Western Mediterranean Cruise mini-album

My husband and I went on a western Mediterranean cruise this autumn and I wanted to make a album of the trip. I like making albums and as I mentioned with this London trip mini, I think it's very important to at least print out a few of our favorite photos and store them in a way that will best preserve them for future generations (i.e. out of the sun!), especially those of you with children.

When I bought my last printer I did a bit of research into which inkjet has the best hypothetical photo longevity (they haven't been around that long so how do we really know?) and settled on a Canon Pixma. I use only Canon inks and the most expensive Canon Pro Platinum photo paper. I notice a big difference with the expensive paper and if I'm going to all that effort of printing out photos and making an album, it's worth the extra expense. If I have uniform sizing for all the pictures I want to use, I order prints on Snapfish. This type of photo print is your best archival quality and really, when you factor in ink, paper and time, they're about the same price as doing it yourself.

I guess I have a freestyle kind of mini style. I create the inner pages as I go (paper, embellishments, placement), working with the photos I've chosen. I see some gorgeous mini-albums out there, but the inner pages are void of photos and I often wonder where you'd actually put the pictures. I add pertinent information to the front of the photo before printing, and also to the inner pages. Sometimes I'll write by hand (as on this Positano, Italy album).

On one of our previous cruises the cruise line provided albums free in a scrapbooking class, which I put to good use on this cruise album of the voyage, but for this trip no such luck. Since I didn't have a freebie, I chose to alter an inexpensive outlet shop album base.

At 20.3 x 20.3 cm (8 x 8 inches), this is a slightly larger format than I have used in the past (a sort of mini+). I printed out 65 photos to include in the album, but as I didn't use all the 20 pages in the album, I removed some. Paper is from two kits picked up at the same outlet. I thought at the time their blue theme would make them perfect for cruise photos (and I was right). 

And here's the 'before' of the album.

Supply List
Album base
Patterned paper
Miscellaneous embellishments – chipboard shapes, buttons, washi tape, pearls, ribbons, etc.

I'm linking up with: Mini Album Makers Challenge March – ATG album/book and Brown Sugar Challenge Blog #288 – Transportation.