Friday, May 15, 2009

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, we made up accordion style brag books. Other than having the photographs printed, I was able to use only materials that were already on hand. There are hundreds of great tutorials for these on the internet, but I couldn't find one that expressed the simplicity of my technique. And honestly, I could have benefited from a little (A LOT) more attention to detail. But. I actually wanted to get these done in time for Mother's Day.
These are great for any occasion. I think the "inspiration" for these came from my mental index of Martha Stewart craft projects- this one in particular.


1. Have kiddos make drawings on pieces of paper a little bit smaller than the size of photograph you plan on using (I used 4x6). We did outlines with marker, then filled in with watercolors.

2. Have photographs printed.


3. Cut out strip of paper from a large piece of sturdy stock, or piece together smaller pieces. I added a 1/2" to each frame, making for 4.5"x6.5" frames, and I took the longer dimension- 6.5" and marked with a ruler from the long factory edge of the paper. Measured the full length, then divided by 4.5- which gave me 5 frames/sections/spaces. 6 would have been better as the covers would have aligned to be more booklike. Trim off excess- so the strip of paper was 6.5" wide and 20.5" long. Measure and fold the sections at 4.5" increments. You will have a big zigzag.


4. Cut 2 lengths of ribbon/yarn/thread and glue across the width of what will be the front and back covers (the exterior when zigzag is squished together). Glue previously made art to covers (will hide the ribbon). You can also layer the art onto another piece of paper (or cereal box card) to create a mat-like effect.


5. Glue or use double sided tape to adhere photos to the sections. It's really nice if you have only vertical shots- then you can stand the book up as a display. I didn't have that many to choose from, so I just used vertical on one side and horizontal on the other- at least one side was display-able. Also, we left one spot open for as note.




6. Fold together and tie up the sides.



7. Give to mama/grandma on Mother's Day with lots of flowers and sweets and help around the house and maybe time for a nap.

3 comments:

Eralda LT said...

Such a cool idea. I bet the kids loved making them.

Nickolini said...

Jaylene loved them by the way....thanks so much.

Sunny said...

I'm so glad she liked them- the kids liked looking at them :)