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CREATING an EXPLOSION BOOK
Marge Wirth
This is a tutorial for all of you who saw the book I created for my Granddaughter at the 2005 PC Craft
and Digital Scrapbooking Convention in Philadelphia, PA. The original intent of this book was to show
convention goers just how easily Digital media will work with the crafting ideas. I got the idea for this
book for a Carol Duvall show on HGTV. If my directions are not clear enough please do a search on their
web site for a different explanation of this same craft or write to me at [email protected] .
Items needed:
A craft knife.
A ruler/yardstick.
A pencil.
Craft stick glue or double sided tape.
2 sheets of 12x18 construction paper –
black.
Chipboard/heavy cardboard.
Approx. 2 feet of ribbon.
A bone folder or old credit card.
Hand made paper for covering the front and
back book covers.
Heavy book or weight to help glue set
properly.
ADDED NOTES:
I use one of those sample credit cards that the Credit Card people love sending us, to make my fold lines
nice and crisp instead of a bone-folding tool. I also use home copies/prints of the photos going into my
book so I do not worry about acid free paper but most construction paper is available in acid free form. I
use a craft knife to make my cuts but you could use scissors. I like glue sticks but you could use double
sided tape or an adhesive machine. Liquid glue will make your paper buckle so avoid liquid glue.
STARTING DECISIONS:
I chose to make my pages black, you can use any color. I chose to make my book 4x4 inches in size.
You can make this book any size.
This tutorial is written for my choice of 4x4 inches. You will need to make the following adjustments if
your book is a different size. To make the 4x4 inch book, you will need to cut your construction paper
into 8x8 inch squares. You will need to make these “page” sheets double the size you want you
completed book: i.e. a 6 inch book will need to start with 12 inch squares, and 8 inch book will need to be
16 inch square pieces of paper, etc. Likewise the cover will need to be the size of your completed book
plus ¼ inch and the handmade paper covering will need to be 1 inch larger than your chosen book size.
CONSTRUCTION:
The folding of the square piece of “page” paper is what makes your book EXPLODE when you open it.
You will first fold your paper in half horizontally, then open it and fold it in half vertically, open it and
then fold it in half diagonally. Only make 1 diagonal fold. When you open your paper you will have
folds that make 2 solid 4 inch square areas and 2 of the 4 inch square areas will have a diagonal fold
making a total of 4 triangle areas.
Once you have made your folds turn your paper over and
crease the folds from this side too. It makes them much
more flexible and easy to work with. Once you have these
fold make take your diagonal fold corners and bring them
into the center of the paper. This will let the solid areas
rest flat on top of one another. Use your folding tool over
the surface edges of these pages once you have the paper
folded. This again crisps up your folded edges. If your
edges are uneven to a point you feel is unacceptable you
can do a little trimming at this time.
See example of my folded papers.
NOTE: Remember this is a handmade craft and it is not
necessary to expect perfection.
This is way mine looked like when I had all
4 papers folded. Four is the number of
“page” papers I chose to have in my book.
You can add any amount of “page” papers
you need to handle your photo choices.
To connect these “page” papers you will be
gluing (or use double sided tape) the solid
square area of one paper to a solid square
area of a second paper. You want to layer
these papers so that the folded areas of one
paper are on the topside while the folded
areas of the second paper are on the bottom
side. See example to the left.
This process lets your book close nice and
flat. If you are adding a 3rd and 4th “page”
paper, you will repeat this process with
every other paper facing up/down.
Once you have glued all of your “page” papers together fold your book up and set a heavy object on it to
let the glue set up.
NOTE: You can have any amount of “page” papers you
desire. On the completed book each additional paper will
give you a total of 5 additional areas to add a photo or
journaling to your book. Only one of these surfaces will be
a full square area, the others will be the triangle shaped
areas. As you will see later, you can treat the triangle
shaped areas as a full square by splitting your journaling or
photo into 2 pieces.
ALSO REMEMBER: you can add photos and/or journaling to the reverse side of this “page” area too.
CUTTING AND COVERING THE CARDBOARD COVERS:
You will want to cut your chipboard/heavy
cardboard into squares a ¼ of an inch larger
than you chosen book size. In my example I
cut the squares about 4 ¼ inches in size. Cut
2; one for the front of your book and one for
the back of your book. I chose to use
handmade paper to cover my cardboard. Cut
these paper squares an inch larger than your
chosen book size so you will have ½ inch on
each side to bring the paper around the edges
to the reverse side. You will also need 2
squares of this paper, in my case 5-inch
squares.
You can now glue (or double sided tape) the
handmade paper to the cardboard front. I put
the glue on my cardboard and then center it
over the handmade paper and lay it on top of
the paper – glue side down to the paper. Do
this for both covers (cardboard pieces). Once
you have the cardboard attached to the center
of the paper, trim off the corner edges of the
handmade paper at a 45-degree angle. Trim
the off almost to the corner of the cardboard
but leave a slight amount of paper. This will
give you a nice mitered corner on the backside.
Put glue on the handmade paper edges and fold over the cardboard smoothing out any wrinkles and
pinching the corners as you pull the second edge up. Use your folding tool and rub along the edge of the
cover to give it a nice crisp look.
RIBBON CLOSURE:
I chose to give my book a ribbon tie closure.
I am sure you can think of other type
closing and you can use what ever you
want. Now is the time to glue your ribbon
to the center of your back cover. I applied a
line of glue across the center of my back
INSIDE cover and laid the ribbon on this
glue line.
Now we are ready to attach the covers to
our previous glued “page” papers. You
need to decide which way you want you
book to open and attach the covers
appropriately. I find this much easier to do
if I keep the pages folded in upon
themselves and treat them as one unit –
AFTER I decide which way I want the
explosion to open. I apply the glue to the
top page of the page unit. Then turning the
unit over (glue side down now), centering it
on the inside of the top cover and press the
2 together. Apply the glue to the bottom
page (now facing up and on top of the
previously glued unit) and put the other
cover over the glued paper, centering and
aligning it with the opposite cover.
NOTE: Don’t let all of this explanation confuse you!
You have simply added the front and back covers
to you folded “page” papers outside square areas.
Your book is now assembled! Fold it all up and set your heavy weight on it once again while you get
your photos ready to finish it.
ADDING THE PHOTOS AND JOURNALING:
Treat the pages of your EXPLOSION BOOK just as you would any album. The only real difference is
the triangle folded areas. From my experience I have found it equally as interesting to add a full
photo/journaling areas separated at the diagonal folded line as it is to add individual separate triangle
areas. The choice is ultimately up to you. I will explain my process for handling each method as well as
a few tips.
ADDING TO THE FULL SQUARE AREAS:
These areas can be treated exactly like any album page. Since I use a digital camera and home printing I
decided to print my photos the exact size I needed on the final page. If I wanted a white border around
my photo I added it to during the editing process. If I wanted a background paper I added it during the
editing process. Elements and accents can also be added at this time, the choices are endless.
To help determine the final photo print size I used the measurement of 3.75 inches. This way I would
have a narrow black border on each page and a little room for cutting or folding error. I use PhotoShop
CS2 as my graphic program and the following examples will be show in PSCS2. If you use a different
graphic program, the tools are very basic and I believe you will easily be able to adapt this explanation to
you program. If not, please contact me and I will attempt to find a designer who us familiar with your
program of choice who can explain the process to you.
EDITING THE PHOTO:
I first opened a new file. Make the new file 5x5 inches in size and transparent background at the print
resolution of your choice. I get good prints at 150 ppi so this is my choice. Choose a medium gray as
your foreground color (so it will show up on light and dark areas). Select your square marquee tool and
make sure your file rulers are showing. (ctrl+r will turn them on if they are not showing)
Starting in the upper left hand corner of your
file/working surface click and drag your mouse to
the bottom left hand corner of your file/work
surface. Holding down the shift key as you drag
your mouse will keep your box perfectly square.
Watch the marker in your ruler guide and when
you reach the 3.75 mark stop dragging and let off
the mouse and the shift key. Do it in this order or
your box will change proportions if you did not
drag equally. Keeping the shift key down until
after you release the mouse button will keep the
square equal even if you did not drag it equally.
Once you have the marching ants outlining your
area you can click in the center area of the box and
drag it to the center of your work surface. Your
ant selected area will stay activated and the correct
size.
Make sure you are on a new layer (not the
background if you have a solid one) and stroke the
OUTSIDE of this area. EDIT>STROKE Use a 3
pixel line, your foreground color of medium gray
and make sure the radial button OUTSIDE is
selected. If you want to give yourself a little more
room for error, you can choose middle or inside.
Click OK and you now have your frame guide
made. Save this file, as you will probably find
yourself linking it to a photo or accidentally
deleting it at some point during your photo editing
and cropping process. Save it in Photoshop format
so you layer will remain transparent.
To make the “frame” to use for the triangle pieces use
your square frame. On a new layer, choose your brush
tool and your foreground color is still medium gray. With
the brush tool activated choose a brush size of 3 pixels and
a hard edge. Click you mouse in the lower left corner of
the square and then release the mouse button. Hold down
the shift key and move your mouse to the upper right
corner of the square and click you mouse button once
again. You should now have a diagonal line from corner
to corner in your square. Save this file, marked diagonal
frame for future use incase you need a new frame at some
point.
NOTE: When using this frame to create your diagonal pages make sure the diagonal line is going the
same way as the fold in the paper of the area you are going to be putting your photo/journaling onto.
There may be that occasion when you want your diagonal cut/line to go in a different orientation. Just
rotate this frame until the diagonal line matches the orientation of your fold.
You are now ready to open those photo files and start editing. I use the frames we just created to create
the photo pages for my book. I keep the frame on its own separate layer and use it as the guide to size
my photos and choose the area I want to crop out.
When cropping a whole photo with a lot of subjects, you
may want you photo to take up the whole space. In this
case I would use the magic wand to select the inside of
my frame area (on the frame layer), then activate the
photo layer and invert my selection (selecting everything
outside the framed area) and click on the delete key to
remove the area of the photo I am not interested in
printing. I would then save this photo file. I save each
individual file until I have enough to cover the piece of
photo paper I will be printing on.
NOTE: I got about 6 photos on a regular size of photo
paper when making this book.
If you want elements and a background paper under/around your photo I would add them now and
downsize my photo so the background paper and elements will be within my frame size.
This example still has the gray frame surrounding
my photo. You can add a velum paper look and
some journaling on this page if you choose. Treat it
as you would any album page.
When using the diagonal frame for those triangle areas
you have to give your photo and journaling selection a
little more thought. You wouldn’t want to cut a face into
two separate pieces as you have to leave a small gap
between the 2 parts to allow the page to fold correctly
when closed. So use your frame to help orientate your
photo into this area.
In this example I moved the photo so that I didn’t cut
Doris’s face into 2 parts. Once again I could choose to fill
only the top triangle area with this photo and add a second
photo to the bottom area.
To do this I would select the area I want to
keep by the method mentioned above using
the magic wand tool. I would then copy or
drag my second photo into this file and
once again use the frame to decide the area
of the photo I want to keep. If your frame
is not the top layer (you cannot see it) you
can click on the frame layer in the layer’s
palette and hold down the mouse key as
you drag the layer to the top of your
palette.
Once again use the magic wand and the
selection method described above to
remove the area you do not want and delete
it.
NOTE: Since you have used the above method there will not be any of your photo under the gray frame
areas so when you print your picture files you will not have any picture area in the gray diagonal area.
This is the space your will need between your photos for the paper to fold correctly. If you used another
method to select the area to delete you may need to trim the diagonal area a little when put them on you
page.
You may choose to do journaling in these Triangle areas. Once again you can treat the whole area as one
block and cut your journaling block in half using the guide to help you know where to allow extra spacing
within your sentences so the diagonal cut does NOT cut apart a word. Or you can use it to keep you
journaling within the triangle shape.
Treat your journaling as you would in any other
album. Print on velum; add layered background
papers and embellishments if you chose. Just keep
them within the frame borders.
Once you have all you individual files edited,
composed and saved, it is time to print them out.
This of course includes your journaling blocks
unless you are printing your journaling on velum.
I make a new file the size of my photo paper, open
all my photo and journaling files and then drag or
copy each file into this new photo paper sized file.
As mentioned earlier I got 6 photo/journaling files
onto 1 photo paper page.
You do not have to leave the gray frame on as you
print your files. You can simply delete this layer
before printing your file or before copying it to the file of the photos to print on one paper. However, for
your journaling blocks I would suggest leaving this frames and using it as your cutting guide. Cut just
inside the line so it is removed when your block is glued into your book. Once your printing is completed
use your craft knife and straight edge to cut out your photos and journaling blocks. Cut the photos or
journals into the triangle pieces when necessary.
I glued all the photos and journaling block into my book in an order that was appealing to me. An order I
felt told the story the best (if there is a story to tell). I applied the glue to the photo or journaling backside
and then placed it onto the page paper. Since I intentionally made the photos/journaling areas smaller
than the page area, applying it to the page area would have left glue exposed along the edges. Once I was
done, I re-folded the book to its closed position and once again set a heavy weight over it. Check to make
sure there is no wet or tacky glue areas beyond your photo/journaling edges before placing a weight on it
or those areas will stick to the surface touching it. If you do see some or have doubt, put pieces of waxed
paper in between each album page before closing it and letting it dry over night.
When gluing on the triangle pieces it was helpful to me to fold the paper along the diagonal fold so that I
could place the diagonal edge of the photo or journaling block almost to the very edge of this fold. Do
not take it completely to the edge of the fold. If it should be a “valley” fold it will need the extra space to
fold in on itself with the added thickness of the added photo paper.
YOUR EXPLOSION BOOK IS COMPLETED!!
I hope you have had as much fun making you book as I did mine. I know you will get the same great
reactions from you book as I did and let me tell you – it is a wonderful feeling! It was a hit at the
convention and my granddaughter was thrilled with it. You may need to help your book re-fold itself so
get acquainted with the operation before handing it the “receiver”. I know this tutorial has been long, but
the process actually moves along quite fast. It actually took me the longest time to choose the photos I
wanted to work with than it did to make the book. I plan on making some spare books to have on hand
and then adjust my photo content to fit them. They will make a quick and appreciated gift for many
occasions.
Please contact me if you have any questions or problems with this tutorial.
[email protected] or [email protected]
HAPPY SCRAPPIN’
Marge Wirth