The Humble Squash Book...

This is a squash book. I discovered squash books by happy accident while searching out tutorials and videos about hand-made books. I found plenty on the subject, but try the one by Dawn of Stampin' Up on YouTube. It's very clear and easy to follow if you'd like to try making one of these yourself. Essentially, making a squash book involves using cardstock, a little double-stick tape, and a variation of the accordian fold. While they may look complex, they're really easy to make. Squash books make good photo albums, but I decided to make mine a sampler containing various painted and mixed media papers I made.

For the front and back covers I used sections of hand-painted and embroidered fabric created in an online workshop with Susan Sorrell. We used the art of Joan Miro to inspire our embroidery creations. I enjoyed the class, and decided preserving the class project in this book would be a fun way to display it.

Another online class I took at Joggles  had as its topic the many ways to create paper backgrounds for journaling and mixed media projects. We painted, and sprayed, and spritzed, and marbled, and stamped our way through a pile of cardstock to come up with a delightful assortment of papers. Some of them are showcased here in the squash book. I even tried my hand at a Zentangle-style heart and glued it in as well. There are pieces of fabric paper on display, too. 

The thing I noticed about squash books is the incredible amount of room there is inside. After all, it's just three squares of cardstock. But even though assembling the book base itself was quick and easy, it took me awhile to fill it up with samples.

This is how the squash book looks while it's being folded or unfolded. It's a little hard to capture or to explain how easily it pops out, and back into, the small 4 1/2" square format. The photos below show the opposite side of the book, so you can see how many display areas there are in that small space. Some of the papers included in my squash book are ones I received in swaps with others who have been bitten by the same paper-arts bug as I have. Good news... there are other styles of these fun little books, too. I spotted one in a Pyramid style, and a round one. I'm pretty sure I feel some Christmas Squash Books coming on!