Author Archives: CraftKatie

My North Country Christmas cards

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As I stated in my previous post, it’s never too early to create Christmas cards! 🙂

I used the 8×8 inch North Country paper pad and created 26 fairly large Christmas cards. I used different techniques, like die-cutting, stamping, layering, ribbons and of course my scrap mats. This older Prima collection doesn’t seem to have been used a lot, if the very small number of Youtube videos on it are any indication. So here’s my contribution to this apparently very small collection of North Country projects 🙂

Hopefully this helps you find some inspiration to create your own!
Happy crafting! 🙂

My first X-mas project of the year

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One can never be too early to create their Christmas cards, so let’s kick off with my first card this year! 🙂

It’s a silver & pink winter-themed gatefold card of 5 1/8 x 5 1/8 inch, tied closed with a cute pink ribbon. The paper that I used is by a nameless Dutch brand, which I bought a couple of years ago in one of our home decor shops. Very affordable, so a lot of bang for your buck! 🙂

This is also an entry for Challenge #221 on the Dutch Card Lovers challenge blog, so I’ll translate this post into Dutch as well 🙂


Je kunt niet vroeg genoeg aan je kerstkaarten beginnen, dus hierbij mijn persoonlijke startschot van het kerst- en nieuwjaarskaartenseizoen! 🙂

Deze zilver & roze winterkaart is 13×13 cm en heeft klapdeurtjes die met een bijpassend lintje zijn dichtgestrikt. Het papier is merkloos, gewoon van de Xenos – lekker betaalbaar en toch leuk! 🙂

Met dit kaartje doe ik trouwens mee aan Challenge nr. 221 op het Dutch Card Lovers challenge blog – spannend! 🙂

I used pink glitter glue around the edges of the paper and strengthened the ribbon holes with glittered gray eyelets. / Roze glitterlijm langs alle randjes en een glittergrijze eyelet om de gaatjes te verstevigen waar het lint doorheen gaat.

Opening the card reveals a small, border-punched pocket that holds a tag, matted with white cardstock to write your personalized Season’s Greetings. / Als je de deurtjes van de kaart opent kom je bij een smalle pocket, afgewerkt met een randpons. In de pocket een roze tag, met daarop stevig wit papier voor je persoonlijke kerstboodschap.

I used the same pink glitter glue around the edges of the tag again. There’s also a cute little pink bling brad, just for fun! / Dezelfde roze glitterlijm siert ook de randen van de tag. En: er zit een gezellig bling splitpennetje voor de afwerking – ook roze natuurlijk! 🙂

And for a nice finish, I matted the back of the card as well. / En voor een mooie afwerking ook designpapier op de achterkant van de kaart.

Stay crafty, see you next project!
Blijf lekker creatieven, en tot het volgende project! 🙂

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New Design: A Micro Explosion Box!

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So, I have this thing: I can’t throw away paper. Any paper. Not even scraps, unless it’s the smallest of slivers.

As you may know, whenever you create an explosion box, you’ll have these squares of paper scraps left over. And of course I can’t throw those away either. So instead of adding them to my ever growing pile of Still-Useful-For-Some-Future-Project-Scraps, I decided to design a new project to use them.

And here it is! I’m happy to present you with the simplest, also cutest, of projects: a micro explosion box!

Materials needed: Five scraps of cardstock of about 10 x 10 cm (4 x 4 inches). And some very small pictures. That’s all! 🙂

Thank you for letting me know what you think by leaving a comment below, or by liking this post.

 

 

WonderFall – a 42-Layout Cinch Mini!

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Remember the little autumn-themed ultra mini album I showed you a couple of blog posts ago? I had created it with the leftover scraps of a larger, regular-sized mini album that I was working on. Well, I’ve finished that one and I’m very happy to share the results! 🙂

This 6×6 mini album is Cinch-bound, it has TEN page assemblies with 42 (!) photo layouts, a lot of diecuts by me, plus a lot of extra embellishments. The page construction was very very simple, so I’ve incorporated a short page tutorial as well.

The paper collection I used is Autumn Song by Bo Bunny – of which I totally forgot to film a walkthrough before I started the project, but there’s a link to Amazon below should you be interested in this collection, which is absolutely gorgeous and perfect for this time of year!

This mini album is all about Shalem, my French lop who passed away two years ago. So I decorated the front cover of the album with a picture of him, but before I had the photo printed, I did some digital editing first! I cut Shalem from his original background (the grass in my garden) and then pasted him into a fantasy fall landscape that I found on the internet somewhere. In the lower right corner I digitally wrote his name and dates of birth/death. So before we go to the video, here’s a close-up of the album’s front cover:

So enjoy the video and please leave a comment to let me know what you think! Also, click the Like button…. 😉

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Altered object: Colorful Life treasure box

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Although I love working on 100% paper projects, I sometimes like to add a little variation to my routine. So when my mother asked me to alter a little plain wooden box she had, I jumped at the opportunity.

Since her sense of style is very modern, I chose to work with DCWV’s The Colorful Life paper. This is a remarkable paper line, which I have used before and that features some of the paintings by Donna Estabrooks – which was extra fitting for this project, since my mother likes to paint as well. 🙂
It’s an older paper line so it may be a little harder to come by, but on the other hand, once you do find it somewhere, you’ll probably get a discount…

For this cute wooden box (that I bought), I used four sheets of the 4×6 inch mat pack of this collection. I cut them to size, inked around the edges with Tim Holtz’s Black Soot distress ink en glued them onto the wooden box – which I painted first in a color that coordinated with my design paper. Of course I removed all metal ware first, as well as the box’s handle.

Very easy to do and will leave you with a lovely Sunday afternoon of crafting 🙂 And here’s the result: a colorful, stylish and modern little treasure box.

 

You can subscribe to my blog via email or through Bloglovin’, go to the Homepage and check out the subscription options on the right. It’s free! 🙂

 

 

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Stylish micro tri-fold card

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Although I’ve done my share of larger mini albums, and also created an XL card, I really love my micro projects as well. Recently I made a tri-fold cardlet, teeny-tiny and supercute. I aimed for a modern, stylish feel. The birthday lady for whom it was intended, while very feminine, was not of the girly-girly pink stuff persuasion 😉

I chose DCWV’s Immortal Love paper, and got to work with some cardstock, some glitter glue, a couple of stamps and a single brad. Of course I inked around all of the edges with distress ink: Black Soot by Tim Holtz.

A small word of warning in case you want to create one yourself: this is not a so-called quick-scrap that you can create last-minute when you’re in a hurry. Although it’s very easy to make, the use of glitter glue requires a lot of drying time that you’ll have to take into account when planning your project. Just saying 😉

Anyway, here’s the pictures!

Closed – A blinged-up belly band is keeping the little tri-fold closed. It measures about 4 x 6 cm (appr. 1.5 x 2.5 inches)

Open

Front panel – I used two different colors of Tim Holtz’s distress ink to stamp a rose on the front. I used sticky embossing powder by Ranger to turn the image into a glued surface, which I then sprinkled with Tim Holtz’s Clear Rock Candy distress glitter.

Left inside panel – I stamped ’46’ with black ink (the birthday girl’s age), which I then traced with red glitter glue. Simple, and gives a great effect!
Middle inside panel – I used red glitter glue to trace around the panel. Once the glitter glue had dried, I could write my birthway wish with a silver metal marker.
Back panel – No extra embellishments, this piece of paper was gorgeous enough in and of itself!

Left outside panel (turning the card over) – I stamped Handmade for you and traced the pattern of the paper with red glitter glue.

Middle outside panel – First I stamped Birthday Wishes onto a tiny tag I had created from a piece of design paper. I used red glitter glue to trace the edges of the tag. I used a silver-colored brad to attach the micro tag to another piece of design paper that I had cut to size. Only then did I mat the panel with the completed assembly.

 

So, this was my micro project, hope you liked it and got some inspiration from it! See ya again soon, with a new video post! 🙂

 

 

Four Gentleman’s Cards & A Lady’s

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Sometimes I challenge myself to get as many projects out of 1 or 2 sheets of paper as I can (while still liking them). Recently I took two 12×12 inch sheets of the Best of Paisleys stack by My Mind’s Eye and some coordinating cardstock, and got to work.

I managed to create five birthday cards with the materials and I still have some leftovers, so I was quite pleased with that harvest.

I tried some new designs, including two “fashion-themed” cards, for which I found some tutorials on Youtube. So, hoping to inspire you, here’s the video!

Autumn Time Ultra Mini Album (with pictures!) + page tutorial

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Hi guys & gals!

Well, you’re here, at the final part of September Mini Album Month on my blog! (which simply means I uploaded a mini album video every Sunday this September, instead of the usual once a month). In case you missed the other three, just start here and work your way back up to here 😉

This ultra mini album is a bit smaller than the other ultra minis I’ve created so far. It’s completely of my own design – a design that is actually so simple that I included a short but sufficient tutorial in the video below.

What was new for me was the layout technique: I filled the mini album with pictures, then added all kinds of cuteness like diecuts, brads, dimensional stickers etc. So hardly any interaction, no pockets, no tags – instead, lots of embellishments and decorations, on a foundation of Bo Bunny’s gorgeous Autumn Song collection.

Since this is the final part of Mini Album Month, I also included an overview of all four mini album projects of this month. I really enjoyed showing you a mini album every week, and I really hope you did too! 🙂

 

Desert Flower Micro Album

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Welcome to part 3 of September Mini Album Month on my blog! (i.e. I’m uploading a mini album video every Sunday, instead of the usual once a month). We started off with a sweet baby girl mini, followed in the second week by a boy’s ultra mini album which I dubbed Natural History Adventure. Both are fun minis so please check them out if you’re in need of some inspiration!

This week it’s a new micro album I designed and created. I’m defining a micro album as a fully functional miniature mini album. These are soooo cute and, moreover, such an ideal way to use up your leftover pieces of paper, that I don’t think I’ll ever stop creating them 🙂 This one’s even tinier than my Little Miss micro album!

The paper is DCWV’s Serenity, a gorgeous paper line that I’ve used in several of my projects – I’ve in fact started to call it my ‘never-ending paper collection’, because of the endless number of projects I seem to be able to create with it. Curious? Just click here to see for yourself 🙂

Anyway, I love how it has turned out, and of course I’d like to share it with you all!

DCWV - Serenity

A Natural History Adventure Ultra Mini Album

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Hello, and welcome to part 2 of September Mini Album Month on my blog! (which simply means I’ll upload a mini album video every Sunday, instead of the usual once a month). We started off Mini Album Month with a sweet baby girl mini – if you’ve missed it, you might wanna catch up 😉

This week it’s all about the ultra mini album I created for the son of my colleague & friend, who would be turning ten soon and his mother wanted him to have his very own 10-year-old’s-mini. She told me that of all the things he liked, he loved animals, nature, sea shells, and Minecraft the most. A fun challenge for me, for I had to imagine myself a little boy and try to answer the question: what kind of mini would I like?

I came up with an album that fit the ultra mini album category, by which I mean a type of album that sits right between the regular mini album and the micro album, both in size and complexity. Bo Bunny’s Trail Mix collection perfectly fit the natural history theme I had in mind.
By the way, I’ve shown you an ultra mini album some blog posts ago, so check it out for a Flora & Fauna-themed one.

For your convenience I included tutorials for the basic construction of the pages of this mini, so stay tuned for those in the second half of the video.

Last but not least: during the page tutorial I mention the magnet closure and ribbon pull fairly briefly, based on the assumption that you guys already know how to create those. If you don’t, however, I recommend one of my earlier tutorials, where I go over them step by step.

Have fun and let me know what you think!

 

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Sweet New Baby Girl mini album

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Welcome to September Mini Album Month on my blog:
I’ll upload a mini album video every Sunday, instead of the usual once a month!

We start off with a lovely, very girly, very pink mini album, which was commissioned by a grandmother, impatiently awaiting the arrival of her new granddaughter into this world. 🙂

The album is 15×17 cm (6×6.75 inches) and sports two paper collections: Lullaby by Kaisercraft, and a brandless A4 pad simply called Birth. To add a little contrast to all of this pink, I used a yellow distress ink to ink around all of the edges: Scattered Straw by Tim Holtz.

For the photo mats I used my so-called scrap mats throughout the album, which proves once again how much extra paper real estate you can generate by using all of your scraps.
As a bonus, I added a pair of the sweetest little baby girl socks!

So check out the video – and if you don’t want to miss out on my other September mini albums (which you don’t, of course 😉 ), simply subscribe to my channel by filling out your email adress at the top of my home page.

 

 

Click here for my other baby projects!

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Tutorial: Layered card (+ some footage of my favorite hot glue gun)

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I wanted to experiment with some layering, for I’d seen and admired layered cards and layouts from others but hadn’t tried it myself yet. This was my first attempt and while I was at it, I decided to give you the opportunity to follow along! 🙂

The paper I used was Rose Garden by First Edition – the same 6×6 inch pad that I used for the three cards I showed you a couple of posts ago. The stamp is a great birthday stamp by Kaisercraft.

I’m also showing you my hot glue gun this time, it’s a really great piece of equipment!
Anyway, here’s the tutorial. Wait, don’t leave until the very end, for I’ll give you some sneak peeks into my Mini Album Month! It starts this September (so next week!) and you’ll be able to check out a mini album every week instead of every month!

 

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