Book of Happy Accordion Mini Album

The hubby and I decided to make each other presents for Christmas this year.  This is what I came up with:

I have seen accordion albums done before and I thought it sounded like a fun project.  My hubby is in his last year of Engineering School and he also delivers pizza at a local specialty pizza place.  He loves both, but he has some long days.  I wanted to make him a "Book of Happy" full of pictures that I know will bring a smile to his face and random reasons to be happy scribbled all over.   I also included a list of the top ten reasons I love him.  It took some time to narrow it down and prioritize all his great attributes, but I know he could tell I put some real thought into it.

The funny thing is neither one of us ended up having our presents ready for Christmas, so I finished this one random night and left it on the windowsill of our bedroom where he would see it.  He happened to have one of those bad nights at work and came home really bummed out.  When he saw my present it cheered him up 100%!  I told him to keep it in his car so he'll always have it when he's having a bad day. 

Here's the bubba enjoying looking at a book of pictures of mom and dad, and of course him :)

Side note: I love using Picnik to edit my pictures.  It's free and best of all it's all online so you don't have to download it to your computer.  If you want to download more than 5 pictures at one time you can pay a small yearly fee to be a preferred member, but most of their tools are available for everyone at no cost.  They have all the basic editing tools you need and lots of fun collages and other stuff.  It's fun to play around with! 

Anyways, I didn't take pictures as I was making this accordion album, but it was super easy to I will type up a little tutorial for it.

So here's how to make it:

Supplies:
-Some cardboard
- 2-3 pieces of scrapbooking paper
- One piece of thick, poster sized paper
- Extra fine tipped sharpies
- Pictures
- Vinyl (optional for letters on cover)

Steps:
1) Cut two 6x6 inch squares of cardboard.
2) Wrap each square in scrapbooking paper (matching or not, mine weren't) just like you would a present.
3) Cut a 5 1/2 inch strip off the top of the long side of your poster sized paper. 
4) You want each square to be 5 1/2 inches so take a ruler to your long strip of paper and mark 5 1/2 inches for however many pages you want in your book (mine had 5 pages- keep in mind with these books you fill the back sides too so that will give you 8 pages to decorate because two of them are glued to the covers.)
5) Fold along where you marked and cut off the excess at the end. 
6) Glue the end segments to the front and back cover.
7) Put your book under a textbook for an hour or so to make sure the glue is dry and secure.
8) Decorate your book! 

That's it, you can do whatever you like from here!  I cut out pictures and wrote with the sharpies.  I wanted mine to look very informal with things jotted here and there, but you could give your book a much more elegant appearance if you wanted.  Just plan your pages carefully and use a ruler to write straight.  I cut some vinyl with my Cricut for the title, but you could just as easily cut scrapbooking paper or print out letters and glue them on. 

For those of you who don't have a Cricut, most scrapbooking stores have a cutting machine you can use for free if you buy your paper there, and it's not much more than JoAnn's or Micheals!  You may be limited on the size and font, but still, a very useful tool!  There are two scrapbooking stores around where I live, Scrappin' Peeps and Amy's Attic. 

I hope my instructions were clear since I don't have any pictures to go along with them.  Let me know if you have any questions!

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