Inspiration: YouTube Tutorial from Pinkstrawberryz
Michelle has shared a cool tutorial at the beginning of the year showing how to make a paper wallet and I finally got around to circling back to it this weekend. I looked through my 12" x 12" papers and the Comme un air de printemps collection from KirelCraft (a company from France) quickly caught my eye. I am so pleased with how it turned out. I'm not usually big on florals but the soft watercolor look of this line really appealed to me, and having two-sided papers was really key to creating a beautiful wallet.
The other thing that made embellishing fast and easy was using my Planner Essentials dies on this one. I've used my dies from this serie a ton even though I don't do anything planner related. Because they are meant for planners, their size in on the smaller size, which made them perfect for this wallet. I was able to create this cute layered pocket and stick small items in it, all created with the dies as well. On the left side, I combined two dies and filled the opening created with vellum to mimick the identification pocket we often see in real wallets. I handcut a couple of butterflies from one of the patterned papers and used them to embellish the wallet as well.
On the front, I used eyelets and a 1" circle punch to create a closure, adding gold cord as well. I glued the word Happy, fussy cut from the cut-apart sheet. Frankly, I will never understand why French companies include English die-cuts in their lines. There are a million companies already offering English papers, I truly wish they would stick to French only for the French customers. Anyway... I did something similar on the back of the wallet: punched out the wreath from one of the cut-aparts and added a fussy-cut butterfly from the patterned paper. All butterfly wings were made sparkly using the Glitter Gloss aqua shimmer brush.
This was simple but very pleasing to make. I think Michelle designed this to send fun goodies in a swap, but I also think it could include tickets for stuff being done around the house (a fun idea with kids, who love creating those tickets), to send out money for a gift or to send out family pictures. This is what I'm leaning towards since we still have at least a few months of confinement ahead of us and my parents have not seen their grandkids in a long time. We do send out pictures via email, but I think they like having printed copies around the house as well.
I watched the first half of Michelle's videos, following the measurements and instructions to put together the base of the wallet and then I decided I could make a second pocket on top of the right one, but instead of gluing vellum like she had done, I decided to add a second piece of patterned paper. From that point on, the ideas started coming and I never went back to the tutorial, I just went where inspiration took me. So on the right, you can slip something inside the big pocket and also underneath the polka dot paper, which is only glued at the bottom and on the right edge. The three-slot pocket was backed with pink paper to create a lining and this piece was also glued with thin adhesive strip in order to make the top a pocket as well. Adding the various little ephemera pieces makes it more obvious where the pockets are. Same thing on the left side: the top of the vellum piece was left open so something can be slipped underneath and the vellum will let us see a bit of what's in there.
I would love to revisit this project and recreate it with another paper line. I bet the results would be drastically different just by using other products. I would also love to try with doing two score lines in the middle to give height to the wallet and make it so that it can be filled with thicker elements and still close properly. Mine closes well right now, but it has not been filled yet.
Supplies
Cardstock: Gold Rush (Lawn Fawn); Basic Grey, Vellum (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers: Un petit air de printemps (Béatrice Garni Illustration - KirelCraft)
Dies: Planner Essentials 1, 2, 4, 11, 21; Sidekick Essentials 11 (Elizabeth Craft Designs)
Accessories: Crop-a-Dile Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers); Gold Eyelets, Gold Cord,
1" Circle Punch, Blushing Bride Shimmery Ribbon, White Crinkled Ribbon,
Adhesive Strip, Stamp Mini Punch (Stampin' Up!)
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