N has room for a 2×3 photo with extra paper at the bottom for 3 rhinestones.

The front of the A has a photo mat and 3 rhinestones that are on the mat’s border so they won’t cover up the matted photo. I also added a flower where the two sides of the A connect.

For the back side of the A, I used wired ribbon and rhinestones. The wired ribbon is folded to fit the photo mat and only adhered to the back of the mat. That means the photo can slide underneath the ribbon! Once again I added 3 rhinestones for consistency.

I used the wired ribbon again on the front of the letter P. I love slipping photos under ribbon. There are also 3 rhinestones on each ribbon corner. 

My secret sister posted on Instagram that she LOVED the chipboard word album that I designed, cut and embellished for her. That makes my heart happy. My Silhouette Portrait made this project much easier to create. I can’t wait to make more custom chipboard word albums.