Back in October, I attended our church’s annual women’s retreat. The organizers asked if I could lead a craft activity, and after some brainstorming, I came up with the idea of making a tag mini album. The ladies were welcome to make anything they wanted with the craft supplies we provided, but for the sample, I decided to use the group photo we take (almost) every year as the basis. The idea was that they would have one tag “page” featuring the photo and could add more tags with thoughts about the retreat, moments they wanted to remember, and/or more photos from our time together.
I am so pleased that the ladies who participated enjoyed this crafting time. Several of them commented to me about how relaxing it was to just play with pretty paper. That was the goal!!
Since I was preparing the sample in advance, I had printed out a few 3″x4″ group photos from past retreats. This led me to the idea to make my own mini album a summary of all the retreats I’ve attended since coming to this church.
I made a “cover” tag for the album and on the reverse, I wrote a tiny bit about why I made the album.
I have one tag for each year: On the front of the tag, I added the group photo, a label for the year, and a little cluster of embellishments.
On the reverse of each “page,” I have a little bit of information: the dates, location, and speaker for the retreat.

There were a couple unusual years, and so I used a little die-cut tag to write out some thoughts.

In my mind, mini-albums should be full of texture, so I added layers, doilies, and ribbons that spill over the edges.
I have a few blank tags left, and I saved a small collection of the leftover supplies for myself so that I can keep adding to this album each year!
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For reference, here is the starting set of supplies we used.
Supplies:
tags for album pages: manila shipping tags from Amazon (aff. link)
patterned paper: Recollections paper pads
doilies: “Sunny Side Up Bakery” from Hobby Lobby
ribbon: Michaels
twine: Christmas Paper Crafts from Hobby Lobby
flowers: The Paper Studio from Hobby Lobby
die cut tags: The Paper Studio from Hobby Lobby
leaf punches: Craft Tools from Hobby Lobby
labels: print-and-cut via my Cameo 3
pens: various fine-tipped Sharpies
In advance, I trimmed at least one sheet of each pattern to the width of the shipping tag bases, and I pre-cut all the cut-apart sheets from the paper pads. I laid out all the materials on a table in the room where we were doing the craft so that the ladies had a buffet of pretty bits and pieces!