Flip books made of inkbox cards

Recently, I wanted to make a small flip book made up off collaged cards. I had in mind that I could sandwich two cards together with a hinge between to make pages. That’s all the detail I could imagine at first, but thought I would experiment and see what I could put together.

Where would the cards come from? I wanted something small-ish, so I thought inkbox cards would be great. What’s an inkbox card? They are 3 inches x 3 inches, about the same size as a Tim Holtz distress ink box. I guess that’s how they got their name. 

To make a whole lot of inkbox cards at once, the best thing to do is create a masterboard, which is a large collage that you then cut up in smaller pieces. I started my masterboard on a 12 inch x 12 inch piece from a paper pad.

With a pencil, I marked the grid lines three down, and three across, three inches apart. This left me with 16 squares. When I start to lay down papers, I keep in mind where those boundaries are. It helps later when I go to cut it up.

Here’s what it looked like when I completed the masterboard.

I created this over 3 days of several hours. I did it slowly, adding pieces before I was satisfied. I laid everything out before I glued it down.

Once it was done, I looked at it for a long time, taking in all the details. I decided if I needed more paper elements or some rubber stamping.

Next, I cut out the 16 squares using a rotary cutter.

They’re so pretty when they’re in a nice pile!

After that, I began to assemble the cards. I chose eight cards to make 2 books. I placed cards back to back and used a piece of tyvek material between to serve as a hinge. 

I forgot to take a picture of what it looks like before I put the pages together but here is the final result.

I used a piece of ribbon to cover the spine. 

To see more detail of how I made the books, I created a YouTube video on it here: