Project: Photo Accordion Book

Tonight, I gave a gift book to a very dear new friend. I decided over the weekend that I would make a small book for her. So I spent some time going through her Flickr archive looking for a photo I could use for the cover. It turned out, she has quite a collection of photos out there, and so I decided to print several pictures for her book.

Note: I was able to do this because my friend had not copyright protected her images on Flickr. If she had protected them, I would have needed her permission to use them, even in a gift for her. I would have taken that step, even though it would have removed most of the surprise of the gift.

I decided to use an accordion book. I assembled the book so it opens from both the bottom and the top. Before assembling the book, I decided that I would leave the book mostly blank for her to put in her pictures. Because she would be adding photos, I needed an artistic design for the inner pages that I could do, rather than embellishments added on top of photos. I decided to use Glimmer Mist and a Heidi Swap mask. Using three colors (Patina, Robin's Egg Blue, and Key Lime Green), I misted the backgrounds on both sides. I used papertowels to cover up pages that I didn't want to mist in each section. I made some more green and some more blue, mostly by the color I put on the top.

While the inner pages dried, I covered the covers with Bo Bunny striped paper, and then assembled the front decorations. I did a dry layout and used my digital camera to snap the planned layout for later. I went through my stash, and used some elephant stamps, a small compass, the word "journey," and a lot of flowers. I used a Tim Holtz ATC stamp to add some interest to the Bazzill library pocket. I used Peeled Paint distress ink to stamp the library pocket, and a series of green cateye chalks to distress the edges of things on the cover.

Next, I assembled the book, using a UHU glue stick to assemble the pages to the covers. I closed the book, and put it under something heavy in my office for an hour to make sure it was solid before moving forward. I added a few photos to the interior before I assembled the front cover. After the cover was finished, I went through and added tabs to many of the interior pages. As a last step, I used a small photo folder and attached it in the middle from the top, and inserted the remaining photos in it.


When I was finished, about an hour later (not counting drying time), I had a lovely gift I was proud to give. Total cost was under $10. My friend can use a Sharpie or a pigment ink pen to write captions on and around her photos after she assembled the whole album.

More pictures available on Flickr.
Project code: 280011