Flippin' Fabulous Books!

Hi everyone, it's Annie here today with my first post as a member of the SJ Crafts Design Team!

Last weekend I had a lovely time trying out the new Teresa Collins Flip Book Album and I'm delighted with the end result! Here's a little peek ...

Front Cover with layered papers and embellishments from the 
Teresa Collins Daily Stories Collection in the February Kit 

These little books are SO cooool! The clever bit is all done for you, so all you have to do is add your photos and choose whether to keep it simple or embellish to heart's content ... guess which option I went for?!

The bare album is plain black, so would work with any photos, colour scheme and style you choose. To make my book, I decided to use the SJ Crafts February kit which features the Teresa Collins "Daily Stories" Collection - perfect! 

It's hard to see just how brilliant these albums are in a photo, so here is a little video of the Flip Book as it comes, along with the other ingredients I used ...

... and here's another little video showing you how my finished book turned out ...

Here are a couple more pics of the outside of the finished book and some tips and ideas on how to make one of these for yourself ...

Back Cover with an enamel butterfly highlight

Spine decorated with offcut and word sticker

The first thing I did was to work out how many photos I could fit in - I decided on 12 

... after working out roughly where they would go in the book ...

... I got started on the front cover ...

Being a frugal crafter, I "gutted" all the pieces of cardstock which made up the layers on my front cover, and I used the merchandising strips from the patterned papers as decorative borders - waste not, want not!

Here's an easy way to add a knotted ribbon ...

... just tie it in a loop like this, then snip it to the length you need and tuck the ends behind the card before adhering to the background ...

I layered up one of the cut-aparts, a die cut and some border strips, then added a photo of my happy husband and finished with enamel chevrons and a layered butterfly sticker - you wouldn't be able to add this much to the inside pages as it would interfere with the mechanism, but I felt I could go to town a bit on the front cover!

Then I moved on to the inside of my book ...

In the picture above, I've matted one of the patterned papers onto plain cardstock slightly smaller than the album page, then used the reverse of the patterned paper to matt the photo. Being frugal again, I cut the tag into two - saving the other piece to use on another page.

The photo mount was "gutted" as before, not just saving the inside piece to use somewhere else, but also cutting down on the overall thickness of the finished book. I used the extra-strong tape throughout this project, as it will be sent in the post and will need to stand up to quite a bit of handling. I always use a bone folder to burnish it down well, because this makes sure the tape is adhered firmly, and it makes the backing paper peel off more easily.

Another tip I find really useful is to just peel the backing tape part-way off, leaving the ends folded out to the sides as you can see above - then when you position it on the background it will allow a little movement to get it just where you want it ...

... and once you have it lined up perfectly, you can grab the ends and remove the backing tape!

I used a border punch on some of the offcuts of patterned paper and cardstock, using them to trim the facing pages ...

This clock face was a die cut from the kit - it was too white for my page, so I coloured it with Distress Ink in Antique Linen before attaching it to the patterned paper with one of the decorative brads. All the edges throughout the book were inked with Black Soot Distress Ink, because I hate to see raw edges!

I continued to work through the book like this, keeping embellishments very flat now on the inside pages but still using lots of layers ...

There are lots of patterns layered together in the pages above, but they all go together perfectly, finished with some ribbon, a little word diecut and an enamel dot.

In the page below left, I've used the other part of that tag I cut up earlier, as well as some more of the die cuts and cut-aparts. On the opposite page I was a bit crafty ...

... this tag was the right colours and I like the arrow, but it wasn't long enough and the word on it didn't fit my page - so, I cut it up, stretched it out and covered the offending word with an offcut of a contrasting paper - BINGO! - once I add the photo you won't see the join!

By now, my photos were getting bigger and the pages were getting smaller ...

... so I kept these pages very simple and just added some word stickers from the kit ...

Well, I think you can tell that I am totally smitten with these clever little flip books and I will definitely be doing some more - they would make lovely presents for Mothers' Day, or a Brag Book for Granny's handbag or a friends's birthday maybe.

They are available in two different sizes and you can Click Here to find them in the shop.

If you make one of these we'd love to see it - remember to leave a link in your comment or come and show 'n' tell on our Facebook page.

Cheerio for now.

Annie

Annie joined the S J Crafts Design Team last month. She regularly blogs over at her blog: Artyfarty Annie and she would love it if you popped over to say hi!