Quick & Easy: Turning Photos & Post Cards into Mats

This week I’m sharing how to use your most beautiful photos and post cards – instead of design paper – to mat your cards! It’s not only lovely, but also very quick & easy. Think last-minute birthday cards, Christmas cards, etc.

Check out the video below and share your thoughts with me in the comments! ☕️

A Deconstructed Envelope Card (+ 1 Quick Variation)

Here’s a free photo tutorial I did on Instagram, on a deconstructed envelope card. I designed it for a group of people who all wanted to write personal birthday wishes in one card. Simply click on the arrows in the IG post to browse through the tutorial pictures.

If you’d like more detailed instructions + the required measurements, check out the – very affordable! – downloadable PDF tutorial in my Etsy shop.

Also, check out the video below for a closer look!

And here’s the video, including a – much quicker – variation on this design:

Tutorial: This Micro Wallet is fun & easy to make!

This week I microfied a mini wallet design I’ve created several times some years ago. Because, you know, microfying stuff is Awesome 🙂 And of course I did a tutorial for you, see the YT video below!

But first, let me show you the overview, via my two Instagram posts::

And here’s the video, including a tutorial!

Of course I shopped my stash and used 3 pretty 6×6″ pads by the housebrand of a Dutch store.

And here are the two Stickles colors you see me using in the video.

Perfume Card Ideas

As you know by now – and if not, check out my previous post – I love to send my friends some tea over the mail. But I also figured out a way to send them some perfume, integrated into some new card designs. A little while ago I wrote some short blog posts on these three designs, but this week I’m not only summarizing them in a video, I’ve also filmed a short tutorial on one of the designs.

So check out three designs I came up with (thus far) to send people some fragrant love!

Tea Card Ideas

The past couple of months I’ve created several tea cards, i.e. cards in which I incorporate a bag of tea. I always enjoy making this type of card, because I love sending a ‘hug in a mug’ over the mail 🙂

I do try to come up with several different ways of sending said bags of tea, and I thought it might be fun for you if I shared my most recent ideas. So, I’ve summed them all up in the video below.
The video also includes two short, practical tutorials on my so-called integrated pocket technique.

If you want still more tea card ideas, check out all of my previous tea card posts.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!

Graphic 45 Time to Celebrate – 8 projects with only 1 collection

Lately I’ve been shopping my stash and decided to create some nice things with Graphic 45’s Time to Celebrate collection.

The seven most recent projects with this collection were all cards, but I decided to include a cute little micro booklet here as well, below the next Instagram post. I’ve really been enjoying these pretty colours!

Here’s the show & tell video on my YT channel:

And here’s the micro booklet. I created it several years ago, but I think it’s still cute 🙂

Do you have any all time favorite design paper collections? (and if so, go and Use Them! 🙂 )

Tea Card With Ribbon Belly Band

Broad ribbons can easily be turned into belly bands – or even pockets if you glue the bottom closed. In other words, they are perfect to hold a little tidbit, like a tag, a picture – or of course, if you’re like me, a bag of tea! Below the Instagram post you’ll find my step-by-step proces!

Here’s the double-sided sheet from Graphic 45’s lovely Bird Watcher colllection that I used:

And here’s my process:

Score a piece of 6×12″ cardstock to give it a 3/4″ gusset
Fold on the score lines
Mat the gusset (both sides) and the front. If you want to use decorative brads (like I have), fasten them first, before you glue down your matte.
For the inside, fold a broad ribbon around your matte, then glue the matte down and decorate.
Choose a nice flavour of fresh tea and create a little DIY tea label to write down the flavour.
Decorate the front of your card. (And also, matte the back – but I don’t have a separate picture for that 😉 )

And here’s the final result:

What do you think, would you consider using a ribbon as a pocket / belly band?

Gusseted Tea Card With Die-cut Sentiment & Pocket

Hello again my dear crafty readers! 🙋🏻‍♀️

It has been a while since I posted, for which I offer my apologies. This is partly due to time contraints and the overall ‘busy-ness’ of life, and partly because I’m more active on Instagram nowadays. Also, I don’t create as many projects as I used to. Nevertheless, I do still design and create colorful works of paper and will continue to share the inspiration.

So I thought I’d try a new way of sharing my projects with you, by linking to them from my Instragram. Please follow me there if you can, because at some point in the future Instagram and Youtube will probably become my two main ways of sharing my papercraft design projects.

For now however you can continue coming here, and I’ll embed either my Youtube videos or (if there is no video) my Instagram posts.

If you’re not familiar with Instagram yet: the tiny little dots on the bottom of the picture show that there is more than one picture for you to check out. You can click the little arrow on the right side of the picture to ‘swipe’ to the rest of the pictures.

Below the picture you find the description box, in which I’ll put some information about each project.

Let me know what you think!

Shopping my stash & making last-minute Christmas cards

Happy Holiday season everyone!

Let’s create some easy-to-make Christmas cards together: shop your stash (I did! 😃) and make good use of the tips, tricks & tutorials I’m sharing with you in the below videos! Let me know what you think in the comments.

Have a very merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Let beautiful images in your paper speak for themselves, you don’t have to add anything (or maybe just a little glitter glue, if you cannot help yourself 😇)
Decorating only the fronts of your cards is a great time saver!
Transparent texture paste is a great way to elegantly embellish patterned papers
Keep beautiful packaging and use it to create lovely cards, quick & easy!
Vertical tri-folds, or deconstructed envelope cards like this one, are perfect to keep large patterns intact

You can watch my free video tutorial for my deconstructed envelope card here:

Hope you found these tips & tutorials helpful, either for your Christmas cards or for any other occasion!

A Little Christmas Gift Box – With Your Own Dividers

Here’s a quick Christmas gift craft idea: mat and decorate a little box, create some dividers, and fill it up with small goodies, neatly divided! 😃 (short video embedded below)

My first Christmas card this year

There have been years that I’d finished all of my Christmas cards by September – having started as early as July – and heaps of them at that. (You can check them out here.)
But not this year. This year I’ve only just finished my very first Christmas card last week. What can I say, I’m not crafting as much as I used to – though one of my new year’s resolutions is More Crafting, so I remain hopeful. 😇

I have to say it was fun to create again, after many moons with hardly any papercrafting at all (except for the occasional card here & there, which I posted here, on my blog).

Here are my design steps:

1. I started by shopping my stash and I found this fresh & modern looking design paper by S.E.I., called Kris Kringle. It is no longer available, however I’m hoping it will inspire you – either to shop your own stash for some great finds, or to shop for similar design papers that evoke the same atmosphere if you like these specific papers.

2. Some baby blue cardstock became a nice base for the card, echoing the occasional light blue the design papers offered and off-setting the rest of the colors nicely.

3. I wanted a special card design so I decided on this slanted tri-fold shape and folded it ‘zigzaggingly’ (I don’t know the official term but I think you’ll catch my drift 😉 ).

4. One of my label dies came in handy to add a stamped sentiment to the front of the card.

5. Tri-fold shapes are always fun because they give you six panels to mat and play with your design papers! You’ll have to keep your embellishments flat however, otherwise your card won’t fit into its envelope. Stamping is a good option of course, as would be (heat) embossing or adding some ink sprays.

In conclusion

All in all I had fun, maybe even more than I expected. It was nice to think about a specific friend and design a card with them in mind. What shape hadn’t they seen from me yet, what colors would they like and what kind of sentiment would they appreciate. Happy thoughts to be pondering.

I’ve found again and again that tailor-making a craft project for a specific person adds an extra dimension of inspiration and fun to my craft projects. Maybe this can be the way forward for me – and who knows, perhaps for you too! – for the foreseeable future, to find some much needed inspiration again!

I might even do some video tutorials again on my Youtube channel (which I always embed on the blog too), so let me know if you’d like one for this type of card – or mini album insert of course, whichever might fit your needs best!