Author Archives: CraftKatie

Double-Stacked Too Mini Album

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One of my past mini albums was called Double-Stacked, because of the way the pages were bound into the album. Here’s a picture, and you can check out the show & tell video here.

Anyway, I thought it was time for a sequel 🙂 ! It’s called Double-Stacked Too, which seemed a fitting word play for a second iteration of a design, and I’m very happy to show it to you this week.

It’s all about your vacation pictures: chances are you have many of them, and don’t know how to display them without having to stick them in an enormously bulky album, or have them fade into forgetfulness after a quick browse on the small screen of your smart phone. Well, if you can relate to this, I may have designed the perfect album for you! For this piece is of a modest size, isn’t bulky at all and can still hold at least 80 of your printed pictures. More if you add some photo collaging into the mix, as I have.

There’s a tutorial waiting for you in my shop of course, about which I have a great announcement: this is a video tutorial series, instead of a written manual! I’m so happy that I finally found a way to create one and make it available to you all. It’s still an experiment though, it may very well be that I’ll be coming up with more sophisticated ways of offering these in the future. But I wanted to get it out there as soon as I could, which I’m glad I was able to!

The way this works is, you make the purchase in my Etsy shop. You then get the (written) pdf companion tutorial, plus instruction on how to get the video tutorial. Please note that you will need a Google account, as I’ll be sharing the files through Google Drive.

Gosh, I’m so happy with this I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you will like it too, enough to support me by purchasing the tutorial. I’ll be counting how many of you will make a purchase, to help me decide whether I should continue with video tutorials or not. You can of course also leave a comment below to let me know anything you’d like to share about this, or the album, or basically anything you like 🙂

I’ll post a show & tell video here as soon as I can. Meanwhile, enjoy the pictures, and of course the video tutorial available in my shop.

Tutorial: Two Mailable Minis (and a photo card)

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Sometimes you want to mail someone more than just a card, especially if they’re far away and you still want to give them something special. Well, meet my Mailable Mini! This is a great way to send an elaborate all occasions card-slash-mini-album.

The two examples I’m sharing with you today are a birthday version and a commemorative version. One for a man, the other for a woman (my aunt) but filled with pictures of a man (my late uncle). So for both I used the masculine themed Barbershoppe collection by Kaisercraft. For my aunt, I used more feminine embellishments plus a rose paper on the back, for the man, I left it at clean and straight as possible, with of course a little bit of technique – in the form of a magnetized closure.

If you want to make one yourself but don’t know how, there’s a tutorial in the second half of the video. I’m also gladly referring you to my free video tutorial on matting, so enjoy!

Decorating your own nails – with papercraft supplies?!

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Here’s part 1 of what will probably become a new monthly or bi-monthly Nail Art series – hopefully – or else at least Attempted nail art…). Anyway, this week’s video offers you a nail art tutorial, using not just nail polish but also some of my scrapbooking supplies like blings, flatback pearls, and even glitter glue. Because, why not 😉

I’m also showing you my secret to doing your left hand (when right-handed; and vice versa): use press-on nails with a very strong nail glue. These will last you 7-10 days and are a lot more budget-friendly than a monthly visit to a nail salon.

My goal is to learn more and more sophisticated techniques, delivering better art every time I try my hand at it. I’ll leave it up to you guys to be the judges of my progress…

Hope you’ll enjoy joining me on this new venture – this is just a bonus by the way, this will stay a papercraft blog 🙂

Leave a comment below, and click the thumbs up if you like the new experiment 🙂

Summer Album Box Set

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Tadaaa, it’s finally here: my Summer Album Box Set! I started working on this somewhere in March, presented the first of the two minis in April, and shortly after that fell into the Abyss of Crafter’s Block. But now I’ve re-surfaced and I’m proud to present to you the finished project!

For the accompanying 4-tutorial set, check out Tutorial #45 in my webshop. You get a lot of bang for your buck, for you get 170 pages and almost 400 (!) very clear pictures guiding you through the steps, for all of you visual learners. Of course a supply list is provided as well, plus links to my video tutorials showing you techniques you can use while creating this album set yourself.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Craft Life Update & Video Tutorial

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Hello everyone!

So I’m back after a 3-month hiatus… Check out my update, and also my latest project, two tri-fold cards with Studiolight’s Celebrate Spring papers – which I’m not just sharing with you but also showing you how to make at the end of this video!

Guest designer project: Gift Card Mini Folio

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Hello everyone,

Today I’m very happy to share another Guest Designer project for Crealies again!

This time I designed a completely new Mini Photo Folio which also functions as a gift card holder. This mini folio will hold at least 12 pictures so it’s a great little gift for anyone! I decorated with several awesome Crealies products, like layered flower die-cuts, a mini envelope holding a mini message card and their latest small-yet-detailed mini leaves stamps.

I used a mediterranean-themed paper collection, which would be great for your vacation pictures. Of course you can make one for any occasion imaginable, especially if you add an actual gift card to Crealies’s cool gift card slider diecut. Think wedding, birthday, new baby, masculine, Easter, back to school, heritage, etc. etc.

The folio is an exerpt from a more elaborate new mini album design of mine, which I already showed you in my previous blog post. For a complete list of the Crealies products I used, click here.

So, enjoy the video and pictures below! Feel free to leave comments and tips or ask any questions.

As always, it has been a pleasure to design with Crealies products. 

Enjoy the video and pics below and feel free to leave a comment!


A One-Hinge Mini Album + Some Updates

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Perhaps you’ve noticed by now that I haven’t posted weekly videos for a little while anymore. I’m still trying to post something on the blog, but there isn’t always video footage to accompany it. The reason is that for the last 8-9 months my focus has been elsewhere: my health. I’ve worked hard at getting healthy and as a result also lost 31 kilos (68.3 lbs) of weight! I may do a vlog episode on how and why I did that, if anyone is interested.

Anyway, that meant a new obsession, and as a result less time and energy to spend on papercrafting. Be that as it may, I’m still working on designing new projects, albeit slower and less frequently.

Like the one I’m sharing this week: it’s a special design of mini album, with a deep box pocket and only ONE hinge for the three pages. It’s part of a larger design, an actual 2-album box set, but I haven’t finished that yet.

For this first of the two albums I used Studiolight’s Celebrate Spring paper collection, including their usual accompanying punch-outs and die-cuts, which are great decorations. I also used leftovers from several other paper collections, since the dimensions of the album (12 x 14.5 x 6.5 cm / 4 3/4 x 5 3/4 x 2 1/2″) allowed me to make good use of the relatively small scraps of those other papers.

Enjoy the video and pictures, and do leave a comment below this post if you feel so inclined! 🙂

Tutorial: How to Change the Color of Your Earrings

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This week I’m sharing a different kind of creative project: how to use your alcohol inks to change the colors of your acryllic or plastic earrings. This little hack is very handy to know and use, especially if you’re having an accessorizing crisis and are in a bind 🙂

So here we go, check out the video! The only thing you’ll need is 1 or more alcohol inks – and your earrings of course.

1-Layer Explosion Box with only 2 sheets of design paper

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Up until now my explosion boxes had always had at least two layers of decorated cardstock, oftentimes even three. This week however I’m sharing a different kind of explosion box:

  • it has only one layer;
  • it only needs two sheets of double-sided design paper to make and decorate

The two sheets I used were from the Vintage Circus collection by Scrapberry’s, which has beautiful muted tones, giving it a vintage yet colorful atmosphere. I decorated with fussy-cut bits from the design paper – and, I admit, a tiny little bit of colored cardstock to diecut some curls.

In its center it sports a tiny paper box with some birds and butterflies ‘flying away’ from it, and in its center there’s a ‘floating’ micro book with some actual pages!

So there’s an idea for an alternative birthday card, which mine is going for. You can’t mail it of course, you’ll have to hand it out yourself – but that only adds to the fun! 🙂

If you’d like to make one yourself, I offer a very elaborate pdf tutorial with dozens and dozens of clear pictures in my webshop.

Quickscrap Project: Springtime Tag / Bookmark

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Spring is coming, and although it’s still howling and storming with raging winds and rain here in the Netherlands, I already pruned my apple & pear trees and the first daffodils are blooming in my garden 🙂

So, time to take my Celebrate Spring collection by Studiolight and create something happily colorful. I created a relatively large tag, using some papers, diecuts and cut-aparts. The butterfly is a Prima butterfly made from white fabric, which I sprayed and inked myself.

Since this tag was going to function as a bookmark, I made sure to keep everything as flat as possible. The only little bit of dimension I used was near the top edge, since that would be sticking out from a book 🙂

And since it would also go with a birthday gift to my friend, I gave it a birthday theme on both sides!

Fancy more of my under-1-hour Quickscrap projects? Click here, where you’ll find them all!

Two Shutter Card Wallets

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You’ve probably seen a tri-shutter card before – and if not, check out mine here, here and here 😉 – but this week I’m showing you a different kind. This one is Bigger & Better, and it has actual chipboard covers! 😃 It offers room for 10 wallet-sized pictures and/or journalling spots, and is an ideal birthday card to give in person.

Tutorial available!

Check out the video and pictures below to see what it looks like, and don’t forget to like & subscribe to my blog if you don’t want to miss any of my weekly posts.

Get my vintage shabby chic printable label here!

How to Attach Small Metal Embellishments (Tutorial!)

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There are several ways of attaching metal decorative pieces to your projects. Depending on the size and weight of your element, you can use glue dots, Ranger’s Glossy Accents, or several kinds of adhesive pastes, used mainly in mixed media projects.

Or, you can use my way 🙂 Which is using jewelry glue!

Check it out in the short video tutorial below, and you’ll see the advantage when compared to glue dots, especially when you’re working with hollowed-out embellishments – like me in the video.

Enjoy! Let me know in the comment section below if you have any questions.