Dear Everyone ~

Hold on to your hardcover hats! My first BZS workshop of 2025, Hardcover Accordion in a Boxy Portfolio via group Zoom, debuts Saturday, April 5. This workshop also showcases our newest selection of Italian patterned papers from Carta Pura. Bellissimi tutti! One enthusiastic student has ordered all three palettes, and four students have each ordered two palettes. It’s a palette-palooza!

Students will learn to make a pair of structures, a traditional accordion book with hardcovers (5" x 7" x ¾") and a ‘boxy’ portfolio with hardcovers (5¼" x 7¼" x 1") to present & protect the accordion. The portfolio is dressed up with three gusseted flaps lined with complementary Italian patterned papers from Carta Pura, and then finished with a vintage, limited-edition beribbonment.

Five international parcels sent out last week are now winging their way far & wide. A very tall stack of stateside parcels is ready to be scooped up by Will.

Accordion to me, the accordion book is the most elegant, versatile & enticing of no-stitching, no-glueing, no-prior-experience-needed structures. The book that students will make in this workshop has five 5-page accordion panels, for a total of 36 serendipitous sides (38 if you include the front & back panels of the cover). The structure is uplifting (and upstanding!) as a book of collages, an album of photos, a multi-media travelogue, or a series of hand-folded envelopes for collecting whatever-have-you. And you can title your volume(s) via a slim recess on the spine!

I repeat with a smile: No previous bookbinding experience is necessary to enjoy the workshop and delight in your oeuvre. For the boxy portfolio, a little glueing experience is a plus but not essential. Our pace is focused but leisurely, with ample opportunity to ask questions whilst we work. As always, I will live record the workshop, and the full recording will be available to you later the same afternoon to watch and rewatch. The recording gives you optimal options: You can watch the workshop without actually making your structures… and then make them later. You can skip the workshop if you have a scheduling conflict. You can pause, or refresh, or even go get a snack if you are desperate. I’ll be there when you get back!

If you have any questions now, please feel free to call or e me to discuss!

Hardcover Accordion in a Boxy Portfolio

Zooming toward spring, Bari