This week, I fished around in the box Shannon Arnold sent me, and pulled out this deck of oval Love Sick cards. I loved the box and the shape of the cards, and decided that they’d make a very sweet accordian book. (Shannon doesn’t know it, but she really sent me a whole box full of little handmade books waiting to happen…)

The obstacles I wanted to overcome here:

• The printing on the top and back of the box (although the interior was mercifully free of text, and as a bonus, solid red).
• The back side of the cards, which said Love Sick in huge letters.
• The fact that the cards had to hinge together in some graceful way.
• The ever-popular plastic coating on the fronts of the cards.
• Ugly, and I do mean ugly, face cards.

To overcome the ugly face cards, I simply didn’t use any, although I did set them aside, thinking at some point, I could do something with them that covered up the centers of the cards. As it turns out, I could have used some of them in this project.

To solve the problems of attaching the cards together, and covering backs, I decided to make an accordian book, and then attach the cards to the pages.

First, I figured out how many cards would fit on one sheet of 12×12 cardstock. The answer: 10. However, I’ll only be using nine cards for this book, reserving that tenth fold to attach to book into the box.

I split the cardstock in half, and glued the two pieces together along the short side, overlapping slightly. This overlap will disappear into the book—nobody will really notice it unless they flip the whole thing over.

I folded an accordian as wide as one of the playing cards, plus just a hair for ease. It doesn’t take much—not even 1/8″. Just a tiny bit, so the cards aren’t butting right up against each other when the book is open.

Next, I glued the first card to one end of the accordian folded cardstock—just one card. I trimmed around this card using some hefty scissors to cut through all the layers. I’m doing this now rather than waiting until all the cards are glued in place because this is the easiest way to get them all to line up properly.

I glued the playing cards to the accordian book. Notice how I’m working with the book sort of folded rather than flat? This is to make sure that the book will fold properly when it’s finished. Often, working flat on books with multiple folds is deceptive—the book looks great when it’s flat, but won’t fold properly. How often will this book be viewed completely flat, anyway? Not often. Most people will view it stretched out a bit, but not flat.

I left the final flap of the book blank. This will glue into the box a little further on.

Now, a little aging—and also the fix for the plastic coating. I rubbed all the cards with a very coarse sanding block. When the red ink on the cards started to rub off, I knew I was beyond the protective coating. Once the cards were rough, I ran around the edges with some chalk ink to knock the whiteness down a bit.

I tied a piece of red silk ribbon around the folded book, and set it aside for a few minutes, so I could work on the box.

First, I got rid of the printing by sponging two colors of red paint onto the box. Neither red was exactly the same as the color of the original box, so I ended up with a nice, uneven red texture. This is a good way to save yourself a lot of time—rather than trying to perfectly match the color of the box, just pick a couple of paints that are close, and sponge them on. People pay a fortune to have this done on their dining room walls…

On cardstock, I printed out an image that was roughly the size of one of the cards, and then used an extra card to cut a perfectly shaped oval image for the lid. This was applied with a light coat of matte medium. The trick to getting images to lay down flat when using medium is to coat the surface of the piece, push the image into it, and then coat the surface of the image. Getting both sides wet helps keep the image from wrinkling.

When the lid was dry, I added some words I printed on cardstock and aged with chalk ink. Again, a light layer of medium on the box, press the cardstock into the medium, and then coat it on top to keep the wrinkles down.

I also sponged a little gold around the edges of the box, up onto the image. I thought the contrast bewteen the red of the box and the dark areas of the image was a bit much, so the gold helped tone both areas, and make them work as one rather than fight each other.

Once the box was dry, it was time to insert the book. I simply flipped the tied book over, and applied some Tacky glue to the whole back flap, including the ribbon. Then I pressed the book into the box, centering it so there was equal space all around it. After a minute or so of pressing, I untied the book, unfolded it, and let it dry open. Trust me on this—don’t let the book dry folded up. I’ve ended up with pages glued down where I didn’t want them that way.

Now, the really fun part—decorating. I hauled out all sorts of red, romantic images, and decorated the centers of the cards. I decided that I wanted the upper number and heart to show on all of them, and as few of the center hearts to show as possible. I also wanted to work very flat, so the book would fold gracefully, and continue to fit in the box. Other than that, I just glued, working each card by itself. Since the lid of the box says “I give to you the key to my heart”, I tucked one dimensional element—a skeleton key—under the ribbon on the first card.

Here’s my finished piece: