PNW Mini Album │ the pocket tutorial

I've had a few questions on how I made the pockets for my PNW mini album so I thought I would do a quick tutorial for you. I used a shape from the Silhouette Store that you can see here and its on sale right so so that's a bonus!

I really liked the slanted edge of this pocket, I thought it would add some interest and it ended up being the perfect edge to add some stamping to. Now this file is intended to be cut fairly small and all in one piece. I knew that because of the size of my dividers 6" x 8.5" that I wasn't going to be able to cut them out of one piece of paper. I needed to modify the file a bit to get just the pocket.  Here is how I went about doing that. (Note: I am using Silhouette Studio v.3 for this tutorial)

The first thing to do is open the file in the Silhouette Studio program. Once the file is open we need to cut off the long edge of the cut file that is supposed to be the backside of the pocket. You will do this with the knife tool which is located along the left side menu.

You will click on the knife tool and hold down your mouse while you draw a line about a 1/2" from the edge, like this.

When you are done drawing the line release the mouse button and you will have separated the file into two pieces. Go ahead and click only the top portion and hit the delete key.

You are left with a much smaller version of that original cut file and just the pocket portion that we need.

Next we need to size the pocket so that it will be the correct size for our divider. The easiest way I have found to make sure something like this is the correct size is to create a shape so I can size it against. First I draw a rectangle and use the Scale Window to enter in the measurements I want my rectangle to be, in this case 6" x 8.5". That will adjust the rectangle I drew to the exact measurements I need.

Next you will need to adjust the pocket (which I have rotated here so its the correct orientation) by using the corner edit points only click and drag it until it is the correct size to fit on the rectangle.

Because the dashed lines are the fold lines I now know that this will cut the exact size I need to fit on top of my 6" x 8.5" dividers. I would now delete the rectangle I drew because we don't need it anymore and we definitely don't want it to be cut too.

I realized that I could get two out of one sheet of my letter sized Kraft paper by duplicating the file and rotating one on top of the other. I loved that I was able to save on paper that way.

When cut I made the decision to have the tallest point be to the left side (which you can see above) but before I made any folds I added the stamping so I was working on a flat surface. The stamps I used are from Kelly Purkey's Wanderlust stamp set (which is sold out but you can get the digital files here) and the little car came from her Get it Done Stamp Set. Once the stamping was done I folded the flaps back and I used strong adhesive to attach the pocket to the back side of my dividers. So far they have held up really well and the items stay in just great. Even the poor Seattle pocket is holding on just fine with all that stuff inside.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.