Here's what you'll need:
- Two 3" x 12" strips of cardstock
- One 4" x 9" strip of designer paper
- Two 4" squares of designer paper
- One 3" x 4" strip of designer paper
- Two 4" square coasters
- Coordinating papers for embellishing pages
- Decoupage medium - Royal Coat, Mod Podge, etc. (not shown)
- Ribbon - two 18" pieces and two 8" pieces (not shown)
Score the 3" x 12" strips at 3", 6" and 9". Accordian-fold each one and set aside. These will become the pages for the album.
Using the decoupage medium, adhere a 4" square of designer paper to one side of each coaster.
Adhere the other side of the coasters to each end of the 4" x 9" strip.
Center your 3" strip over the gap and overlapping the coasters, and adhere.
Flip the whole thing over and run your bone folder along the edge of the coaster to "set" a crease. This will help your album open and close more easily. Set the covers aside to dry while you decorate the pages of your album.
Deocrate each panel of your accordian-folded strips, leaving the last panel blank on one strip, and the first panel blank on the other. On the opposite end of the strip, deocrate the end panels to match (as seen in the picture above). This is a view of the opposite sides of the completed strips:
The following pics give you a few ideas for decorating your pages, but you can do them however you want to!
Cut two 1 3/8" squares, and adhere them in opposingi corners of a 2 3/4" square.
Mat a 2 1/2" square with a 2 3/4" square.
Center a 2" x 2 3/4" strip on a 2 3/4" square.
Each of these squares is 1 1/2", set on the page just slightly inside the edge (so there is the same "border" as on the other pages), and with the corners overlapping slightly in the center.
Background square is 2 3/4", square turned on point is just a hair under 2".
Cut a 2 3/4" square from each of two designer papers, then cut them in half diagonally. Use one of the resulting triangles from each.
After all of your panels are decorated, fold them up into little "books", with the matching pages on top, and tie one of the 18" ribbons around each one.
Your coaster covers should be dry by now, so inspect them and carefully sand the edges of the paper even with the coasters, if necessary. Be especially careful where the gap between the coasters is, as this area is less reinforced and more fragile. If it's not perfect, you can ink the edges up (you may want to, anyway). Put adhesive on the back of one of the 8" ribbons, center it over the seam of the two papers on the cover and adhere. Repeat for the other side.
Wrap the ribbons to the inside and adhere in place.
Put adhesive on the back of each little book and place them in the center of the inside covers. Make sure that you have the edge with one fold and two free pages toward the inside of the album, and the edge with two folds toward the outside of the album. This is what it looks like all finished and fully open:
Now just add whatever embellishments you'd like to the front cover, and you're done!
Originally published November 2, 2008