Snowman Accordion Book for Eileen Hull Designs

Hi everyone and welcome. This month Eileen Hull's Inspiration Team are excited to be using the brand new 'Box, Mitten' and 'Box, Snowman' Dies that form part of Sizzix Chapter 3 release. Since the launch party at the beginning of July the team have shared a myriad of clever and creative ideas for using these new dies and this week there are even more to come.

For my second project of the month (see the first one HERE) I've had some fun with the 'Box, Snowman' Die, creating a little accordion book.

This little snowman opens up to reveal collaged pages featuring the designs of Kay Carley; one one side the first phrase...

... and on the reverse a second, each sandwiched between the snowman's sparkly crackled body.

I've put together a tutorial to show you how this accordion book came together, starting with a Gel Plate print from a session with PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paints using a mix of tissue and brown wrapping papers to get a look of shattered glass/ice onto the sheets.

I cut off a strip 8 inches tall by 10 1/2 inches wide and added some Izink Pigment Inks with a spatula to add extra layers of colour and shimmer with the pearlescent ones. The strip was then cut lengthwise in half to form two, both 4 inches tall.

Having cut a strip of card 4 inches tall by 10 1/2 inches wide a strip of the paper was glued to each side. I then placed it on my scoreboard (as shown below) and scored on both sides at 2 1/2 inches, 41/2 inches, 6 1/2 inches and 8 1/2 inches to form three central 2 inch panels and one on each end measuring 2 1/4 inches.

Folding the strip into a concertina shape I placed it on the scoreboard as shown below, with the edges of the 2 inch strips just inside the edge of the snowman body on the 'Box, Snowman' Die.

After running it through the Big Shot this is what I was left with;

Now time to decorate the accordion book. I'd used more Fresco Finish Paints in pastel shades to pull prints from my 3x5 Gel plate onto tissue. Small strips were cut from a few and glued over the pages on both sides as shown below;

I then stamped holly sprigs onto the top and bottom of each snowman shape on both sides using the stamp from Kay Carley's EKC32 set, ensuring there was a gap left between each one and colouring them with Glaze and Metallic Gel Pens. Stamping the holly with Wendy Vecchi's 'Peat Moss' Archival Ink gave the images a softer look.

A tracing wheel was then used to add pinprick lines along the length of the snowmen on each side, over which I drew lines with a white Gel Pen to give the impression of stitching. A sentiment from Kay Carley's EKC32 was stamped onto one side and another from EKC31 on the other.

Finally I stamped and embossed the little snowflake from set EKC31 across both sides. You'll see below that I also cut a hat shape from card, covering it in more of the pastel tissue and embossing it with a snowflake.

To create sturdy front and back covers I cut two snowman shapes from matboard and covered them both with a mix of crackle paste and glitter.

Once dry I glued in place the hat, a scarf, nose and eyes (all cut from the same die and covered in the paste tissue) onto one of the snowman shapes before adding one to the front of the accordion shape and another to the back. All the edges were also blended with brown ink.

Here are some close up photos showing the accordion pages in more detail;

That's it for the second of this month's projects from me. Make sure to check out what the rest of Eileen's Inspiration Team have made using the new 'Box, Mitten' and 'Box, Snowman' Dies  by visiting Eileen's website.

For now, thanks for visiting,
Jenny xxx