Transform a photo album into a seed book. This idea is a great handmade garden gift or a fun way to store a small collection of seed packets
This is a fun project that’s better as a handmade garden gift, rather than a way to store loads of the seeds. The clear plastic pockets inside a photo album are great for organizing seed packets in a visual way. Providing that the packets aren’t too thick, you can slide them in and out easily and the clear plastic makes them easy to browse. Imagine how fun it would be to flip through all of your new seeds, on receiving this as a gift.
You can use practically any spiral-bound photo album for this idea but many have a generic design or are not garden-themed. This tutorial shows how to recover a photo album in fabric to make it just a little bit more special for the gardener-recipient.
With this handmade seed book, you can easily browse through a small collection of seed packets
The Fabric
To start the project I purchased a ‘Fat Quarter’ of fabric, which turned out to be far more than I needed. To fix the fabric to the album covers I used an ordinary spray mount though I’m sure any glue that’s suitable for both cloth and paper will do. In all, the project took about half an hour and I’m pretty excited about how the new seed book looks.
I think that an ordinary album might be trickier to use for this project because seed packets are thick when stacked one on top of the other. Using a spiral-bound album is far more practical when creating a seed album since it can help create space.
Spiral Binding
The trickiest part of the project for me was deciding how to approach covering the line of holes along the spine. In the end, I decided to forget trying to cover them at all since it seemed like a mission and the chances of the fabric fraying around the holes are pretty high.
My solution was to turn the front and back sides of the album covers inside out so that the Cheetah design faced inwards and the visible part of the spine was black. Running the fabric right up to the holes but not covering them worked well and I was relieved to skip the ordeal of cutting out and pinning back fabric for every single hole.
Step 2: Cut two pieces of fabric – one for each of the covers. Leave an extra 2-4cm of margin for the top, bottom, and one of the sides. I only used 2cm in this project since I’m trying to save as much of the remaining fabric for another idea but I’d recommend a little bit more to make things easier. You’ll also notice that the edges of the fabric below are zigzag.
This is because I cut the fabric with pinking shears which can help minimize fraying at the edges. Though to be honest I don’t think it’s a big deal if you cut the fabric this way or just with ordinary scissors.
Lisa says
Love this idea! Another to add to my list! This looks much better than my “throw them in a gallon zip lock bag” method. lol! Thanks for the idea. Now to find the right material!
KayleneP says
What a lovely idea! We just store our seed packets in a big plastic ice-cream container – this will look much better!
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
Hey, whatever works :)
Tanya Walton says
This is great Tanya. Lovely and simple. A wonderful idea for personalised gifts too.
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
Absolutely! Imagine receiving one yourself! :)
Dewberry says
Great idea, and it looks great too!
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
Thank you :)
Anonymous says
And art supply stores have incredibly gorgeous sheets of printed paper for sale, too. Most are printed in Italy and some have gardening themes. Paper won't fray, either, and glues down easily.
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
True! You could use all manner of materials to cover the album.
Lorna says
That is a brilliant idea – I love to re-purpose things.
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
Thanks Lorna :)
Jodee Weiland says
This is such a great idea! I will definitely be using this one for my garden this year! Thanks for sharing!
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
You're very welcome Jodee and nice to see you on Instagram/Facebook too :)
Jacki says
Tanya, that's gorgeous! What a lot of talent you have.
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
It's a fun and easy project Jacki…hopefully others will be inspired to try it too :)
Dc says
Very good idea. Mind you, you could just as well use old seed packets that are no longer required, to cover it as well.
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
You could definitely do that too Dc…maybe some modge podge to seal the paper 'collage' on.
Sunnybrook Farm says
That looks really good. I work in an archive and we have unused labels from local canneries which kind of reminds me of the seed packets. Those type of images just have a different look.
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
Cannery labels…do they have photos of canned veggies, etc? How interesting would that be made into fabric!
CJ says
What a brilliant idea, clever you! I can see that it will be really useful as well, it's always a dilemma where to store seeds, and this way they are easy to see.
Tanya @ Lovely Greens says
Absolutely…I have a plastic bin that I've been keeping all my seeds in but it's SO EASY to miss them when they're stored that way.