FIRST DAY OF AUTUMN!

Today, Friday, is the first day of Autumn! I made this accordion book recently and was waiting for the equinox to show it to you.


I started with this blank accordion book that I got at Big Lots for $1. You could just make one with heavy cardboard or chipboard, and card stock. As you can see, the covers are a bright turquoise, so I took some tan craft acrylic paint and went around all the edges to hide the turquoise. (You can see the painted edge on the right side.)


(Sorry, but I'm not a step-by-step photographer!)

I began with a variety of scrapbook paper in Fall colors, cut to size, and decoupage glued them to the book. After every two facing pages, I'd fold up the book and put a heavy book on top for a few hours, so the pages didn't warp. I also left the heavy book on at night until I was done with all the gluing.


I chose the alphabet letters from Clipart ETC, sized and colored them on the computer (I use paint.net instead of paint shop - it's free!), printed them out and glued them onto the scrapbook paper. I still used the heavy book.


I purchased some gold colored blingy sticky-flowers (Jolee, I think) and placed them on the flowers of each letter.


I also got some rub-on words for Autumn, rubbed them onto paper, tore around the edges, and glued onto the pages. Unfortunately, the rub-ons were cheap and didn't stick well, so after these little pieces of paper were glued and dried, I carefully decoupaged over the paper pieces to keep the letters intact.

I added a few more embellishments here and there and then went to work on the outer covers. I picked up a nice brown swirly blingy thing at A. C. Moore for the front cover. Again, the word was rubbed on and decoupaged over. I should have decoupaged the whole front cover, but I was so eager to put the bling in place, that I forgot!

The last thing I did was decoupage over the tan paint that was my first step - to prevent the paint from coming off the edges.
And, there you have it! I decided to keep it on this table, but used the piano for photos because the lighting is much better!

P.S. - TAG SWAP LADIES - I hope you all have your tag in the mail! Yesterday was mailing day!