Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Itty Bitty Accordion Card

When I have extra time in Fresno I enjoy going to Borders to browse the craft magazines to see what's new and get ideas. A few months ago I picked up the Stampers' Sampler Take Ten, Summer 2009 magazine and saw a feature about Itty Bitty Accordion cards and have wanted to make one ever since. My girlfriend Divina's 40th birthday is in November and so I decided to take on the challenge and make one for her. I'll definitely be making more of them!

I am pretty happy with the finished product pictured below and learned alot during the whole process.

Since the article didn't give any instructions, besides the various sizes of the panels of the cards shown, I had to figure out how to configure and attach the panels to make the accordion and how to close the accordion to make the card presentable.

I knew I wanted the word "birthday" inside so I needed 8 panels for the letters, 1 panel for the front and 1 panel at the back of the card to write a birthday sentiment. I needed a total of 10 panels and the size I chose for each panel is 2 3/4" (Now I know why they didn't include instructions, this is proving very difficult to explain!). I made a total of 3 segments, scored at 2 3/4" and bent the appropriate way to form the accordion.

Since it was my first time making this card I found it helpful to draw out my concept of the panels. I am a visual person and it helped me formulate what I wanted my card to look like. I then started decorating the 8 panels using the french script stamp, green embossing ink, clear powder and the embossing heat tool. Embossing is what gives the french words the shine you can see. I put a post it on the first and last panels to remind myself not to emboss them, I'll be decorating them later.

Each "birthday" letter was stamped in Rose Red, alternating Pretty in Pink and Rose Red solid cs. I then used the french swirl and postmarks stamps with green ink and stamped around the letter. I attached the solid cs to the patterned paper. I used the ticket corner punch on both the the solid and pattered paper before adhering them together.

The picture the below is a close-up of the end of the card with the last panel left blank for the birthday sentiment.

Here are the 3 segments after I decorated them (the picture quality isn't too great).

Next I decorated the front panel, first stamping the background with green ink and the french swirl and postmark stamps. The 4 and 0, exclamation point, crown and hearts are all Tim Holtz Grungeboard products "painted" with his Distress Crackle Paints. I added the silver heart charm to the crown attaching it with a silver jump ring. I closed the itty bitty accordion card using a clip and to make it more feminine I tied white and rose red ribbons on the clip.

Here is what it looks like laid out as the accordion card. Unfortunately I don't have a nice mantel or bookshelf to display it on but I worked with what I had using my craft table. It turned out pretty good for my first try!

Thanks for taking a look. It's great to be crafting and blogging again!

4 comments:

  1. OMG, that turned out so beautiful! You go girl!

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  2. This is just so cool, Kristen. Thanks for posting the "how to's" with it. I have wanted to make one of these types of cards for a long time but I guess I feel intimidated by them. I've only done the envelope acordian ones so far. Great job!!!

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  3. Kay - your welcome. I hope the instructions were clear enough, it was a really difficult one to explain. Can't wait to see your accordion card!

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