For my niece’s 1st birthday, we’ve all been requested to bring items for a time capsule to be opened on her 21st birthday in lieu of gifts.

I decided to give her some pictures from her first year, including one from the day I met her in the hospital (the day we found out I was pregnant), one of her and Chad, a couple with her and her aunts (myself, Aunt Marilyn, and Aunt Alice) and then one of her trying to steal Maria’s Nuk a few weeks ago.

But how to present them… I decided I wanted to make a small photo album for them, so I started googling for ideas. I came across several links to making an accordion style book, and kind of cross mixed the ideas and ended up with this as the final results.

I think I will definitely make one of these again. It was relatively simple, and will make a nice gift, with or without pictures.

If you’re interested read on for some of the details about how I did it…

Supplies – (for a 5″x7″ book – with space for 6 pictures on side one)
2- 6″x8″ pieces of scrapbooking or decorative paper for covers
1- 17″x17″ light to medium weight cardstock
2- 5″x7″ pieces of light weight cardboard (or matboard would work too)
piece of ribbon
scrapbooking glue

1. The Covers – I glued the cardboard to the center of the backside of the cover papers. I then mitered the corners and folded the edges over the cardboard and glued the edges down to the backside.

2. I then cut my 17″x17″ piece of cardstock into 2 strips that were 7″ wide. And then scored those pieces every 5″ for folding. (I used a straight-edge ruler and butter knife.) Cutting off the 2″ end piece on one of the strips. I then folded each piece in accordion style.

3. To connect the two pieces, I then put glue on the 2″ folded end and overlapped with the end of the 2nd strip. (Does that make sense?)

4. I then attached the ends of my long accordion strip to the back of the cover pieces with glue.

5. I then took my pictures (mine were 5″x7″ but you could use any size smaller than that. but may want to consider using an attractive piece of cardstock for the accordion part. Also if you are going to put pictures on both sides, remember there is a seam where the two pieces of paper were joined.) Besides the pictures I also added a note explaining the importance of each picture to Elizabeth in the front cover. Pictures could be attached to the front and back (I only used the front)

6. At this point, I unfolded it and set it on the table to dry overnight, just to make sure the glue dries without gluing any parts of the book together!

7. To finish, I simply cut a piece of ribbon long enough to tie around the book, and attached it to the back using double sided tape that is suitable for gluing fabric. I thought about glue, but sometimes you can see the glue through the ribbon.

That’s it… sorry if my instructions are vague or unclear. I thought about taking pictures but I was doing this after Maria went to bed and had trouble with the lighting where I was working.