accordion books

OK, so people always ask me for photo albums. The thing is that plastic sleeves inside a handbound book seems wrong. I could make a standard album with heavy rag pages for mounting photos, but the spaced binding of those is a royal pain and folks don't want to pay for the extra effort.

See, you can buy a photo album at the dollar store for, well, a dollar. If you have to explain why this one costs forty dollars, this is not your customer.

So, every so often I play around with the accordion album. These are not without their own unique construction frustrations. If the folding is not exact, solid, perfect, the book goes all floopy. (Floopy is a fancy technical term used by master bookbinders. Or so I like to think.)

In addition to the threat of floopiness every time you start one, there is the matter of closure. Do you tie it with a ribbon, make a button clasp, elastic band?

Ribbons are just too precious for me. I don't want to deal with button and clasp constructions, elastic bands look surgical.

And then, while playing around with my new gypsy, boho designs, I hit upon an idea. I would use elastic, but not a thick band. I took some fine gold elastic cord and incorporated it into the embellishment.



The brown book has beaded fringe and the elastic cord, which comes off when not in use, has a bead in a coordinated color that blends into the fringe when it is in place. The cord on the green book is permanent and part of the design.

Since one of the cool things about an accordion is that it can be used as a display, open on a mantle or table, the cord needs to be able to slip off without ruining the look. On the green book, it can just go over the front cover and the design does not change.

I may be on to something here. These books are small, for 4X6 photos. If I get this down, I'll go bigger.

Feels like I'm getting my creative mojo back. Maybe?