Good things come in small packages: altered accordion book

Expression, Jan-Feb, 2005

Originally learned from Michael Jacobs, the hand-made-book guru, this altered accordion book may be small but is limitless on what you can do with it. Change it by inserting the pages in a different direction or add more pages and cover boards. It's almost magical!

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cut three 4-inch squares of mat board or strong cardboard for your cover boards. 2. Cut two 3" X 4" rectangles from card stock, which will be your spines that will hold the accordion pages together. Measure in 1 1/2 inches and 1 5/8 inches on the 3-inch side, and score two lines down the length of the 4-inch side. Crease and fold. Both will be valley folds. This space will accommodate the pages of the book. Set aside. 3. Cut six 7" X 4" pieces of decorative paper. These will be the cover wraps for your three boards. You can easily get two of these sections out of a piece of 8 1/2" X 11" paper. Set aside. 4. Cut eight 4" X 7 3/4" rectangles, from plain, text-weight paper for your pages. You can cut two 4" X 7 3/4" rectangles from an 8 1/2" X 11" piece of paper, so you will need four sheets of paper to cut the eight rectangles. Fold each of these 4" X 7 3/4" rectangles in half so you end up with eight folded pages, each 4" X 3 3/8". These will become two 4-page sections for your book. 5. Cut one 9" X 4" rectangle from text-weight paper. Cut every 1 1/2 inches to equal six 1 1/2" X 4" sections. Fold each section in half. These pieces will join the text-weight paper that you cut for your folios together to make accordion pages and are known as "foredge joins." Note: I used the same decorative paper for the foredge joins as on my cover. These foredge pieces will join your pages together. With a glue stick, glue text-weight paper sections together using three foredge pieces. (Photo 1) This creates two different sets of four pages each, joined in the middle with these foredge pieces. 6. Before attaching the book covers, you may want to stamp the pages of your book first. It's easier this way! 7. Use a bone folder to soften the edges of your three cover boards. Simply run the bone folder around all the edges of the cover boards. Then, place one of the 7" X 4" decorative cover wraps facedown on the table. Place the cover board on top of it, in the middle of the decorative paper, and fold the edges of the cover wrap over, using a bone folder or other tool to smooth the paper around and down onto the cover board. 8. Place another 7" X 4" cover wrap facedown on the table. Take the cover board with the first cover wrap on it, placing the seam of the first cover wrap horizontally in the middle. (Photo 2) Flip it on top of the second cover wrap with the seam down. Fold the second cover wrap in the same manner as the first wrap, but stick the ends of the paper of the second wrap into the first wrap. (Photo 3) You may need to trim or round the ends of the second cover wrap just a bit to do this easily. Repeat this process for all of your three covers. 9. Trim the edges of the first page and the last page of your two sets of folios; rounding them with scissors so they will slide into the covers more easily. (Photo 4) Now it's time to put the book together. Assemble the pieces as follows: One cover, slide in one set of pages into that cover, then into the other cover. Add the spine over the folded edges of the pages and into the covers. Then add the other set of pages into the second cover, next to the first set of pages and then into the last cover. Without the spine, it is a true accordion page; with the spine inserted to cover the pages, it becomes more like a book.

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RELATED ARTICLE: MATERIALS

MAT BOARD OR STRONG CARDBOARD

CARD STOCK

DECORATIVE PAPER

PLAIN, TEXT-WEIGHT PAPER

GLUE STICK

BONE FOLDER

SCISSORS

STAMPS -- "THE LOVE WE GIVE" QUOTE, "A HEART FOR THEE" QUOTE (HOLLY POND HILL); BROWNING QUOTE (IMPRESSION OBSESSION); POCKET WATCH (STAMPA ROSA); TINY HEART (ART GECKO); MAN AND WOMAN KISSING (STAMPINGTON & CO.); "LOVE IS" QUOTE, "LOVE IS A GIFT" QUOTE, "LOVE IS NOT" QUOTE, "IN ORDER TO CREATE" QUOTE (LENNALINES); OPHELIA, JULIET (THE STAMPSMITH); MY CREAM PUFF (THE MOON ROSE); THE HEART THAT LOVES (ALL NIGHT MEDIA); KIND WORDS ... (PSX); HAND-STAMPED ART (HERO ARTS); HANDCRAFTED JUST FOR YOU (PAPER ANGEL)

RELATED ARTICLE: Who Said Size Doesn't Matter?

You can insert the pages so that both falios open in the same direction, or in different directions! More pages and cover boards can be added to make this book even bigger!

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