©2002-2006 Suzanne Cannon
www.quietfiredesign.com

 

I made this book to accommodate the wonderful collection of postcards I received from some artists in the Canadian Journal Arts yahoo group. These postcards are in quite a variety of sizes, so I chose the largest postcard and based the size of the book on that. The largest postcard was 5” x 7” (one was even the shape of a mask!), so I made the spine of my book 5” (13cm).

This book will hold 15 postcards.

Here are the rest of the directions... Cut a strip of card stock 5” x 12” (13 x 30 cm) with grain short (in other words the grain of the paper should parallel the 5” side of the paper). Ignoring the recommended technique for accordion pleating (!), measure in 2” (50mm) from one end of the strip and begin vertically scoring the paper at 1/4” (6mm) intervals.

 

 

 

Always glue the postcards onto the left side of the mountain as in the illustration. I run a broken bead of Aleene’s Tacky Glue along the 1/4” strip of accordion and smooth it with my finger so I don’t get too much. Don’t glue them all on at once. Perhaps put a strip of wax paper between each postcard and apply pressure using a cothes pin or clip while the glue dries.

When the postcards are glued in you can determine the size of the covers. I used a really heavy cover weight paper I picked up at Paper-Ya. It’s more like a door mat than paper! I make my cover 1/2” larger than my 5” high accordion and long enough to cover the longest postcard. The covers in this book were 5 1/2” x 8” (14 x 20 cm). The covers are glued on the outsides of the 2” end flaps of the accordion (see the illustration) with 1/4” overhang at both the top and the bottom.

In order to prevent the whole book from expanding to fill the house (!) I glued two pieces of braid (ribbon will work well) which measure 7” (18 cm) each from the front cover acrosse the spine and onto the back cover (see first illustration). I allowed the spine to expand to 1” (24 mm) thick. Voila! Sure beats a ziplock! (thing which, incidentally, I can’t live without!)