From Chaos to Craft
Let’s be honest, the journey wasn’t always smooth. Picture this: two kids, a curious dog, and a basement room that often looked like a tornado had ripped through an art store. But amidst the chaos, something kind of cool happened.
We started creating animals that were jointed and could move! The boys could paint and then play with a turtle, a toad, a dolphin, or a dragon to their heart's content!
Crafting Magic
That’s when the magic really started. Animal by animal, we began to create what would eventually become the Totem Poppet animals. They were made from recycled chipboard, and you could buy your favorite color mini brads to put them together. Each one even had a write-up about the symbolism of the animal!
I took them to craft shows and conferences, helping hundreds of little kids make their own movable Totem Poppet animals. People loved them. And so did store owners!
But… I also kept hearing how they wanted to make something like the sample book I was displaying the Totem Poppet animals in…
Diving Deeper into the Craft World... :O From Toads to Tunnel Books and then Stop-Motion Movies!
We made lots of cool crafts with our Totem Poppet animals. You can explore all of these fun how-tos and tutorials on our blog. But it soon became apparent that they needed a home.
I began cutting and creating layer upon layer of beautiful, intricate pages for the ocean Totem Poppet animals. We were really into Octonauts at the time, and soon we were exploring the levels of the oceans. The resulting book told a story in a way no ordinary book could. The kids loved it, and honestly, so did I.
Every page was an adventure, every tunnel a portal to a new world. My boys would play with the creatures and the books, imagining themselves in the scenes we created—and they even started using them to create movies of their own! They started using the designs to create stop-motion animations. And somewhere between trying futilely to clean up glitter and wash “Indian War Paint” off the dog’s face, I realized we had stumbled onto something special.
And so, the 3D Tunnel Book art and craft kits were born! We turned our love for nature and storytelling into a series of intricate, layered scenes that could transport you to another world with each turn of the page.
What started as a quest to keep toads out of the living room turned into a creative adventure that we couldn’t wait to share with others.
Each 3D Tunnel Book became a story in itself, a miniature world that you could explore, build, and personalize
