More accordion books

Since they were such fun to make, I made two more accordion books.

The second book was made from two folded strips of paper, which I connected using 2 small strips of the same decorative paper used for the cover (left).  The paper was a beautiful sepia print of feathers.  Of course cutting the paper also cut many of the feathers in half.  I really liked having whole feathers, so I drew back the parts that had been cut off using a Pentel sepia color brush.  The sepia ink matched the paper perfectly and the brush tip let me easily create both thin and thick lines.

The feathers in the center of the book turned out so well I inked in feathers on the inside front and back covers as well.  I also added a small pocket on one page, where I inserted a card with small bird drawings.

The front of the book I decorated with a die cut bird silhouette a class member gave me.  I lightly painted it with watercolors to resemble a Blue bird.  Finally I sewed a set of three handmade glass beads on to the cover for the ribbon I had attached to the inside of the cover to wrap around.

My husband Steve made the beads for me.  While I was in the Book Arts class he was taking Marjorie Langston and Terri Hale's Glass Bead Making class.  The beautiful blue flower bead is a mandrel implosion bead.  The petals are created when colored dots of glass that have been added to the bead are heated and flow down the mandrel stretching out into streaks of color.

My third accordion book was made to be a gift for a friend who was dog/cat sitting for us while we were at the Folk School.  I chose a colorful  feather patterned decorative paper for the cover, a simple two hole button that perfectly matched the turquoise of the decorative paper's background, and pink ribbon to match the color of the feathers.  I carefully centered the button on the front cover and marked the location of the button holes.  I used a needle awl to punch two holes through the front cover of the book, and stitched the button in place using a turquoise 4 cord linen waxed thread and a straight blunt tapestry needle.

On the inside front cover you can see the square knot I used to secure the button, and a cutout decorative feather which sits on top of the glued end of the ribbon (yes, I forgot to glue the ribbon in place before glueing the paper to the cover).  I was amazed that I had a pen with the correct color of ink (Farber-Castell Pitt artist pen brush Pink Carmine 127) to draw the feathers on the inside covers of this book.