Show your DIY album pages

I use mounts, but I'm a bit OCD about everything on my pages being centered, straight, aligned, etc.



So, here's a short explanation of how I manage my mounts.

I only use black mounts, and I went with split-back because top-opening mounts allow the stamps to slide around within the mount, and I wanted to keep the stamps centered as much as possible.  I use Prinz/Scott exclusively, except for the rare size when Showgard is the only option.

If I'm building a page from scratch (rather than inserting a stamp in an already-built page), I place the stamp in a mount strip and get it perfectly positioned on 3 sides, so all I have to do is cut the fourth side.  I then mark the point I need to cut so I get identical margins on the left and right.  If I'm inserting a mount into an already-built page, I just mark the strip based off the box on the page.



For smaller mounts, I use a basic Prinz guillotine.



For taller mounts, I use the same Fiskars cutter linked above.



My page design uses two boxes, an inner and an outer. The inner is to aid in placing the mount so that it is perfectly centered within the outer box, and the outer box gives a "framed" look that I like. The trick to making the mounts fit perfectly is to build the boxes based off the mount size rather than vice versa.

Once I have the mount cut to size, I measure the height and width in mm, and I use that to build the inner box to the exact size of the mount. I have a script that does it for me in InDesign, but that's not really necessary.



To attach the mounts, I use Scotch double-sided scrapbooking tape. NOTE -- NOT regular double sided tape -- it's scrapbooking tape that's archival safe.  It says permanent on the package, but it's not.



I use the 0.5" size, but cut it into thirds. I also attach a tiny piece at the bottom of the mount to keep it flat.



It's got a perfect adhesive -- enough to hold, but not so much that you can't remove the mount without damaging it or the page, even years later. The adhesive is light enough that all it takes to remove the mount is a quick slide of the tongs under the edge of the mount. I rebuild my pages pretty often, and it's handy to be able to re-use the mounts (and often the tape). It also allows me to reposition if I don't get the mount straight on the first try.

The other real benefit of this approach is that I don't have to try to get the stamp perfectly centered within a mount that's already attached to the page, like one would have to do if attaching the mount in the traditional manner. I can get the stamp perfect within the mount, then just press it down onto the taped page. The end result looks something like this: