I often make cards because they are fast projects where I can experiment with colors and techniques – and fast is what I need with a very active 13 month old trying to pull all my catalogs and BigShot dies off the shelves. 🙂 But sometimes it is fun to do something different and I was fortunate enough to get together with a local group where a fun lady named Nancie taught us how to make a great accordion album.
I have to admit that I’m a bit spoiled by my BigShot and all the box dies so I’m not used to doing a lot of cutting. And this project requires you to hand cut the paper into a series of triangular peaks and valleys that are woven together to create the base album. Its not hard, just way more cutting than I’m used to. 🙂
I made inserts for the pockets that creates by cutting cardstock (I think it was 3.5” x 3.25”) and then added pulls for each of the pages. Finally, I used some extra chipboard pieces that I covered in cardstock to make the front and back cover.
I used an old Simply Scrappin’ kit so I knew that I would have coordinating DSP, Cardstock, and Accents. But you can make this with whatever you have on hand.
Tip: When you go to add your spine to your book, make sure you leave extra space for the photos and embellishments you are going to add to your pages. Otherwise your album will bow out and not stay closed. In my case, I just placed extra pieces of paper in my pockets to simulate photos while adhering my spine.
If you have any questions, just send me an email at jennifer@nwstamper.com. This is a great project to use up scraps and extra sheets of paper because you can take the basic idea and adjust it for whatever works for your supplies.
I apologize for the lack of instructions. I originally had posted more details but I received an email from a woman telling me that this album was her original design and she had a copyrighted tutorial for a fee for it. As such, it was requested that I remove the detailed information. I was unaware of her tutorial and have not seen the tutorial myself, but her site is here if you wish to contact her.
Thanks for stopping by!
7 responses to “Something Different – A Baby Accordion Album”
Thank you for posting the directions to this project. I was just thinking about this the other day and thinking that Nancie hadn’t gotten around to post the directions. Yours turned out so well! The colors and theme are cute together. I need to finish mine. The tab punch and ribbons are great pulls.
Since you didn’t get time to complete it at that get together with your adorable little tot running around i was happy to see it assembled at the last get together. I like the way you decorated it. remember, once you’ve made one if you save the first cut outs and one of the full triangles cut outs and use those to mark around for the rest of the cuts and on future albums it goes even faster as you won’t have to measure each time.
Love this album~ Thanks for sharing the instructions!
This is really nice but I’m a little confused on the directions – which sides am I weaving together? I guess I’ll try it and see what happens.
TFS
This is super cute! I’d love to make one of these but I’m having trouble figuring out the directions also. Is there a tutorial for it somehwere?
Sorry for the confusion and I had to remove the instruction details midday due to questions about copyright (I had not been aware of this other tutorial but since she posted her for-a-fee tutorial last year I removed my free content). I haven’t seen her tutorial but I updated my post with a link to her site if you are interested in talking to her about ordering her tutorial.
Thanks for posting that, Jennifer. I actually found Laura’s sunburst album on her ustream channel. She does charge if you just want the printed directions, but the ustream video is step-by-step and doesn’t cost anything. However, it is really long, since it was a live chat, so you may want to fast forward to the important parts:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8040134