September 6, 2013

DIY Halloween Accordion Photo Book

My kids just love to look at pictures of themselves…especially in costume. They’ve already been asking when they can go trick-or-treating. 🙂 The perk of being a blogger is that I and my kids get to celebrate holidays early, but that also means that I get to deal with their hyperactivity excitement for much longer. It’s fun, though. I probably get more excited than they do, so I don’t have room to talk.

I came up with a fun way to display Halloween pictures of our family over the years. It’s such a neat keepsake that my kids have already been enjoying. Just think of it as a simple, mini scrapbook…holiday style.

The pages fan out so you can see all the festive pictures at once.

The book easily compacts back together and can be held closed with a cute ribbon sleeve.

Want to make one? Here’s how:

{MATERIALS}

1 white posterboard
8+ Halloween photos

Spray adhesive or double stick tape

Halloween Patterned Paper

Wide Ribbon

Photo Corners

Stickers (optional)

bone folder

Scissors and/or hobby blade

Grab your posterboard and draw 3 columns that are 8″ wide and 18 1/2″ long. Then measure in 1/2″ and draw a line (this line should span for 24″, without the excess). This will be the 1/2″ tab that you will use to attach the pieces together.

Using your bone folder, make creases at 6″ and 12″ up from the side that doesn’t have the 1/2″ tab. Essentially you want your rectangles to measure 6″x8″ with a tab on the short end of each column after you cut them.

Cut your three columns going up and discard the excess top and side strips.

Fold your accordion sections and the 1/2″ tabs, ensuring a nice crease
(this is where the bone folder comes into play).

You can see the 1/2″ tab at the bottom of this picture.

Using your double stick tape, glue, or spray adhesive, adhere the tabs together, ensuring that the seams are all on one side. Here’s a view of the back of mine.

Here’s another view of the back.

And another view of the back. Your last piece will have one tab, but none on the other end to attach it to, so just adhere it to the back edge of the section on the end.

Cut a piece of patterned paper to exactly fit on the front of your book.

Attach it to the front of your book. Do the same for the back.

I used double stick tape because I didn’t want to deal with bubbling from Mod Podge. You can also use adhesive spray, though.

And here it is!

I edited my Halloween photos in Picmonkey (a free picture editing program) to antique

them and add a more spooky look.

Next, attach your photo corners to the photos and stick them on the pages.
There is room for 8 photos on the front and 8 on back, if you choose to put photos there too.

I turned my side-to-side photos sideways on the pages because I didn’t want to crop lots off to fit them up and down.

Now embellish the pages with stickers or whatever else you have and distress the edges a little if you’d like.

To make the ribbon sleeve, cut a piece of ribbon that’s 1″ longer than the circumference of your book. Hot glue it end-to-end so there is about a 1/2″ overlap.

You’re done!