Tropical Purse Tutorial

Supplies:
Cardstock:
• 5 ½ x 10 ½ sheet for purse base
• 4 ¼ x 11 and 4 ¼ x 4 ½ for lining inside Purse
• 1 – 4 x 5 piece to cut out the top note die for purse closure
• 5 - 4 ½ x 4 ½ pieces of coordinating colors pages
• 7 – 3 ¾ 3 ¾ pieces of coordinating colors for mats on pages
DSP: (designer paper)
• 1 – 4 x 5 piece to cut out the top note die for purse closure
• 5 – 1 ½ x 3 ¾ strips to decorate mats
Other:
• Coordinating Ribbons, brad or other embellishment
• Textured folder, Big Shot Machine, Square scallop die, paper piercer, horizontal slot punch, top note die, sticky strip, snail tape, several flower dies and double sided sticky Velcro for purse closure, paper trimmer and sharp scissors

Step One:
Follow directions on picture. You start with a 5 ½ x 10 ½ sheet, score your sheet on long side at 5 inches from each edge. You will have a ½ inch spine in the middle.

You want to shave off a little from each side of the purse so it tucks neatly under the top note die closure.

At each end mark at 5/8” on both sides (4 marks, 2 at top and 2 at bottom). Slide in diagonal in your paper trimmer from first mark to the score line… cut off sliver…

It’ll look like this…. When you cut both sides… do the same on the bottom…

Now, fold at scores and make sure your purse is straight…

The top should now measure 4 1/4 inches…

I also shave off a little bit off what will be the front of my purse…it seems to stand better… your choice... play with it…

So, this is what you have now… purse base in Melon Mambo and inside lining in Pacific Point Blue…


You’ll need one of the PP at full length... the other piece you can trim to make your back page lining… see next step

Read carefully before scoring for accordion:


You are going to start to score your PP blue 4 ¼ x 11 piece at 4 ½ then, at ½ inch intervals (measure accurately... it’ll make a difference when you fold the creases) until you have 5 little mountains and 4 valleys on your sheet... you will end at 9 ½…

BEFORE YOU START… you are going to want to score the first line at 4 ½”... this is your initial score... flip the cardstock over and score at 5” (this is your first mountain), flip back over, score at 5 ½” this is your first valley… keep alternating score lines by flipping the cardstock over ..

What happens is that your score line will allow you to fold at each mountain (or top peak) and each valley (bottom peak) easily and neatly.

**If you do not measure your ½: scores accurately... you will end up with smaller and larger folds when you fold your accordion…

Once you have the accordion nice and neatly pressed… you will want to add a strong adhesive like sticky strip to the folds as in the picture….


Turn your PP blue over to the back… you’ll know the back because opposite to the pic in the last step you now have a valley going down next to the long section of smooth cardstock (to the right of the first score).



You are going to want to place the sticky strip real close to the score line on the left of the first score line at 4 ½ “. From that point on… you will also want to put your sticky strip in small pieces as close to each valley score line as possible (I’ll show you why in next step…) see pic for layout of tape.

To the left of the mat, I just added snail tape to adhere what’ll be the inside mat and lining of the purse… this will get pasted to what’ll be your backside of your purse (where top note will get pasted to back of… )

Add one more long piece of sticky strip to the right side this time of the last score line... this will stick to the right of the purse spine…see next steps

 
Remove the red cover on the small pieces of sticky strip only to expose the sticky side… stick together to form your accordion…

In the pic... you can see why I didn’t put the sticky strips close to the bottom of the folds… I have created some room to stretch my accordion if I need to when I stick the rest down to the purse base…



See next pic…

 
 
Please read this first and try holding and stretching the accordion prior to removing and tape... just to practice positioning where you want it to stick...

Now….

I’ve shown here with little marks on the Melon base where you want to stick the lining with accordion… If you click on the pic... you can see it bigger…

Here you will want to first remove the red lining and stick the 4 ¼ x 4 /12 inch section down… starting with the sticky strip lining it to the left of the spine score line... then, smooth flat the whole section with you hand… now, lift the smaller section that’ll now stick the right of the purse spine score line… add some snail to the flap where there is no sticky strip… now…. STRETCH slightly open the accordion until you have adhered down to the right of the score line…

Add your next section of blue measuring 4 1/4 x 4 1/2 to the back to cover the smaller flap...Now you have your purse base and lining ready… whew!! Most of the really hard work is done…

 
 
 

You want to cut a purse closure from the top note die… Here it is covered with the DSP ...I just trimmed the outer edge (where the dotted edge is) on the DSP so it would sit nicely inside the dotted edge of the design… this is optional and you can leave it without the DSP if you prefer. I score it at the middle peak of the longest side, so it folds easily and punched two holes on each side in the m idle of the score line with the horizontal slot punch. This punch allows wider ribbon to sit flat… see next pic…
 
 
 

This second pic shows the top note now adhered to the backside of the purse... I don’t want my purse falling apart so I used to strips of sticky strip the long way on the top note half that got stuck down... one near the top just below where ribbon is and the second closer to the curve on the die cut... centered the Melon purse edge to the top not and pressed down..

You can see how I fed the ribbon in this picture... it lays flat on the score line and I just tied a bow to the side on the outside left. You can also see where I stuck the little square of Velcro on the inside front flap of the closure...

This pic shows the top note decorated and closed on the purse…

 
 

Now… you’ll take the 4 ¼” squares that you cut in coordinating colors and run them through the square scallop die on the Big Shot Machine… these will be your pages… Aren’t they fun??

Add sticky strip to all the ½” accordion flaps... across the length of the 4 ¼” … Position your first scalloped page and stick down…

Continue with remaining pages…

NOTE: if you do not wish to add mats to these pages... you can decorate these pages prior to adhering on this step...

Here you will use your 3 ¾” squares to also decorate your pages and top and bottom of purse… I ran my top and bottom sections through a textured folder and pasted down…

The remaining mats I adhered the 1 ½” strips of DSP to a side and added a section of ribbon next to the strip to decorate and then pasted to the scallop pages… be creative... add some flowers too!!!

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
This is almost the last step and  I’ve added the strips of DSP (designer specialty paper) with the ribbons on all mats prior to sticking down to the pages… and one last mat to the bottom of the purse
Since I don't like brads to show through on the backside of the page... I do all my mats first.. then paste down... this leaves the backside for journaling... woo hoo!!!

Lastly I positioned the velcro... seen in an earlier picture, but I actually added it after I finished the purse because you want to make sure it closes the way you want it to ... can get bulky.
 
I hope you enjoyed my tutorial... I had a lot of fun making this one for myself ...
 
Let me know if you found it helpful.. Thanks... Sandra