You and Me, Me and You minibook

28/05/2013 by UKMA 7 Comments

There is an interesting thread on UKScrappers about re-discovering things in your stash and bringing them to your current scrapbooking.  It got me thinking, as posts often do, about my stash. So I decided to revisit a few things.  First, a little concertina minibook I made (actually, I made a couple of them) that is based on interlocking accordion folded strips.

I did like it a lot, but always felt that the thin photo strips and the very narrow “pages” could be improved upon. I think I have done so.  For a start, it only uses a single 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock and scraps of patterned paper or card.  Now to be fair, it doesn’t hold nearly so many photos as the concertina one, but I think it’s perfect for a small book for a particular friend, or your child’s BFF or even for the child and each Grandparent. You’ll see how that works perhaps tomorrow. Today, I’ll just outline the construction.

1.  Cut a 12 x 12 sheet of heavy weight cardstock in half, so you have two 6 x 12 inch strips. I opted for a neutral sort of base, but I could easily have done this with one Pink and one Blue strip, as my book is of my boy and my girl and the ME and YOU.

2. The scoring is a little tricky, so read the instructions first before you take off!

I’ve tried to make it easy, rather than getting into minute fractional measurements.  I hope it is all clear. You will actually be scoring and cutting two IDENTICAL pieces.

FOR BOTH PIECES:

• score at 1/8th inch shy of 1  1/2 inches
• LINE UP SCORE LINE with 3 inch line, score at 1/8th inch shy of 6 inches
• LINE UP SCORE LINE with 6 inch line, score at 1/8th inch shy of 9 inches
• LINE UP SCORE LINE with 9 inch line, score at 1/8th inch shy of 12 inches

I realize this photo is perhaps too dark to really see, but I’m hoping the faint score line is clear enough.

The reason for this method is to ensure you have equal sections (or rather three equal sections and two that are the same and equal 1/2 the larger section) AND a small flap for attaching at the sides.  Like so:

 

3. You can see the sections are now creased, M{ountain}, V{alley}, M, V, M.  Again, both the same. I originally was concerned over trying to make the “right” side of the cardstock on the outsides but to be honest, 99.9% of it is going to be covered so I figure it really doesn’t matter enough to have to work thru two different instructions when this way is easier.  Just snip the flaps, or not, as you prefer. I did.

4. Cut  slits in the middle of each FULL sections (3 total, on each strip) from the top edge down,  3 inches long. Leave the smaller end sections alone. Lay them on top of each other, like so:

5. Flip the top strip over and up, so the slits are in the middle:

6. Flip the top strip over and to the left, so the flaps are on either side:

7. Interlock the strips then add adhesive to the flaps and join at the side:

 

The body of the book will be collapsible, like so:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think you could use the same idea for a card, rather than a minibook….

8. Now you will have the base of the book ready – cut two cover sheets, 3 x 6 inches, from matt board.  You will be joining them perhaps differently to how you might expect, to make sure both sides get an equal number of “pages,” and you will want to decorate them before sticking them, but this is the general idea:

With that done, I also decided to revisit some very old stash, one of the earliest SEI collections, a simple colour-blocked design that I think will work quite well with the idea for the photos…but more on that tomorrow. DD is off school this week so there is much to do!