Author Archives: CraftKatie

Worlds Fair Gift Box & Goodies

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This week I’m sharing with you a great gift idea, especially if you’re a bit in a hurry to get something for someone because, say, you forgot to plan ahead… (just a random example, that’s not what happened here at all 🙄 ).

I don’t know about you but as a paper crafter I always have some wooden boxes in stock, because sometimes I want to cleanse my scrapbooking palate by working on an altered art project. So for this occasion I choose a medium-sized one, slightly over 4×6 inches (10×15 cm). The beauty of this size is that you can use large ATC cards or cutaparts of exactly that size, and many paper collections come with those. For this particular one I used the colorful Worlds Fair papers by Graphic 45.

I embellished with flowers, blings, die-cuts, stickers and chipboard pieces – some of which I made myself by backing up a sticker with chipboard. I filled up the box with chocolates and added a Worlds Fair card with my personal message. And done!

Hope you enjoyed this gift idea, have fun creating and see you next week!

 

 

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A Double-paged Keepsake Album

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I designed this new mini album around three criteria: its dimensions should be something like 15×15 cm (6×6″),  it should have two spines and each spine should hold its own set of pages.

My creative process ended up with me coming up with this 14.5×17 cm (5¾ x 6¾”) gatefold mini album, in the fresh colors of Kaisercraft’s Ubud Dreams collection – colors that remind me of the sea and small mediterranean villages 🙂 Which is why I’m dubbing this my Holiday Dreams keepsake album.
And guess what, Ubud turns out to be a town on the Indonesian island of Bali! Okay, so not the Mediterranean but still: Holidays galore 🙂

The album holds seven interactive page assemblies with all new page designs, four attached to the left spine and three to the right; the inside covers offer even more room for pictures.

If you can’t wait to make this album yourself, check out the (written) tutorial which is available in my Etsy shop. 🙂

NEW: There’s also a kit available at Photographs & Memories online webshop! This includes my tutorial at no additional cost!

Enjoy the video and pictures below and let me know what you think in the comment section! See you next week! :-).

 

Tri-shutter Birthday Card for a Guy

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Hi all!

Today I’m sharing another idea for a birthday card to send to a man in your life. As for its shape, it’s a so-called tri-shutter card. I cut this one with a special die (by Crealies), but you can cut these yourself as well, just check out my free video tutorial, which I’ll embed again at the end of this blog post for your convenience.

For decoration I used Oxford, a nicely colorful collection by Basic Grey with mostly masculine overtones. I also did some stamping: a circle-shaped Happy Birthday stamp on the front, and some smaller gift-wrapped presents on the other panels which I fussy-cut and then lifted with some dimensional tape. And last but not least a Kaisercraft birthday sentiment which I stamped in two colors on the center panel.

 

A tri-shutter card fits into a regular envelope
Kaisercraft sentiment stamp on the center panel, stamped in two colors

My video tutorial on how to make a tri-shutter card:

 

How to Gift an E-book as a Paper Craft Project

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Have you ever tried gifting an e-book to someone? If so then you know there’s not much fun to be had. You either give the person money or a gift card to buy it himself, or perhaps you email them a gift code. Or if you’re really making an effort, you find an online e-book vendor which allows you to buy a specific e-book for someone else. Which requires you to register at said vendor, which you may find very annoying.

Your purchase will then result in an email of the vendor to the recipient, or maybe a voucher will be mailed to you so you can email or print it. Pfff. Like I said, not much fun to be had. No gift wrapping, no happy anticipation before unwrapping the surprise gift, no happy squeals when the present is finally revealed. Welcome to the Digital Age.

Though we cannot change the digital nature of the e-book, we can make it more fun to gift an e-book to someone! The only thing you have to buy is a (physical) gift card that will allow the recipient to buy e-books. You’ll probably be able to buy those in several brick & mortar shops – so no registration required, no annoying emails received.

And then you’ll craft a very festive Mini File Folio like the one I’m sharing with you today, in which you’ll put your gift card and a nicely printed title & summary of the e-book(s) you have in mind for your recipient. And voila, there’s your Very Presentable present.

As an added bonus you’ll probable be able to gift them two e-books for the price of one physical book!

To whom are you going to gift an e-book this way? 🙂

 

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Birds in a Tree Tea Box

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Now and again I like to vary my craft technique and leave papercrafting for a short while to dabble in decoupaging. I use this technique mainly to alter wooden or porcelain objects, like gift boxes but also candles, coffee mugs and even a lamp!

Usually I paint such an object white or ivory first, so that the napkin’s colors will show clear & bright. With the tea box I’m sharing today however, I started decoupaging without painting it white first. This made for warm wood colors, and also caused the box title Thee (= Dutch for Tea) on the lid to show through nicely.

After adhering the parts of the napkin I wanted to use, I painted the rest of the box around them in a warm forest green and added some glitter accents. Of course I covered the whole thing with boat varnish to protect it from all things Liquid – a prudent measure if you’re anything like Clumsy Me 🙂

By the way, an altered tea boxes makes for a great gift!

 

 

 

Fun2craft: Two Box Cards

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A superfun type of card is the so-called Box Card. Its design has been around for quite some time I think, and I don’t know who originally came up with it. This kind of card looks like a box but behaves like a card, in that it is made from cardstock and fits perfectly into an envelope!
By the way, it’s in no way comparable to a so-called explosion box, of which you can view some examples here.

Using the richly colored Fly Free paper collection by Kaisercraft, I created two: one as a birthday card, the other as a New Baby card. If you like die-cutting, fussy-cutting and overall embellishing, this is an absolute Must Try for you! 🙂 To help you along check out my very affordable Tutorial #26, containing easy-to-follow instructions with 69 very clear pictures, which you can acquire here.

Have fun watching the video and do let me know what kind of box cards you would like to see, or for which occasions you have created one yourself! 🙂

 

 

 

Memories – A Fold-Out Folio Album (new design)

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One of my favorite kinds of mini album to make is what I call the folio album. As long as it’s closed it looks like an actual mini album, but when you open it… it turns out to be an intricate fold-out spread of photo mat real estate!

Cross-haired Memories Folio Album

With some folio album designs you’ll need some serious surface to show it off, like with my Cross-haired Memories Folio Album, which sports a whopping 3½ ft (1 m) diameter, but in most cases the spread will fit onto your dining room table, offering a unique chance to show off those great pictures you’ve been wanted to share, in one large overview.

This week I’m sharing a folio album of that fit-the-table category, my purse-like Memories fold-out folio album. I mostly used the lovely 2012 Almanac paper collection by Prima Marketing. It will hold at least 33 pictures sized 4×6″ (10×15 cm), which makes it a perfect size for a one-day-occasion photo shoot, like a birthday, an office party, your high school reunion, highlights of a wedding, baby’s first month (or so), and let’s not forget the family tree album!
Well, etcetera. 😉

And yes, there’s a tutorial for all of you who’d like to make this one! 🙂 It’s really not difficult to make and if you by any chance have purchased my Pouch-Paged Album tutorial and made it, you won’t need any new cardstock at all – for this Memories fold-out folio was especially designed working with the leftover cardstock from the Pouch-Paged Album! (big Yea for frugal crafting! 🙂 )

NEW: There’s also a kit available at Photographs & Memories online webshop! This includes my tutorial at no additional cost!

So enjoy the video and do let me know what occasion you think would be perfect for this Memories Fold-out Folio Album!

 

Card for a Guy with A Proper Gentleman

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This week I’m sharing a card for a guy – with some extra embellishment tips! I used Graphic 45’s wonderful A Proper Gentleman collection, which I still can’t get enough of 🙂

Enjoy the video!

 

Also check out my Man About Town sturdio album, which I made with the same paper collection!

 

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Free video tutorial: Doodle-fold Card

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Usually I’m quite structured and disciplined when it comes to designing and creating new papercraft projects. But sometimes I just like doodling around with some paper, and simply watch the magic happen in my hands while a project seems to create itself 🙂

This is how I created the cards, or perhaps more aptly card-letters, that I’m sharing with you this week. I was playing around with a piece of paper, randomly folding and turning it, until I decided to cut off some excess pieces and be done with it. I was surprised by the results!

So I decided to create a second one and do a process video tutorial for you all, to share my method – no measurements taken this time, for every such card will be unique. Hopefully you will enjoy creating your own just as much as I did creating mine.

Have fun watching the tutorial video and be aware that there is a second doodle-fold card I share at the end of it, so you’ll have two examples. Also, you can see both of them in the pictures below 🙂

 

 

Decoupaged Wooden Pencil Box

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This week a blog exclusive project, so no Youtube video 😉 .

I find that sometimes it’s quite refreshing to vary your techniques, it avoids a rut and it gives the opportunity to create something for someone who may be familiar with papercrafting but not decoupaging.

I had just such a case on my hands, so when I decided to gift a colleague a nice wooden pencil box for her coloring pencils and markers, I decoupaged it with napkins instead of decorating it with scrapbooking paper. She was completely taken by surprise for she had never even heard of this technique and wanted to know everything about it 🙂

The box itself was white, with a plain wooden lid that had The Pencil Box printed on top of it. I used an antique gold colored napkin for the lid without painting it white first, so the words on the lid would come through and remain visible. I decorated the top right corner with some flowers,…

 

… and the lower left corner with a fussy-cut napkin flower, to which I added several colors of glitter glue.

Napkin decoupaged all around, including the back of the box.

I embellished the front with a satin ribbon, through which I had put a crown brad first.

I left the insides of both the box and the lid plain.

And last but not least, I painted the bottom burgundy, but since that left the surface slightly sticky unexpectantly – as would decoupaging it with napkin – I matted it with a piece of design paper in coordinating colors instead.

In short a relatively quick-to-make gift idea, especially for paper crafting recipients who’ve seen it all – except not 🙂

 

 

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Nursery Gift: Cute Micro Album with Forest Friends

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When a new grandmother asked me to create one of my little micro albums as a nursery gift for her daughter, she wanted a modern, on-trend paper line, and “no pinks please!” – even though her grandchild was a baby girl. And why not, after all, practically every color looks cute on a baby and why should her granddaughter be limited to the most predictable one 😉 .

We settled on Scrapberry’s very cute Forest Friends. Not specifically a nursery collection I don’t think, but very fitting nonetheless with its soft colors and adorable little animals.

I created it after one of my own previous designs, the Fresh & Bright micro album – the tutorial of which is ready and waiting for you in my Etsy shop.

Have fun watching the video and please don’t forget to like this post before you leave! 🙂

Next: Check out my Baby Boy version!

Craft Until the Last Scrap!

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I’ve heard some scrapbookers say that they immediately throw out their leftovers once a project is finished, no matter how much paper real estate they would still be able to get out of it. I’m not one of them! 🙂  On the contrary, I challenge myself to have as little leftovers as possible in the end, so I keep creating until there’s only some last feeble imitation of a heap of little scraps left.

This card is one of such projects, created with the last remnants of my Be-You-Tiful papers, of which I only had a few sheets to begin with.

Hoping to inspire you to craft until the last scrap, so have fun! 🙂