Zentangle Break

3" x 3" accordion sketchbook

Back in May, the Zentangle people offered a 21 day "Be Well" series which I was interested in but didn't want to do at the time. I just recently took a look at the video from day one and saw that all the tangling would be done inside a leaf-like shape set on the diagonal. I've been doing a lot of my Zentangling in one of my commercial sketchbooks but didn't think it would work well for this. I also didn't want to use up the individual tiles I have on hand. I got to thinking that placing those leaf shapes in an accordion style book might be just the ticket and I thought I had something I could trace around to make those shapes uniform. Yeah, I'm a LOT about uniformity.

So I took a break from my house cleaning for company to make a simple and quick accordion book. Well, nothing I make is quick but at least it would be simple. I took a look at a couple of videos in my Handmade Book Club to refresh my memory about folding and joining strips together, and I was off. Quick calculations showed that cutting an 18 x 24 inch piece of mixed media paper would give me strips that would fold into 8 panels, and three strips joined would give me the number of panels I would need and a few extras. With the video instructions in mind, I just folded that big sheet in half, then folded the sides to the middle and used a blunt knife to tear along the fold lines. I'd only need three of the four strips.

As I started folding the strips, I momentarily puzzled over the fact that the panels were turning out to be rectangles instead of squares, the planned dimensions for my book being 3" x 3". Oh yeah, dividing the width of the big sheet of paper into fourths yielded strips 4-1/2 inches wide. Oops . . . I quickly trimmed off the excess 1-1/2 inches and continued folding. More scraps for another project. Does this sound like quilting yet? ;-)  The two small rectangles will be used to join the three strips. The bone folder run over the folds makes them crisp.

To make sure I joined the strips correctly - valleys and mountains in proper order - I paper clipped where I'd be adding the joining strips on the back. The rectangles are folded lengthwise and that fold positioned flush with the end of the adjoining strips. My bookclub directions showed this done using PVA glue but I wasn't keen to deal with the messiness of glue and was happy when I remembered that I had Scor-Tape on hand in a half inch width which was just what I needed. Accordion booklet almost done. 

I wanted to attach some kind of cover on the first and last panels for stability but didn't need anything particular thick or heavy. I decided to look through my various papers, settling on this mulberry paper one. Does the design remind you as it does me of trees? Again, I didn't want to fool with glue so cut 3 x 3 inch squares of Scor-Tape from a 6 inch square sheet. Scor-Tape is sort of a one and done tape meaning you have essentially one shot at getting your item positioned correctly before the adhesive makes it impossible to remove. Fortunately, the mulberry paper lined up without a hitch and along with the Scor-Tape, stiffens up the mixed media paper just enough to work as "covers". The bone folder comes in handy to burnish for a good adhering.

Now to draw the diagonal leaf shapes on the panels. There's the thing I thought would work well to draw around, some kind of end plug from packaging that begged me not to throw it away. Hopefully you can see now why I thought an accordion book would work well.

I penned the title on the first panel (and as an after thought added my initials chop after I'd taken the picture). Each day has a theme to meditate on (day one is Embrace not Erase) and a related quotation so I am adding those in the negative space around the leaf shape. To be honest, I wasn't too excited about this first zentangle and less excited with the way mine came out but at least I've started!

When filled, it can be displayed open to show off the undulating zentangle designs.

I like this small 3 x 3 inch little book but accordions can be awkward to work in. I need to find a bit of decorative elastic I think to wrap vertically around it to hold this closed when I'm not working in it and to hold together the springy pages not in use when I'm trying to zentangle on a panel - it's already proven to be an issue. And wouldn't you know it, no sooner did I finish this up and readied myself to complete the remainder of the cleaning and straightening than I got word that my company has had to postpone their arrival. So a relaxing weekend I wasn't counting on in a mostly clean and picked up house!