I really love the First Edition Fiesta Fever paper pads from Trimcraft. It’s so easy to create so many fun projects with it.
I also love sugar skulls – and there’s lots in this paper pad! So I decided to create this Sugar Skull snail-mail flipbook, with pockets and envelopes to fill with goodies to send to a penpal. Here’s a quick video of the flipbook, then I’ll go over each section in detail:
(apologies for the annoying portrait mode, but the video was filmed for instagram!)
To create this flipbook I started with this cut file from the Silhouette design store. I offset it by a few mm, and added a rounded square shape to one side to be the ‘join’ between each section. Then I cut both the outside shape and the sugar skull itself six times on different papers from the pad. The shapes were backed together to make them sturdy, and I glued the sugar skull on four of the pages (saving two for future projects).
For the front I created a shaker pocket. I went back to the Silhouette design software, took that skull shape and made an internal offset of about 0.5″. I used that to trace over foam (twice) and glued those to the base. I used the shape again to trace over acetate, then adhered that to the shape with strong tacky glue. With the foam in place (and the glue dry) I added a mix of sequins (including skull sequins), coarse glitter, and microbeads, then again with the strong glue, adhered the acetate piece on top of the foam.
Oh, before all this I also drew around the sugar skull’s features with a white gel pen so it would stand out behind the sequin mix.
To finish I added the ‘Hi’ at the top – letters made with the WE R Memory Keepers Mini Alphabet Punchboard, a fussy cut sugar skull from the 12×12 paper pad, and a stamped, embossed, and then fussy cut sugar skull made with a Dovecraft Stamp. I finished with lots of Simply Creative gems around the edge and in the letters.
When you open up the flipbook this is what you see on the inside.
This is the first page you see when you open the flipbook. With the sugar skull in place I coloured the teeth with a white gel pen. Then added Simply Creative 3mm Rainbow gems around the eyes and nose. Then created a tiny envelope with the WE R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board, and adhered it in place.
For the second page, when I glued the sugar skull down, I did not add glue to all of it, I left a section at the top so that I could use the space as a pocket. I created another envelope with the punch board to slot into this space. I added Simply Creative 6mm rainbow gems to the teeth, created a faux stitching effect around the eyes and nose with a black 0.38mm gel pen, then added small fussy cut skulls to the centres of the eyes.
When I was glueing the skull shapes together at the beginning of the process I decided one could be used as a pocket. So for this one I added glue only to the edge at the sides. I used the inner piece after cutting the shape for my shaker pocket on the front and adhered that. Then created a tall envelope to add onto here, which is kept closed with brads and twine. The three skulls were fussy cut from the 12×12 paper pad. Lastly as there was another ‘join’ sticking out, I decided to create yet another envelope to stick onto that. I also decorated the other side of the envelope with a simple banner shape and another skull, but I seem to have forgotten to take a photo of that, whoops! I added Distress Oxide in Black Soot around the edges of the envelope.
When you flip the book over this is what you see. The page on the far left I decided to keep simple, I added faux stitching again with a fine point gel pen around the teeth, nose, and eyes, and added more fussy cut skulls in the centre of the eye – those also had Black Soot Oxide added around the edges to help them stand out.
For the final page I had another skull shape to use (made somewhere in the process of using the silhouette, there was some trial and error in creating the shapes!). I added the stamped, embossed, and fussy cut skull, and finished with more rainbow gems all around the edge of the skull shape.
Remember to check Trimcraft’s The Craft Blog for more ideas and inspiration with this collection, as well as all the other beautiful collections from Trimcraft. I also have process videos with Trimcraft collections every Tuesday on my YouTube channel (there’s a link at the top of this page underneath my logo).
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