3D Camera Box and Album Gift!

I have been so excited about this project for a couple of weeks!  Every Christmas, I give albums of photos (taken throughout the year) to my mom and my in-laws.  This year I am also giving one to my aunt.  These are people who aren't interested in Instagram and never download pictures I post from Facebook.  They, like me, LOVE real photos and they love my kiddo so providing photos for them every Christmas has become a fun tradition.  It started one year when the finances were lean and I needed extra gifts for everyone to supplement the ones I bought for them.  They were a hit and I have continued the yearly albums even as times and our family's economics have changed.

This year, I have my most favorite presentation for my albums:  3D camera boxes!!!!  These are from SVGcuts and you can click here to see the file!

I made them in different colors for each recipient.

They are each personalized.  I did that using a Chomas Creations pen adapter, a Gellyroll pen, and a handwriting style font.

They open to reveal an album!

The albums coordinate with the camera boxes!

The camera is an svg file, part of a collection by SVGcuts.  You can cut svgs with a number of electronic die cutting machines.  I used a Cricut Explore to cut these.  In addition to this project there are several other cards and boxes in this collection.  The albums were simply made using my trimmer, an Xacto Knife, and a Zutter binding machine.

My idea, the minute I saw this file in the spring, was to use it as a box for a photo album.  I had hoped that 4x6 prints would fit perfectly, but I did find that I needed to cut down the height in order for the lid to close as designed.  I suppose I could have played around with the sizing of the file to enable the use of 4x6 photos but I chose to trim the photos instead.  There is plenty of room in the box to accommodate the 6" length, but I found that cutting each picture's height to 3-11/16 was the perfect size.  This was easily done with my trimmer.

My covers were made with art board from Michaels.  I cut it with an Xacto Knife.  Honestly, I cut the covers the same 3-11/16" tall as the photos and 6" in length.  With the o-wires I used with my Zutter binding machine, the album finishes at 3-11/16" x 6-1/2".  As you can see, this box will accommodate many more photos and other binding options.

If you are looking for a cheap and effortless way to have piles of printed pictures from the ones you take on your phone, you need to check out Groovebook!

This is a service that was newly bought by Shutterfly, but I started receiving them about a year before the company was featured on Shark Tank.  Basically, for $2.99 a month, you get to select 100 pics from your phone.  They print them and put them in a little book with the date of the pics above them (next to the photo, not printed on them) and MAIL them to you!  The shipping is included in the $2.99.  Everyone who has a Groovebook subscription has a code to allow others to have a free month of Groovebook to see if you like it.  If you want to try it for free, this is my code:  HERBST-MCCONNELL8,  You have to download the app on your phone to get started (just search "groovebook" in the app store) and enter the code at checkout.  I have enough pictures by October to make albums for my mom, my mother-in-law, my husband, my kiddo, my aunt, and myself!

I had so much fun with this project!  These are the papers I used if you were wondering.  I bought the American Crafts pad from Target.  I bought the Paper Studio pad from Hobby Lobby.  Both were bought in November of this year, so they should be pretty easy to find.  I bought them for my Christmas Journal, but I have been using them on gifts, gift wraps, tags, and more!

Thank you for checking my blog post today!  I have been wanting to share this project for a week or so and I am so happy to be able to share it now!