It’s take TWO Tuesday, so I thought I’d show you a book that’s TWO books all in one: an accordion fold book that’s also a gift! Create an accordion with journaling stamps that the recipient can fill in with their holiday memories + photos. Here’s the best part — use a Clear Acetate Tag to hold embellishments that the recipient can use to decorate their book!

Instructions for the accordion book:

1. Trim cardstock to 4 1/4 x 12″. Fold in half. With the folded edge on the left, fold the top side in half back to the fold. Flip over and repeat on the other side. Alternatively, you can score your paper at 3″, 6″ and 9″, and then fold the middle one as a mountain fold (so that it points up, like a mountain) and the other two as valley folds (so that they fold down, like a “V”). Sometimes I score first and sometimes I just fold. Guess it depends on my mood!
2. Stamp the Quotes Background and Write Your Message on the pages with ArtPrint Brown ink. I love how these stamps fit perfectly.
3. Distress the edges, then add glitter and set aside to dry. Tip: I added glitter to the dots on the patterned paper on the cover for extra sparkle. Can’t get enough glitter!
4. Cut two pieces of chipboard to 3 1/2 x 4 3/4″. I like to use recycled cereal boxes for this. Or ask your local stamp store to save the chipboard that scrapbook paper comes packaged in for you.
5. Trim two pieces of paper or fabric to cover the chipboard to 4 3/4 x 5″. I used velvet paper, but any flexible paper or fabric that’s not too bulky works great. Some more ideas to try are thin patterned paper, mulberry paper, or cotton fabric.
6. Spread adhesive all over one side of your chipboard. I like to use a glue stick for this. Place it in the middle of your cover paper and press it down well. Fold up the sides to crease them, then trim a bit off the corners, spread more glue on the paper and fold over. Press it with a bone folder. Here’s a photo I did with some mulberry paper to show you how to do the corners.



7. Adhere accordion piece to the covers. I used a permanent tape runner.
8. Create a scene on the front cover with the Holiday Birds Design Accents and Tree Trees Design Line. For the back cover, stamp the Handmade For Tag from the Clear Design Brackets and Tags set, color and adhere. Add more glitter!

Instructions for the embellishment tag:

1. Trace a Clear Acetate Tag on patterned paper and cut out. Tie it to the tag with ribbon.
2. Create lots of fun embellishments and put pop dots on the backs. To make it easy for the recipient to remove the embellishment the tag, leave the paper backing on the pop dot and use a removable glue dot or removable adhesive to adhere it to the tag.
3. You can even add buttons and gemstones to the tag!

Supplies:

• Clear Design Bracket and Tags
• Holiday Birds Design Accents
• Three Trees Design Line
• Pocketful o’ Holiday Trees
• Quotes Background
• Write Your Message
• Memories ArtPrint Brown, Christmas Chalk Queue
• Clear Design Holiday Wishes
• Teal Gemstones
• Red Gemstones
• Small Sparkle Gem Blossom
• Sparkle Gems Blossom
• Summer Buttons
• Tombow Gluestick
• PrismaGlitter
• Glue Pen
• Other: Colored pencils (Prismacolor), twine, ribbon, patterned paper (stripes on the tag are Basic Grey and polka dots on the front cover are Daisy D’s), velvet paper (The Paper Company), kraft cardstock

You can make a bunch of these in a jiffy! I think they’re the perfect gift — no worries about getting something they already have, plus it’s fun + useful. And it’s handmade. I’m pledging to give all handmade gifts again this year. Leave me a comment on this post if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to answer them!

Want to win the Clear Design Brackets and Tags and Write Your Message journaling block? Just leave a comment HERE on Monday’s post!

I’ll have a video + another kind of book to share with you tomorrow,

Filed under: book

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 4:16 am and is filed under Take Two Tuesdays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.