Interactive Sliding Scrapbook Tutorial

Graphic 45 Safari Adveture

Hi friends I am so excited today as I have been invited to be the Designer Spotlight for Simon Says Stamp for the month of May !!! It is such an honor and I can't believe it!!

I will be posting special Spotlight Designer projects every Monday for the Simon Says Monday Challenge 

The theme for this week is "The Great Outdoors". My family and I live in the bustling metropolitan city of Bangalore and whenever we get a chance, we escape into the jungles for fantastic, peaceful holidays in tune with nature! So for my designer project I altered a wooden trunk in a jungle theme to hold memorable treasures of our holidays!

wooden trunk

I used the gorgeous  Graphic 45 Safari Adventure collection papers to decoupage the inside and outside of my treasure trunk.

Graphic 45 Safari Adventure

The Graphic 45 papers are sooo detailed and amazing but since I was using them for a special project my family would treasure over the years, I didn't feel too bad to use them!!

Scrapbook Treasures Trunk

I love the whole concept of scrap-booking and recording details of life's journey!! My project has mini scarp-book cards/pages which are small enough to decorate easily but spacious enough to pen down treasured moments and hold those special little photos!

Jungle Adventures Scrap-booking Idea

The scrapbook pages are interactive and slide along wooden rods I fit inside the trunk  .Not only can you remove the cards to reminisce about the memory or photo it holds...you can also keep adding new cards whenever you fancy.

Scrapbook Mini Pages

I used elements from the Graphic 45 Safari adventure pack to embellish each card which was cut with the Spellbinders Address Book die [you can also use other dies such as the Heidi Swapp Memorydex dies, Crealies Memorydex dies or punch out the holes]

Mini Scrapbook Page

I was inspired by the Rolodex sliding system [and more recently Heidi Swapp's Memorydex systems] to make this interactive scrapbook. 

I love the whole idea of interactive systems so much I actually have gone ahead and got Heidi Swapp's slider and spinner Memorydex systems and will be sharing them with you later this week.

Interactive Sliding Mechanism Tutorial 

But for now here  is the tutorial on how I made my sliding Interactive Scrap-book card pages...I am not giving measurements as you necessarily wont be working with the same size of the box I used.

Interactive Scrapbook Tutorial 

Gauge how you want the index cards to lie inside your box/trunk. My trunk had enough space for 2 columns.

Sliding Card System Tutorial 

Measure wooden dowels/sturdy straws or handmade paper tubes to fit across the trunk. I used wooden chop sticks which we had brought back as souvenirs from our recent Thailand holiday. The rods you use should be small enough to easily slide through the holes of your index cards.

Sliding Card System Tutorial 

To easily fit the wooden dowels into the trunk I found that the easiest way was to make "washers" using hole guards die cut out of foam using the Sizzix Bigz Tiny Tabs and Tags...this is just an idea you can also directly glue the wooden dowels inside the trunk.Using the foam rings I didnt have to bother about getting an absolute exact fit and the rods had a bit of freedom of movement!!

Sliding Card System Tutorial 

Each Index card slides on 2 wooden rods and you can place a couple of cards on a pair of rods to know where to glue down your foam discs.

Sliding Card System Tutorial

I used 2 die cuts to make a foam disc and each sliding card system had 4 foam discs to house 2 wooden rods!

 Using foam also protected my pattern paper and since the rods were not too tight within the discs it was easier to add and remove cards from  the rods.

Sliding Scrapbook

Space the rods apart by keeping the index cards sliding along them as you glue down the foam discs.

Graphic 45 Safari Adventure Scrapbook

Once dry you can add and remove your mini scrapbook page cards . The cards easily stay upright and a small space can hold a surprisingly large number of cards.

Interactive Sliding Scrapbook Index Cards

 Here are some of the mini cards I made ...I have used a whole variety of dies to add the embellishments but then you can make them simple or really pack on the embellishments!

Scrapbook Pages

 My cards have a variety of elements like clay [ in the clay elephant above] , metal [ like the metal owl, horse and butterfly charm], fabric[ the leaf vine] and wood[ like in the wooden lady bird mini cloth pegs]

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

 The uniform element in all the cards are jungle themed elements from the Graphic 45 Safari adventure paper. The back side of the cards are blank for journal-ling and adding little pictures.

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Scarp-book Journal-ling Cards

Sharing the side view with the gorgeous parrots in the jungle!

Graphic 45 Memory Box

And I bought special lion headed metal ring embellishments keeping this project in mind!

Lion Head Metal Embellishments

 The rhinestone chain loops through the lion head rings and holds the banner"On Safari"

Graphic 45 Trunk 

And here is the top view with more amazing jungle life!!

I hope you enjoyed seeing all the details of my project and hope you like the idea of the sliding cards!

Supplies Used: Papers : Graphic 45 Safari Adventure
Dies : Spellbinders Address Book,Sizzix Bigz Tiny Tabs and Tags, Lifestyle Crafts Nesting Circles,Cuttlebug Animal Crackers,Spellbinders Elegant Ovals,Spellbinders Romantic Agenda,Spellbinders  Curved Matting Basics A and B