Accordian Bound Book Tutorial

After our vacation, my plan was to make my brother-in-law a little scrapbook of the time we spent with him as a sort of thank you. I haven't decided if this is going to be the book, but at least it's an option. These accordian bound books are the perfect size for if a card just isn't enough, and a whole scrapbook is too much. You can add additional pages by adding to the binding too! So, I thought I'd share with you how to make one of these fun, relatively quick books.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

-6 pieces of patterned paper or cardstock measuring 8.5"X5.5". (I use cardstock for the binding)

-paper trimmer

-adhesive

1. Take binding piece of cardstock and fold in half.

2. Fold down each end of the binding piece to meet the crease. (the third picture shows a side view of what your piece of paper should look like when finished)

3. Now fold down the new ends you've made to meet the new creases you made with the previous step. (the second picture is a side view. You should have a big mountain in the middle, and two small mountains on the ends.)

4. Flip over your binding piece and open it up. It should kind of look like a table, with two legs from the side.

5. Now fold the "leg" ends into the crease. (the third picture is a side view of what it should look like when finished folding)

6. Open up binding and reverse the center fold so that it is a "mountain" fold and not a "valley" fold. (in order to add more pages to your book, you can make two of these bindings and connect them together before adding the pages)

7. Now you are ready to attach your pages. First, fold all of your pages in half to make 4.25"X5.5" pages. 8. Open up your folded pieces of paper and use a 1/2" scrap piece of paper to trace a 1/2" mark on the inside of edges of each page. This serves as a guide for attaching your pages to the binding.

9. Now start with the back of the binding, and the paper you want to be your back cover of your book. Add adhesive where you made the marks. Place the one side of the paper on the back side of binding, then fold the paper to attach to the front side of that edge of the binding. (the paper should sandwich the binding) Continue adding all of your pages in the same way.

10. In order to tighten up the binding, I had adhesive in between the mountain folds. The second photo is a view of the binding once the book is assembled.

11. Embellish your cover as you like and add pictures and embellishments to the pages, and you've got a completed book!