Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

Happy Friday!!  I, (Rebecca – aka mamabee), thought it would be fun today to bring you a little hybrid tutorial. Yay!!!

In case you haven’t checked out this month’s hybrid portfolio challenge, it is on creating a mini-album! Any theme – any size – any shape – anything you want it to be… it just has to have 10 pages to it!! What an awesome challenge, huh? AND and easy way to get 10 points toward a very nice discount at Sweet Shoppe! So today I thought I would show you one of my favorite album styles and that is the Accordion Album, which is really a bunch of “cards” stuck together…. here is my take on the hybrid portfolio challenge…

**photo is linked to full credits…

All you need is blank cards and adhesive… and then it’s just a process of taking card one, applying adhesive on one of the inside panels (focusing on the edges); and then taking card two, flipping it as if looking at the back of the card and adhere to the adhesive panel.

Repeat until you have the number of pages you would like in your album. So easy, right? 😉  Think how cute it would be to make the cards out of cardstock into 4×4 or 6×6 and print out your layouts in that size to adhere to the pages… you have an instant scrapbook, perfect to give as a gift! And don’t forget about those envelopes that come with the blank cards… adhere the glue flap of one envelope to the bottom triangle of the second envelope and you have a great little album with pockets for journaling, ticket stubs, or even more photos!

Now switching gears a bit… I’ve had a lot of questions about my hybrid process, so I thought I’d take a moment to show you how I made the suitcase of my portfolio project. The suitcase is just a gift card box with a separate top and bottom box.

Here is the page that I created in photoshop and it has my thinking on it… I will print this page twice (minus my thoughts, haha) – for the front and back of the box and my elements to layer using foam dots. I also printed one full page of one of the pattern papers that I will use for covering the box inside.

After cutting out each item… I start wrapping the box.  Since I want the box to open, I cut the corners of the top box on the side…

Then I “decorate” the box with the elements…

Where the hinge of the suitcase will be, I used my crop-a-dile and punched holes through the top and bottom side of the box and attached two brads.  This photo also shows you how the flower image is “lifted” up with foam dots.

For the handle, I took a scrap of leftover tan printed paper and folded it over to create a strip and punched holds and used brads to attach to the suitcase. I glued on a little gold doo-dad that I had in my scraps. I think it’s from Making Memories many, many years ago… I actually took it from my wedding album that I did before I went digital… LOL!  Now I have to find something to fix my wedding album. 🙂  You can also see the inside where I measured the pattern paper and glued it inside the box.  For the accordion album… I did glue the very last page onto the bottom of the box, so you can pull it out… I think next time I would leave it loose. My son has managed to rip the top of the box off trying to get at the album. 😉

Okay… I think that is it… that is all my secrets in making my Accordion Suitcase Album. Was that helpful at all? Are you excited to give it a go yourself?  I would love to hear if you do… and I will be sure to leave love for your rocking project!! Also, if you ever have any questions on how I did something on my hybrid projects, please don’t hesitate to send me a PM or post a thread in the forum!!

{{hugs}}

Rebecca