ATC Accordion Book with cut-outs ~ Video Tutorial

Recently Alpha Stamps challenged us to create a unique ATC sized book and this is what I came up with.

Have you ever wanted to tell a story with your ATC's or just have a coordinating set all in one place?

(For a complete list of supplies used on The Wizard of Oz book see the end of the video.) 

Well, I've created this ATC Accordion Book for just that purpose!
(A complete list of supplies used for the Waterhouse Flowers Book is located at the end of this post.)

To make it even more fun for you I devised a way to add charms!

And Cut outs! 

So you are really making 3 ATC's with each panel.

Here is my video tutorial with step by step instructions on how to make your very own ATC Accordion Book. 

Below the video you will find detailed images of the more complicated part of folding and cutting out the window. 

 

How to fold and cut your 7 cut-out pages

This is covered in the video but I thought more detailed pictures may help.

 Step 1:

Select your 7, 3 1/2" x 5" papers. 

Step 2:

Fold in half with the side you want to show inside the fold.
* I did a special aging treatment on the papers for my Waterhouse inspired ATC Accordion book. You can find a tutorial HERE.  

Do this for all 7.

The folded pages are ATC size.

Step 3:

With the fold crease facing you.  Fold down the loose end to the fold.  This is called a mountain fold because it creates a fold that makes a triangle that stands like a mountain.

Step 4:

Flip the paper over and fold down the remaining long piece.

Do this to all 7. 

 Step 5:

Unfold the paper and lay it as flat as possible on a hard surface.

Inside the mountain folds measure 1/2" and mark that paper.

Step 6:

Fold the mountain folds under and from the crease measure 1/2" in and mark the paper.

Do this for all 7

So you have drawn a cut out that is 1/2" away from all the edges (I consider the mountain fold an edge).

Step 7:

Now it's time to cut. 

Using a sharp exacto knife against a straight edge cut along the lines you have made. 

Do this for all 7

For the next steps please see the video tutorial. 

 

Supplies Used for Waterhouse Flowers ATC Accordion Book

Available from Alpha Stamps

Papers, ribbons, ephemeral from the May 2013 - The Language of Flowers Kit

Old Fashioned Roses (white)

Stitched leaf Ribbon-moss green

Pearl Mix in a tin

Metal Flowers - gold

Resin Blossoms

Dazzles black thin line stickers

Olivine Glass Leaves

Pink Roses Dresden Scrap

Mini Ric Rac Ribbon cream

Rose Beads

Fancy Gold Buttons in a tin

Crocheted Cotton Lace Trim

Dazzles Swirls, Flourishes & Borders Black Sticker Set Thin Looped Dresden Borders - Gold Flora & Fauna Die-Cut Borders

Closed Red Tiny rose buds

Violets CS

Tulip slides & ATC CS

Romance CS

Waterhouse Beauties CS

Waterhouse Flowers CS

Both of my creations are now on sale in my Etsy Shop

Handmade Accordion Book with cut outs: The Wizard of Oz

Handmade Accordion Book with cut outs: Waterhouse Inspired

 

Thank you so much for checking out my tutorial. 

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

My Happy List ~ The light at the end of a long 2 weeks

It is hard for me to admit that the reason I haven't taken part in Ricki's Happy List is well...things haven't been very happy here the past few weeks.   However I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!  So today I am happy about.   Closing the door on my youngest daughter ear drama.  She stuck a navy bean in her ear and had to have it surgically removed along with her ear tubes replaced due to damage.  Today is her final check up appointment.   I am making great progress on the E Monsters Duvet. Right now I only have two more front panels to attach and then the back to put on.  I am hoping to finish it up this weekend.  This is a huge accomplishment for me since i am an entirely self taught sewer (can't call myself a seamstress).  

This has been Mr. Glitter Tart's view for the past week, well it was raining and cold, but still.  Today he comes home and the girls and I are excited to see him.  

Buttermilk Curry

You know how sometimes you end up having to buy something for a recipe and then have a ton left over.  Well that happened to me last week, I have a ton of buttermilk left.  But I am excited to say that I've found two recipes that will use it up and look fantastic. 

 

So tonight for dinner we will be having Buttermilk Curry over rice with Naan.

 

The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever
or so it claims to be

 Here is the second recipe I will be making with the Buttermilk, but what is really exciting about this one is that I am making it because my best friend in the whole wide world is coming to visit me this weekend! 

 

So I do have a lot to be happy about this week and boy am I glad that the past two weeks are behind me. 

 

So what's on your happy list?

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When in doubt Wear Red ~ Paper Dress Shop Part 2

A few weeks ago I shared the outside of my "When in Doubt, Wear Red" Consignment Shop.  You can view it HERE

I linked it to a fabulous party, Paper Saturdays hosted by Manopopjes

Almost everyone that plays along makes wonderful light colored fun pieces and I was inspired by it and that's how this little paper house came to be.

So without further ado, here is the inside.

I am going to save the wardrobe to share next week.. 

Like all good shops there must be a mirror.  This one has glitter all around it to make you look even more glamorous.

Then there is the accessories wall.

And of course a cute little window to let in natural light. 

There are many many more details I could go on and on about but I think the pictures speak for themselves. 

I hope you like it.

 

I'm linking up with

Come join us!

Dead Until Dark by: Charlaine Harris

Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out.... Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.

It has been years since I read Dead Until Dark.  I read it long before the tv show and way before she was even halfway through writing the series. 

So why did I choose it for this weeks review?  Well, I've been a bit MIA and I wanted to share not only a review but a bit of art also.

I am a member of a fabulous group that creates ATC's based on Mystery's.  One of our lovely members hosted a read along (like a book club online) and this was the book she selected.  I took part as best as I could without a copy of the book (mine was long ago sold away) or really a great memory for what happened.   

What I do remember is that I didn't like the book and that is why I never read further into the series. 

Why didn't I like it?  Well quite simply I couldn't stand a character who constantly thought about sex.  Given some of the situations Sookie was put in for her mind to drift towards sex was just unbelievable and aggravating.

I did love Charlaine's addition of Elvis.  I was sorry to see that they left him out of the tv show, but I do understand why. 

And I do have to admit that Charlaine did form a wonderful mystery that wasn't predictable as to who-done-it like so many books these days are.

I was sorry to hear that when she published her final book in the series that she received death threats from the fans because they didn't like the way she ended it.  Series, I imagine, are hard to end and please everyone.  Charlaine provided years of entertainment for many.  Most people in my group (the original group that read it) liked the story. 

 

If you haven't read it and like vampires/werewolves/etc and mystery's you should try it, you never know.

 

I'm linking up with

 

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

Florens, a slave, lives and works on Jacob Vaark's rural New York farm. Lina, a Native American and fellow laborer on the Vaark farm, relates in a parallel narrative how she became one of a handful of survivors of a smallpox plague that destroyed her tribe. Vaark's wife Rebekkah describes leaving England on a ship for the new world to be married to a man she has never seen. The deaths of their subsequent children are devastating, and Vaark accepts a young Florens from a debtor in the hopes that this new addition to the farm will help alleviate Rebekkah's loneliness. Vaark, himself an orphan and poorhouse survivor, describes his journeys from New York to Maryland and Virginia, commenting on the role of religion in the culture of the different colonies, along with their attitudes toward slavery.

 

All these characters are bereft of their roots, struggling to survive in a new and alien environment filled with danger and disease. When smallpox threatens Rebekkah's life in 1692, Florens, now sixteen, is sent to find a black freedman who has some knowledge of herbal medicines. Her journey is dangerous, ultimately proving to be the turning point in her life.

 

Morrison examines the roots of racism going back to slavery's earliest days, providing glimpses of the various religious practices of the time, and showing the relationship between men and women in early America that often ended in female victimization. They are "of and for men," people who "never shape the world, The world shapes us." As the women journey toward self-enlightenment, Morrison often describes their progress in Biblical cadences, and by the end of this novel, the reader understands the significance of the title, "a mercy."

Toni Morrison's A Mercy was a read for the fiction book club I attend.  It is a book that is all about slavery; women , indentured and African American. 

 

When I went to talk with the group I said "okay sway me because I don't have any feelings about this book at all."  After a good hour of discussion I am glad I read the book, see a lot more than I did initially but feel that the book missed its target somehow since I normally have passionate feelings towards books of this nature. 

Each section/chapter of the book is told from a different characters point of view.  The sections show how the characters judge other characters, themselves and the world around them.  You, as the reader, get to see the inside workings of the characters and once it is all said and done you have a completely rounded story. 

All the women characters are orphaned, either at childhood or by a family sending them off.  Jacob, a Dutch merchant trying to make his living in Maryland, brings these women together and they turn into a family, dysfunctional, but still a family.  It is the effect of Jacobs life and his passing that shapes the story of these women. 

In the end, the final section has an extremely powerful line said by Florens mother (who you do not see until the end, she only shows up in Florens memories).

" ... to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing."  pg 196

 

Leaves one thinking doesn't it.

I am glad I read the book but it won't go down as one of the best reads I've ever had.  It was a good book club book because of the discussion. 

 

I'm linking up with 

Come join us!