DIY Mini "Exploding" Scrapbook

I love anything that moves or gives you a bit of a surprise when you open it. In the past I wrote instructions for the exploding box. The instructions to follow are for what is called the exploding scrapbook. Unlike the box this one doesn't require a lot of measured cutting but it does involve some folding that can be confusing so I will do my best to give you the fold by fold in a way that isn't confusing.

What you'll need:

1. 3 pieces of 8" square cardstock

2. 2 pieces of 4 ¼" square book board or cardboard

3. 2 pieces of 6" square patterned paper

4. Adhesive of your choice

To create the covers of the book you will be covering the 4 ¼" squares of cardboard or book board with the patterned paper. It is not necessary to purchase special stock for this, in fact I used a discarded cereal box to get my cardboard. I've used the backs of note pads and notebooks, boxes I've gotten in the mail, pasta boxes, shoe boxes, anything that is stiffer than your normal paper or cardstock. The purpose of the board is to lend a little more rigidity to your work. Since you will be gluing the insides and the patterned paper or cardstock to it there is no need for it to be super thick or stiff.

I've tried a couple of ways to cover this and the one that works best is as follows.

1. Cover one side of your board with your adhesive

2. Place the glue side down on the backside of your 6" patterned paper being sure to center it as much as possible and be sure to burnish it all over to be sure you have complete contact. I use a bone folder and run it over the entire surface in all four directions.

3. To create a mitered edge and remove the bulk from the corners of your cover you will need to clip the corners off of the patterned paper. You want to do this by holding the entire piece like a diamond and then cutting flat across the corners close to but not touching the cardboard.

4. Add adhesive to the flaps of the patterned paper and fold them over onto the board. Again be sure to burnish these down for full contact with the adhesive.

That's it for the covers. Not too bad right? Let's move on to the folding of the insides. This is where you can again make use of a bone folder or even a ruler to help you make sharp creases and reduce some of the bulk in your work. For the ease of giving instruction I am going to explain mountain and valley folds. Mountain folds means the crease is facing you, if you put it down on the table with the fold crease side up the crease will be lifting off the table and the paper will look like a mountain. In the reverse there is the valley fold. When you have a valley fold the crease will be sitting on the table and the paper will open like a book with a sunken fold and raised page edges.

1. Fold the paper in half top to bottom and open so it will be a valley fold. Fold the paper in half left to right. This will give you four equal squares with dissecting valley folds.

2. Turn the page over so that you now have a mountain in front of you with a peak in the middle. Fold the page from corner to corner creating a valley fold.

Do this to all three pages and you will have created four collapsing squares. The valley fold from corner to corner will allow you to tuck the corners into the two full squares. The next step is to nest the together so that they will make one long collapsing page.

1. Place on open page on the table in front of you with the full square sections to the right and left side with the half folds as valley folds. The triangle sections at the top and bottom will be mountain folded.

2. Place the additional two pages over the first with the folds on the opposite side of the page. The half folds will be mountain and the triangle folds will be valley. You should be able to see how this will allow the squares of the middle sheet to be nested into he squares on the right and left page.

3. Glue the full squares together. Be sure to get the glue to the edges but not so much that it over flows onto the triangular pieces so you can close it and apply pressure without worrying about it sticking shut.

Now you have all your parts, two covers and a three piece exploding fold insert. I like to glue all over the top square of the insert and then place it on the cover being sure to center it as much as possible. To glue on the second cover I glue the other end square of the insert and stand it on the table. I use stand the other end on the table and sandwich the whole thing together using my hands as a guide to line up the edges of the covers.

That's it. When you pull on the covers your scrapbook should 'explode open'. You can embellish and add pictures to one or both sides of this book but be careful about the bulk of the items you put in or you might have some trouble collapsing it later. Another trick is to glue a long piece of ribbon between one of the covers and the insert, you can use the ribbon to tie the book shut when you are finished embellishing. Good luck and Good crafting!