Author Archives: CraftKatie

Christmas gift idea: A Paper Craft Skin for Your Gadget

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I don’t know about you but I love my gadgets. I’m always online and have various devices that I work with. I always love to personalize these devices, and no doubt you’ve seen or owned your share of cases, sleeves, bumpers and what not yourselves.

Today I’m sharing yet another way of personalizing a smart device: skin it, and use pictures of your own craft projects to make it really You!

Or, and here’s a Christmas gift idea, design a skin for someone else! You’ve probably made cards or mini albums with beautiful sentiments or very pretty design elements. Why not turn a picture of such a lovely detail into a skin for your best friend’s favorite smart phone to say Thank You, or Happy Birthday – or even I Love You 🙂

There are many companies out there that can create skins for any gadget you may have in mind, except perhaps the very ancient ones. You can think smart phone, tablet, ereader, but also laptop and game controller.

They are fairly easy to adhere to your gadget – and very removable too if you’re totally done looking at it – and that’s why I’m demonstrating how to apply a skin in this video. I’m working with my own iPad Mini, which I skinned with a detail of my Treasured Memories Keepsake Album Deluxe.

There’s a new paper craft skin for my phone in the making as well, and although it hasn’t arrived yet I’ll post the screenshots below, so you get a second version to hopefully inspire you. I’ll also post pictures of the original projects on which I based the skins.

And last but not least, if you want to see still more skinned devices, and even an extra video tutorial, check out an earlier blog post of mine, over at my – somewhat sleeping – other blog Comics and Gadgets.

Hope you enjoy it, and hope you’ll find it inspiring! See you next week!

 

Original project: Treasured Memories Keepsake Album:


iPad Mini – skinned with the Forever Memories project:

 

Original project: Step Card ‘Deeply Loved’:


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Thanksgiving idea: Six Tiny Thank You Cardlets

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SInce it’s almost Thanksgiving (which we don’t celebrate in the Netherlands, but still 😉 ) I’m sharing a Thank You project with you all today.

If you’re in need of a way of showing your gratitude to someone, why not create a personalized little card?
For instance, recently I changed departments so I said goodbye to some colleagues. I made them each a unique and personalized Thank You notelet. I worked with four different paper collections: Mariposa (DCWV), Craftsman (Prima), A Proper Gentleman (Graphic 45) and Spring (Precious Marieke).

Needless to say my colleagues really enjoyed them 🙂 Hope you find this idea inspiring and create lots of them yourselves! 🙂

Enjoy the video and stay crafty, see you next week!

 

Two masculine-themed cardlets for the guys in my team:

 

Personalized Treasure Chest for a Man

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Little boxes and chests are great gifts for guys, for you can alter them any way you like to give them a masculine look & feel. Some time ago I altered a little chest with the Craftsman paper collection by Prima Marketing. Today I’m showing you the same basic chest – looking completely different!

This time I used Cold Country papers by 7 Dots Studio, a gorgeous collection in cool gray, black and violet tones. I stamped a sentiment onto the top tag and adhered a photo of our team to the other side – for this was a Goodbye & Thank You gift for our (now former) boss. I also diecut his initials and stamped them with tiny ‘Bedankt’ sentiments – which is Dutch for Thank you.

Like with the Craftsman edition, I also included a refrigerator magnet – neatly kept in place by the magnetized right side of the box. This time it said Thank You So Much.

The ‘real’ present was a group gift: as a group we added a gift card, which fit neatly into this mini chest.

Enjoy the video, thank you for liking & subscribing! You can also follow me on Pinterest.

 

How to Create a Step Card

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Recently I showed you a new step card I created, and today I’m sharing a little video tutorial on how to create one yourself.

In the first 2 minutes I’m showing you a finished and fully decorated step card, the rest of this 7 minute video contains the tutorial.
Please be aware that I created this card with a step card die (by Crealies); you can of course also cut & score everything yourself, but that is not included in this video tutorial.

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Thank you for liking and subscribing, have fun crafting and see you next week!

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Enjoying the Little Things – A Miniature Display

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Hi guys,

Today I’m sharing a blog only project with you all, so no video this time. Several pictures though, so check it out!

Recently I created a little display with a picture of one of my aunts. It’s made of chipboard and cardstock, but is very sturdy nonetheless and can stand all on its own. It sports design paper on all sides and some cute little embellishments on the inside.
For this particular one I used some Mariposa paper by DCWV.

These little frames are very cute and are a great way to use up all of your leftover pieces of chipboard and paper. On top of that, they make awesome little personal gifts! Because they won’t take as much time as, say, a mini album, and I find them perfect for rainy Sunday afternoons 🙂

Check out the pictures below, and if you’d like to create some yourself, check out the (affordable)  tutorial!

See you in a couple of days with a video post again – until then, stay crafty! 🙂

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Keepsake Album Reprised: Mariposa 2nd Edition

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A lady from India asked me to create a second version of my Butterflies & Stars Keepsake Album Deluxe – thank you Ayushi, it was a great project to recreate! 🙂

I didn’t have the stars papers anymore, so I had to make some adjustments and turned this second edition into a 100% Butterflies version.

Two years after creating the first edition of this album, I’m still amazed at how gorgeous DCWV’s Mariposa paper collection is, and its high quality papers are a dream to work with (once you get over cutting into them 😉 )!

If you like this kind of album, check out my other keepsake albums as well! And in case you’d like to create one yourself, a tutorial for a similar kind of album (except for a slightly different page design) is available in my Etsy shop.

 

Fun little micro wallet / mini album page insert

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Part of the fun of creating mini albums is to design and create a myriad of nooks & crannies for your album to tuck all kinds of niceness into. You could use those spots for tags, photo mats, folded cards for journalling, etc. etc. To add to your inspiration for these kinds of bonus projects for your mini albums, I’m sharing a fun little micro wallet with you today.

You could of course also use it as an alternative card – just put it into an envelop and send it on its merry way 🙂

For this particular booklet I took my inspiration from one of Kathy Orta’s designs, so if you’d like to create one yourself you can check out her tutorial.

Anyway, here’s my version – with papers by Colors Unlimited.

My other Colors Unlimited Red projects:

  1. Birthday Card in Red, White and Black
  2. Photo Wallet Birthday Card

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Three Double Layout Cards with Raining Cats & Dogs

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After two projects (a mini album and a tea box) I’m still in love with working with Graphic 45’s beautifully colored Raining Cats & Dogs paper collection. So I created three cards with this same collection – the 4th of October was, after all, World Animal Day, so hey. 😉

All cards are (what I call) double layout cards, which have layered layouts both on the front and on the inside. Of course you can’t put too much bulk on the inside, but the collection offers plenty of non-bulky ephemera as well, like chipboard, die-cut flowers and tags & pockets.

So here we go, with two dog-themed cards and one aimed at cat lovers. Hope you feel inspired! 🙂

 

 

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8×8 Mini Album: Lucky Dog

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The challenge I set myself for this months mini album was to design an 8×8″ album that would perfectly accomodate a Graphic 45 collection. So not just the design paper, but also the many extras that come with such a collection: the journalling cards, flowers, chipboard pieces, stickers, tags and pockets. One of my main goals was to use as little 12×12-sized design paper as possible. And I succeeded (yea!), for I only used 1 sheet of 12×12 design paper, namely for the back cover!

I also wanted to create a wire-bound mini, for I hadn’t done one of those in a while and there are certain advantages to the page design: you don’t have to create pocket pages for there is no hidden hinge binding. And this means: less bulky!

So I got to work with my Raining Cats and Dogs collection – what a glorious color scheme, and what a treat to see a nineteentwenties translation of a pets theme! Also, you can turn your scraps into awesome scrap mats, and in this blog post‘s free video tutorial I show you how to do that.

Since I created this particular album for my mother – with her dog as the main subject of the album – I can show video footage of the album both with and without pictures, so you can get an idea of how pictures could be incorporated in this design.

There’s a tutorial waiting for you in my Etsy shop – I hope you’ll like it, for this album sports many new page designs!

Enjoy the video and pics below, and see you soon!

 

 

Explosion Box for a Man – Still in Love

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Recently a lovely lady ordered a customized explosion box as a gift for her beloved, to celebrate their love. Today I’m sharing the end results with you, for not only is this the first love-themed explosion box I created, it’s also the first that is intended for a man!

It’s a two-layer explosion box, created out of cardstock and decorated with the Natural paper collection by DCWV. It has several quotes and sentiments about love and family; some I came up with myself, based on what she shared with me about her beloved and their relationship. Others were copied from the Heirloom sticker sheet by Kaisercraft, which is a great source of inspiration for projects about family.

In the center of the explosion box is a tiny wooden treasure chest, super cute, that I altered with papers from the same Natural stack, on top of a copper-colored paint base.

If you feel inspired to create one yourself but don’t know where to start, check out my explosion box tutorial in my Etsy shop, based on my Explosion of Joy version. As a bonus, this tutorial covers a three-layer explosion box, so that’s a whole extra layer compared to this one!

Enjoy the video!

 

Curly die by Crealies:

These tags were made with some tag die sets by Crealies:

Raining Cats & Dogs Tea Box from Chipboard

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For World Animal Day I thought it would be fitting to show a project I created with Raining Cats & Dogs, a lovely, richly colored design paper by Graphic 45.

From chipboard I created a little box that I filled with Original First Tea, which comes in its own little boxes. They fit perfectly into my little gift box. And of course I added a matching birthday card as well!

No video this week, just some lovely pictures. Enjoy, and please like, subscribe and feel free to share them on Pinterest or other social media.

Stay tuned this month, for I’ll be sharing at least two other Raining Cats & Dogs projects the following weeks! If you like what you see below, then click here for a double card I created with this gorgeous paper.

Matching birthday card, created to fit into this little box:

Removable tiny birthday cardlet:

Back of the card:

Filled up with tea:

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A Micro Folio for Your Handbag

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What’s fascinating about the Oxford collection by Basic Grey is that while at first glance it has a mostly masculine feel, when you take a closer look some of the sheets are of a more feminine persuasion as well!

So this time I used it to create a little project for myself, instead of a male friend or relative 🙂 . This micro folio is perfectly suited to carry your most current & precious pictures with you in your handbag. You could also turn it into a micro portfolio representing your most important projects – like I have. It’s small, flat, magnetized and offers room for at least 11 pictures!
It’s also very easy to make, as you can see in the video.

So enjoy, and let me know for which kind of photos you would love to create a micro folio!

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