Z Fold Brag-book Tutorial

We recently had to cancel a Fathers Day class at the last minute, where we were going to be making a Fathers Day brag-book, so I promised to get some photos and instructions online so you could play along from home.  Keep in mind this is the work-in-progress album to show you how the album will look during construction, and at the end are some more pictures of another almost-finished album I am doing for my Dad for Fathers Day this weekend.  Please excuse the photo quality, I snapped them quickly on my iPhone in-between other tasks this afternoon!

Album closed and tied with ribbon:


Album open, with Z-fold insert showing:

This is the back view, showing the front and back outside covers, and one of the inside covers.

Inside, opened up showing the concertina-fold of the pages.


To make this Z-fold Brag Book you will need:

- 1 piece of 12"x12" cardstock (I've used Early Espresso)
- 1 piece of A4 Whisper White or Very Vanilla (mine is Very Vanilla)
- approx 50cm ribbon (Soft Suede Taffeta Ribbon)
- approx 1/2 sheet of additional cardstock for stamping and punching OR DSP to decorate


Directions:

Cut the 12"x12" in half along the 6" line, so you have 2 pieces of 6" x 12".

Score one of the 6"x12" at: 3 7/8", 4", 8", 8 1/4"  This is the cover page.  Cut slits for the ribbon to feed through about 1 1/4" from the bottom, on the two outermost score-lines (3 7/8" and 8 1/4").  I used the top-edge of the Ticket Punch for this.

Score the other piece of 6"x12" at: 3 3/4", 7 1/2", 11 1/4"  This is the zig-zag insert.  Place sticky strip on the small 3/4" tab that is left (leave the red strip on), and cut a small slit on that scoreline (11 1/4") about 1 1/2" from the bottom edge to feed your ribbon through.

Next thread the ribbon through the slits you have cut/punched, you need to make sure you put it through all three of the punched slots BEFORE you stick the insert pages in.  Start with the album OPEN and the ribbon lying across the inside back cover.  Poke the left-edge of the ribbon through the hole on the left, and then ensure that the right-edge of the ribbon feeds through both the cover page AND the zig-zag insert.

This is how it will look when the ribbon is correctly threaded:



Now peel the red strip off the sticky strip off the zig-zag insert and secure the tab to the right-hand edge of the inside back cover.  This join is going to be covered later on when we start decorating, so don't worry about the join showing.

That is your assembly of the album done!

Now to decorate.  There is a photo below of how to cut the A4 Very Vanilla sheet to get your 4 decorated pages.  You will end up with two 5 7/8" x 3 1/2" pieces and two 5 7/8" x 3 3/4".  I stamped all over with Gorgeous Grunge in Crumb Cake and Early Espresso.  The narrower pieces go inside the album, and the wider ones are for the two outside covers (front and back).


Then on some scraps of Very Vanilla, I stamped and punched about a dozen hexagons using the Six-Sided Sampler bundle, using Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Baked Brown Sugar and Crumb Cake.  On some Crumb Cake scrap cardstock I stamped in Early Espresso with the Tape It set and handcut.  The beauty of the "dirty grunge" styling is that you can just stamp and plonk your different elements wherever you like!  The "Daddy" is stamped with the new ABC-123 Sketch Alphabet and Numbers stampset onto Very Vanilla and I tore the edges to stay within the theme.

These decorated pages are glued in with an Anywhere gluesticks, making sure to cover both the join and the ribbon on the inside back cover so they are hidden away.  Then use glue-dots to adhere your photos - you'll want them to all be the same orientation if possible, and you'll need to trim the edges a little.  I use one glue-dot in each corner to stick them in so that they can be removed later if necessary.

Here's an (almost) finished album I made using Pear Pizzazz Core'dinations and DSP instead of the grungy stamping.




Happy stamping, and thanks for reading!

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