flipbook, how to, papercrafts, trimcraft

Fiesta Fever Flipbook

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).

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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.

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When you open up the flipbook this is what you see on the inside.

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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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.

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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).

This post contains some affiliate links, which mean if you purchase after clicking on these links I get a tiny percentage of the sale, at absolutely no extra cost to you. 
card making, flipbook, how to, papercrafts, trimcraft, tutorial

Wander-Bee Flipbook

Ok, ok, I have been somewhat remiss in my blogging… whoops! The end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 have been a little ‘aaargh!’ (in both good and bad ways). Now that things are starting to settle down I’m hoping to get back to blogging… and be better than before too.

So enough waffle, on with today’s post. I owed my lovely penpal Julie (instagram: @plannerprettiesandpaper) a snail-mail flipbook. And as I was little behind on my mail to her, I wanted to make something extra special.

The gorgeous Trimcraft collections, Dovecraft’s Bee Happy, and First Edition’s Wanderlust are not necessarily similar, but they have some elements that work together really well. So, the ‘Wander-Bee’ collection was born, and it’s first project, this flipbook:

 

I didn’t do a process video, or take process photos (otherwise there’d be hundreds!). But I thought I’d go through each ‘page’ of the flipbook with you to tell you how it was made.

The cover is this shaker card. All the hexagons (and all that you’ll see throughout the flipbook) I cut on my silhoutte machine. Due to how busy the shaker element is I only added light embellishments: the bee puffy sticker and gold buttons from Bee Happy, and the ‘hello’, which was from my stash. The only Wanderlust element here is the paper I used to die cut the ‘Bee Happy’. In the shaker itself is a mix of gold sequins and stars, gold glitter, coarse yellow glitter, and copper coloured  micro beads.

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Next was this simple ‘pocket’ page. To make this I cut one of my (many) pre cut hexagons in half (well, just over), and adhered it to the base with a thin layer of double sided tape around the edges. I embellished it with Bee Happy ribbon and a button, as well as both fussy and die cut elements from both Bee Happy and Wanderlust. You can just see the goodies I put in that pocket slightly out of shot to the top right.

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This page probably took me the longest to make, as I had to figure out how to make a hexagon-shaped envelope. I tried following an origami tutorial on YouTube but it was WAY too complex. So I just made it up instead. I used brads and twine to keep it shut (it’s full of various die cut shapes and stickers), and decorated around the edge with that slim leaf washi (from my stash). I finished with the sentiment topper from Bee Happy and a Wanderlust fussy cut butterfly.

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Next was another page with a simple pocket, made in the same way as last time. But this one is more Wanderlust-y. The bow is made with the bow-sewing technique (let me know if you’d like a blog post on that – I have shown it in a video but I can’t remember which one!). In this pocket I put a load of project life/journal cards.

This is one of the back pages, with added envelope flip-out. This one is a real mix of Bee Happy and Wanderlust, and possibly my favourite page. The small envelope (smallest size on the WE R Memory Keepers’ 1-2-3 Punch Board) is mounted on a 4×2.5″ piece of card, which is then attached with washi tape on both sides. The tape isn’t actually from the Wanderlust collection, believe it or not! It’s a Dovecraft tape from last year. The envelope is filled with little stickers.

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The page at the very back I kept simple, with the three Bee Happy Hexagons and wood veneer piece, and a couple of Wanderlust fussy cut butterflies.

And here’s the finished product:

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Thanks so much for reading. Check out Trimcraft’s The Craft Blog for more ideas and inspiration with these collections.

Grace ❤ @ms.paperlover