It's a Creative World: Be our guest ...... Scrapdolly

As you know we love having people over to play at It's a creative world and today we are joined by the lovely Scrapdolly.

This is a rather fabulous post so I shall hand you straight over to the lady herself.

I know many scrappers use sizzix dies and it seemed such a shame to throw away the plastic case the larger dies come in – so here is a way of making it a great case for a small accordion fold mini book. You can use any tin or plastic container, but the sizes given are for a large sizzix die case.

When making mini books it helps to tie a book together into a unified work, to use co-ordinating papers and embellishments. There are now so many makes on the market that are already co-ordinated that it seemed silly not to use them. I used the Skate Shoppe range by Basic Grey.

Mini books are also a great way of using up scraps and of playing with embellishments. I hope you have fun with this one and feel a sense of satisfaction at making something with a case you may well have thrown away.

Supplies

Empty plastic sizzix case
Alcohol inks in greens and blues
I sheet of cardstock in olive green
4 sheets of Basic Grey Skate Shop papers
Basic Grey letter stickers
Basic Grey tag set
2 sheets of A4 white card
I meter of ribbon
1 meter of velvet rikrak
Chipboard letters or similar
Embossing powders and inks
Assorted brads and blossoms
Corner rounder
Sewing machine
Heat tool
Strong double sided tape

Step By Step

The case

Clean all of the glue remains off the case. (I use Lakeland plastics sticky stuff remover as it is brilliant)
Use alcohol inks, blended to suit your colour scheme, and colour the entire case, paying particular attention to the sides of both the front and the back pieces. You are going to cover the front and back anyway – so it is technically NOT essential to cover them entirely, but it is such fun to do.

Cut two pieces of patterned papers 5 ½ “ x 4 ¾ “ , round the corners slightly and stick them inside the lids of both the front and back piece.
Cut two sheets of cardstock 5 ½ “ x 4 ¾ “ for the front and back covers.
Round the corners and ink the edges but don’t stick them on yet. It is much easier to work on them as mini pages and then stick them on to the case at the last stage.
I cut to rectangles smaller than the cardstock using one of the patterned papers and then sewed them to the cardstock.
I used Heidi Swapp chipboard letters for the title on the front. I inked them with a matching green ink and then heat embossed them with clear embossing powder to give them a real shine. I mounted two of them for the ‘we’ onto a co-ordinating tag and then fixed the tag to the cover with foam pads and a brad.
I cut a heart from chipboard – I used old photo mount board. I coloured it with inks and then embossed this with kaleidoscope embossing powder to give a bit of bling. I finished the heart with a smaller green heart and a tiny crystal heart sticker to complete the bling look.
Once I was happy with the cover I stick it on to the front of the plastic case using strong double sided tape.
The back cover had the same patterned paper rectangle sewn on and then I used another tag and some of the Basic Grey letter stickers to form an additional title. I like to have the flexibility of displaying the case either way. I added an inked Prima blossom with a brad before sticking it to the back of the case with strong double sided tape.
Finish the case with ribbons stock all around the edge and sides. Make sure you don’t cover the join – stick one ribbon or rikrak to the front cover side edge and one to the back. It doesn’t matter if some of the plastic case shows through – that is why you inked it so carefully.

The Mini Book

Cut two sheets of A4 card into strips measuring 5 ½ “ x 11 “

Score the card at 4 ½ “ and at 9” as shown in the diagram. Make sure the folds work both ways.

When you have the two strips that are identical trim the 2” excess flap from one sheet and use the 2” excess flap from the other sheet to stick the two strips together. It will not matter that there is this overlap as you will be covering it anyway.

Once you have stick them together round the corners and you have your accordion fold book ready to decorate.

I find it much easier to work on sheets of paper making them into mini layouts and then sticking them onto the accordion fold book as a final stage. That way, if you want to push brads through, use the sewing machine and so on it doesn’t matter.

I cut eight sheets of papers to the right size (I made them slightly smaller than 5 ½ “ x 4 ½ “ as I wanted the white edge to show) cutting two from each of the four patterns and then worked on them as little mini pages.