first edition – ms.paperlover

flipbook, how to, papercrafts, trimcraft

Fiesta Fever Flipbook

August 15, 2018August 13, 2018 ms.paperlover

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).

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, how to, papercrafts, trimcraft, tutorial

Banner Cards with First Edition Let’s Celebrate: How To

May 14, 2018May 13, 2018 ms.paperlover

In this post I’m going to be showing you how to make this fun, but incredibly simple banner cut out card. I’m not good with fancy-fold cards (my brain isn’t mathematical enough!), but I do occasionally like to make cards that are just a *little bit* different.

To make this you will need:

an 8×8″ paper pad (or larger). I used First Edition’s new release, ‘Let’s Celebrate’ for mine
A sentiment stamp, and decorative stamps if desired too
Heat Embossing Equipment (ink, powder, heat tool)
Ink Pad
5×7″ white card blank (or white cardstock large enough to make your own)
Banner Die 3 x 4.5″ (7.5 x 11.5cm) – if you don’t have this then don’t worry too much!

To Start:

Die cut two banner shapes. If you don’t have the die (my set was from The Works but they don’t seem to have them available online right now), then not to worry! It’s a very easy shape to cut yourself, just use the measurements listed above.

Back each of your banners on a contrasting paper and cut around leaving a border of a few mm. If you have the appropriate sized die you can just cut that and use it to back the original shape, but I find it easier to do it this way!

Attach the banners to your 5×7″ card blank (I go for double sided tape as my adhesive, but use whatever your preference is). Make sure each banner is at the very edge of the card at the left edge and then on the top and bottom edges.

Cut around the banner shapes using scissors or a craft knife, again, whichever your preference. Be careful to only cut through one layer of card and not the back too!

Cut another contrasting paper to just under 5 x 7″ and attach to the inside of the card.

And that’s it for the card shape! You can now decorate however you wish, but I’ll show you how I did mine to give you an idea.

Stamp and emboss a sentiment on a paper scrap, about 2-2.5″ wide (about 5cm).

Cut the paper you’ve stamped into a smaller square or rectangle, back with a contrasting paper leaving a 2mm-ish border, then attach to a longer, but slightly narrower strip of paper.

Attach to card and finish with some stamping!

It is up to you whether to attach your decorative piece to just one or to both banners, if you attach it to just one then the banners can ‘open’ separately, however…

When you make a vertical card – only attach the sentiment/sentiment cluster to the bottom banner. If you attach it to the top banner then gravity will work against you and it will droop!

This card shape also works great horizontally:

How super easy is that?! You can then write your message on the inside of the banners or on the back of the card.

If you’d like to see some more projects with Let’s Celebrate, then check out the Inspiration Area of Trimcraft’s The Craft Blog.

Grace ❤

Christmas, planners, printables

Christmas Planner Printables

November 2, 2017November 2, 2017 ms.paperlover

Ok, it’s November, we can officially talk about Christmas now.

Whether you’re excited for Christmas or not, you have to admit, there is a lot of stuff to get done for the season. Gifts, cards, food, decoration, events, etc.,

So a Christmas planner is a fairly important tool, and after designing all my inserts and setting it up, I decided I would share the inserts in case they would be useful for anyone else.

If you haven’t seen it and you are interested, you can watch my Christmas planner set up video here. You can see the Christmas inserts in more depth and I explain why I made them that way.

So, onto the printables! They are all PDF files, if you have any trouble with that, pop me an email and I might be able to send you another format.

As I said in the video, they are all made for a personal size planner, but if you have the technical know-how, I’m quite happy for you to resize them if you use a different planner. Just please don’t ask me to do this for you!

They’re made to print onto A4 paper, so once printed you need to do a little bit of cutting/trimming. There are very faint grey lines around the inserts themselves so you know where to cut. To print them double sided, you need to choose the ‘flip on the short edge’ setting. It should be pretty obvious which edge of each insert is the one to punch holes into, but if in doubt, refer to the pictures I’ve provided.

If you have any problems with printing, feel free to email me, but I am by no means an technical expert, so I may not be able to help!

Right, let’s get to it!

November and December Calendar Pages:

This is a three page document, the first two pages should be the ones printed double sided. The first page of November and last of December will be single sided.

2017 CALENDAR PAGES NOV DEC

‘Busy Days’ Pages:

For the days in December when you just have a LOT to do! There are two files for this one, one is for double sided, and one is a single page for the ‘end’ inserts, so that they don’t start and end on the wrong sides!

2017 CHRISTMAS BUSY DAY

2017 BUSY DAY END PAGES

Busy Day Pages with named days:

Not a necessity, but within my ‘busy days’ section I wanted specific inserts that said Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day.

2017 CHRISTMAS BUSY DAY – XMAS DAY+eVE

2017 CHRISTMAS BUSY DAY – BOXING + NEW YEAR’S

Notes and To Do:

The ‘To Do’ insert may well be my favourite; it’s the Christmas Pudding checklist, I just love it!

2017 NOTE AND TO DO

Christmas Card Tracker:

There’s two options here, one (pictured) is for those who make their own cards, the other is for those who prefer to buy their own (it says ‘written’ in place of ‘made’). The first PDF is the ‘made’ inserts, the second is the ‘written’ ones.

2017 CARDS

2017 CARDS2

Gift Tracker:

Possibly the most important insert! Especially when it comes to wrapping time and you’ve got a huge pile of gifts and are thinking to yourself ‘which of these is for which person?!’ And to keep an eye on how much you’re spending!

Also, in case it’s not clear, the person’s name goes on the red line!

2017 GIFT TRACKER

Food/Shopping Inserts:

I’ve designed these so you can write a recipe or menu on one side, and a shopping list on the other. Very simple but that’s how I like it!

2017 FOOD

For those that haven’t watched the video, all my other Christmas planning related things this year, budgeting, shopping, that kind of thing, are all being done on notepaper. My set up last year had all that kind of thing but I found it a little rigid and didn’t end up using it properly. I’m the type of person that just likes to spill ink all over a blank page.

Just a couple of boring things to finish (a.k.a..=, covering my backside)…

These free printable downloads are solely intended for personal use, and are not to be copied, redistributed, or sold in any way.
The images in the inserts are all my own artwork, so please do not copy, or distribute them. Additionally do not remove them from the original files. Changing the inserts to suit your size planner is fine but using the images for any other purpose is not.
I take no responsibility for anything that may happen to your computer, tablet, printer, printer paper, scissors, paper trimmer, any other object, item, or living creature, or life in general, after downloading and printing these inserts.
If you do use the inserts and share them on any form of social media, please either tag me or link back to this blog. Even if you resize them, they are still my original work. Plus I’d love to see what you do with them!

Ok that’s enough serious stuff. Sorry about that, you know how it is these days!

Thanks so much for reading. Again, any issues you have with downloading or printing please feel free to email me, and I’ll do my best to help.

Grace ❤

@ms.paperlover

card making, how to, papercrafts, tutorial

Creative Process – Pretty Posy Birthday Card

October 2, 2017 ms.paperlover

As the title implies, I made this card using the ‘Pretty Posy’ paper pad from Trimcraft’s First Edition range.

(apologies for the price label still on there, but it damages the cover when you try and remove it!).

After choosing which papers I wanted to use, I started on sorting what elements I needed to make the card. First I fussy cut some florals and hearts from two of the papers (which you can see the pile of in the top left of the photo below).

I also tried out a new toy, this rather rudimentary circle cutter I got from The Works for a whopping £2. It isn’t great, but it’ll do for now.

You can see here the four main parts of the card: the card blank (a 6×6 one). One 6×6 paper (one of the pearlescent designs), with the centre gutted out to make a frame. Then two papers cut to about 5.5×5.5″ (the green one slightly larger) with circles cut from the middle.

…oh, and the lid that covers the circle cutter’s blade has crept it’s way into the photo too, whoops!

Then, assembly! The ‘birthday wishes’ is a cardstock sticker from a Pebbles sticker book – which I now wish I had purchased 2384023 of because I use it all the time for cards and now it’s discontinued, waaaaaah!

It’s also raised up on some foam tape. It was a bit fiddly and took a while to get the fussy cut elements in their right places, and required the combined efforts of foam tape, glue dots, pritt stick, and double sided tape to get the job done.

But that’s not the end! I always like to add something to the back and centre of my cards, even if it’s something small, just so you don’t have a beautiful front of a card and then stark white space elsewhere.

So inside I just added some washi tape:

For the back I did a little more, first I cut another paper to 6×6, and punched the corners with a fancy corner punch:

Then embossed a ‘handmade with love’ stamp on top of some cut off paper I’d used for the front of the card, stuck a doily behind that, and there we go!

I always find adding something to the back and centre of your card (other than your message, of course), makes a handmade card seem more ‘finished’.

Thanks so much for reading, and look out for some more card posts soon 🙂

Oh I forgot – I added some flat back pearls too!

Grace @ms.paperlover ❤

card making, Christmas, papercrafts, trimcraft

Trimcraft Bloggers Event – Christmas in August!

August 15, 2017 ms.paperlover

With a good 40% of the items in my craftroom being Trimcraft, when I got an email from them inviting me to their bloggers event, I squealed. I definitely squealed, loudly.

So on Saturday 5th August a small hoard of bloggers and vloggers descended into the Trimcraft HQ in Nottingham (fun fact, between 2012-2016 I lived ten minutes away from their HQ and never knew!). We were greeted with… Christmas. Just, the most Christmassy Christmas of the Christmasses! They must have worked so hard to do all that, so massive kudos to the Trimcraft staff for their decorating skills!

They treated us to food, drink, and goodies galore! Even kicking things off with a Christmas present for us all…

We were then introduced to all the gorgeous Christmas ranges and collections for this year:

Items from the collections were spread all over the tables, and we got our craft on. We got our craft on hard. There were four craft activities during the day, two of which were things I had never ever done before. We made Christmas wreaths with decoupage (patch? maché? I still don’t know which is which)

Next was a quick session of Christmas card making, something I am certainly familiar with!

Those are mine on the left and then a snap of the pile of cards made by everyone. The cards are being donated to a local charity 🙂

The last two were a Christmas cracker:

And then we made felt tree decorations which I was just… shockingly awful at. Really, truly, hilariously, awful. So much so I don’t have a picture of it (but it is featured in all its grotesque glory in my video of the event, which I’ll have a link for lower down this post). But I had fun making it! And that’s what is important… right? (seriously it’s so bad it’s almost good!)

However, if you were interested in making your own, you can find free templates on Trimcraft’s blog, The Craft Blog.

Penguin

Cracker

Other Christmas Freebies

We also got to have a little nosy around their show room (called ‘Snow Room’ for the day, lolz). I nearly wept when I saw the display of First Edition Paper Pads:

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Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and so came home time. Though we did not go away empty handed, oh no no no. On our way out we were each presented with the most incredible goody bag featuring SO VERY MANY items from all the Christmas ranges this year. To see what is in the goody bag in detail you’ll have to watch my video, but here’s a photo of everything laid out:

So a huge thank you to the Trimcraft staff for being the friendliest and most welcoming bunch of lovely people, and for all the hard work they put into the day. It was so much fun to meet new people and to craft away to your heart’s content using gorgeous new products and… not having to worry about cleaning up the mess afterwards!

I’ll have some Christmas crafts up here on the blog in the coming months, so keep an eye out for those.

And lastly, here’s the video I mentioned earlier, which includes a small amount of vlog footage from the day as well as a run through of all the items from the goody bag

Grace ❤ @ms.paperlover

card making, how to, papercrafts, tutorial

Creative Process – A Teenager’s Birthday Card

July 28, 2017 ms.paperlover

When I make birthday (or anniversary or get well soon or whatever) cards, I don’t just make a load of generic cards and choose one for the recipient (though maybe I should, it would be far less time consuming), I really make them for that person; with them in mind. Their tastes, their aesthetic. And so on.

This card was for my eldest niece, for her fourteenth birthday. Being fourteen she needed something grown up enough, but also not too grown up (did that make sense? Probably not!). I chose the First Edition ‘Sweet Nothings’ paper pad by Trimcraft to make this card, as it has some seriously pretty papers in it.

And the paper I chose for the base of my card is one of the textured papers with this beautiful wood and floral pattern on. I made the card 6×7″ (it needed to be slightly taller than 6″, you’re about to see why.

So I wanted to stitch my niece’s name onto the card. I printed off her name in one of my favourite fonts to stitch with (‘Beyond the Mountains’). This font does however often do this strange thing where it cuts off the bottom of some of the letters when you print so I filled in those bits with pencil.

I lined the template up to where I wanted it on my card and poked in the holes. If you’re new to paper stitching you can read my how-to on it here. Words are a little harder than shapes but it’s the same basic principle. Just make sure you have your printed template handy so you can use it for reference, sometimes all you can see is a load of holes and it’s hard to know what’s what.

I chose to stitch in white, as the cream thread I have is a bit of a yellow cream and so wouldn’t work with this card. But this turned out to be a bit of an error too as once the word was stitched it was quite hard to see. It shows up better on the picture above but in real life you had to squint to read it!

To solve this problem I decided to fill in the letters with some colour, using this ‘tea dye’ varnish, so that it would be a fairly subtle colour. As you may be able to see I did accidentally paint some of the thread, I don’t have a very steady hand, but it doesn’t matter too much!

Once that was all done and dry it was time to do the rest of the card. Whenever I’m doing a project like this I have a little root through my ephemera packs to see what I have to match, then throw it all into a little basket so it’s handy.

Then, well, I stuck it on! I had a play around first, seeing what I wanted to put where, and I usually take a couple of photos on my phone to see what I like best. This is what I ended up with:

It’s a mix of pieces from the cut-apart sheet from the Sweet Nothings paper pad, and some punch outs from it too. Then some random things I found in my ephemera root around!

The paper you can just see behind the card is what I used to line the inside. Because of the stitching on the front I had to cover up the mess of washi tape and knots that was behind it!

Being a teenager, my niece wanted money and make up for her birthday. I’d already wrapped the make up I’d bought her but I also made a little cash envelope using my WE R MEMORY KEEPERS 123 punch board. Which I stuck down with a velcro dot on the inside of the card so it would be easy for her to remove.

I also wrote ‘for you’ on a black label with an embossing pen and embossed it with gold powder.

On every card I make I emboss this ‘handmade with love’ stamp too for something to put on the back of the card.

The last thing to do was to make an envelope, again using my 123 punch board. I chose what I thought was a suitable paper from the First Edition pad…

…and once it was punched I also did some simple decoration on the front of the envelope, adding her name with alpha stickers. Which I forgot to take a picture of, woops!

So there it is, one of my homemade, personalised cards. Because of the stitching, which can take an absolute age, the whole thing probably took me about 90 minutes. But I love making my cards really special for my family and close friends.

Oh I forgot, I added some flat back pearls too! That’s it… I think!

Thanks so much for reading, let me know if you’d like to see more card making posts 🙂

Grace ❤ @ms.paperlover

	SCRAPBOOK PROCESS \|… on Christmas Planner Printables
	Christmas Doodles St… on Christmas Planner Printables…
	joy white on Christmas Planner Printables
	SUPER SIMPLE CHRISTM… on Super Simple Christmas Crafts…
	Amanda Zalewski on Christmas Planner Printables

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.

Grace ❤

These free printable downloads are solely intended for personal use, and are not to be copied, redistributed, or sold in any way.

The images in the inserts are all my own artwork, so please do not copy, or distribute them. Additionally do not remove them from the original files. Changing the inserts to suit your size planner is fine but using the images for any other purpose is not.

I take no responsibility for anything that may happen to your computer, tablet, printer, printer paper, scissors, paper trimmer, any other object, item, or living creature, or life in general, after downloading and printing these inserts.

If you do use the inserts and share them on any form of social media, please either tag me or link back to this blog. Even if you resize them, they are still my original work. Plus I’d love to see what you do with them!