Category Archives: Blog Exclusive

Here’s all of my projects that I posted exclusively on this blog, so no video, photos only. Enjoy!

Condolences Card: Color is the New Gray

Posted on by
Reply

I remember the time, not too long ago, when almost all condolences cards were rather stark. Most had only small illustrations on a large plain of white, and always in black and gray-tones. Then, slowly but steadily, color was added. First came the browns, with a few small and very tasteful autumn leaves, then here and there a flower creeped in.

Nowadays many condolences cards show more colors than just blacks, grays and browns. Only a few years ago I would probably be hesitant to send a rather colorful condolences card to someone, but I have to admit, since I have been the recipient of several of those when my father passed away, to my own surprise I appreciated the colorful ones very much. This is not to say that the more traditional cards are not a good choice of course. It’s just that my own personal experience in this area has convinced me not only that it’s okay to use color, but that it may actually add to the card’s (admittedly limited) effect.

So here’s an idea for a condolences card for scrappers and card makers: create a card of color, which requires only one sheet of double-sided design paper; do not embellish it too much, just let the paper speak for itself.
For instance, I decorated my card sparingly with only two stamps, some die-cuts and a swing-tab. Some folds and cuts did the rest.

All in all a very simple yet stylish choice for a condolences card. Meanwhile I truly hope you won’t need to send out many… though unfortunately we’ll probably all have to at least once or twice in our lifetimes.

If you’d like to add a very personal touch of comfort by creating this 1-sheet condolences card yourself, you can follow the clear instructions (with 63 pictures) in my tutorial.

Curly die by Crealies:

BewarenBewaren

BewarenBewaren

Tri-shutter Birthday Card for a Golf Player

Posted on by
Reply

A so-called tri-shutter card is easy to make and almost always generates amazed and admiring responses. You can create them at different sizes and shapes (i.e. rectangular or square), simply by playing around with both the horizontal and vertical measurements of your cardstock.

I created different Christmas versions in the past, with the square (when folded closed) Holly Jolly cards and the smaller, rectangular Caramel Christmas versions.

Today I’m sharing a third variation: a birthday card for a golf player, using a Proper Gentleman paper by Graphic 45.

I fussy-cut an actual golf player from the paper and glued it to the left front panel, making sure the glof club was sticking out.

I also die-cut and embossed the first letter of the name of the guy to whom I was going to send it. I lightly went over it with some distress ink, to highlight the embossed parts.

I always use a light color for the central panel, to be able to write or stamp a message. In this case: Congratulations in Dutch.

When creating a card or other project for a guy, I always keep the embellishments at a minimum. No fuss for a man! 🙂

Sometimes it’s difficult to establish whether the male recipient of your card genuinely likes it for its own merits – for though he may truly appreciate and enjoy the gesture, he might still feel neutral at best about the esthetics of your work. Nevertheless, in this case I think the colleague who received this particular card actually deemed it quite likeable 🙂

So, hope you feel inspired for your first new cards in 2016. As I said this design is very easy to make. If you’d like to try it but don’t know how, check out my free video tutorial!

Next week’s video: Boxing Days – A chipboard storage or gift box to create yourself!

 

BewarenBewaren

December Deluge 10: Decoupage Your Winter Home Decor

Posted on by
2

And here’s the Final Blog Entry for 2015 – how time flies when you’re having fun! 🙂

You’re all probably very busy enjoying your Christmas holidays, and preparing for New Year’s Eve, so I’ll keep it short but sweet with a blog exclusive, so no video this time.

Since winter has only just begun, I thought I’d share a home decor idea with you: why not throw some decoupaging at some wooden boxes, but also a coffee mug and even a lamp!  🙂 Use candle podge for the candle and textile podge for the lamp, grab some nice napkins and you’re all set!

And when you’re done: don’t forget to accessorize your home in the same color scheme, which will give your living room a surprisingly new and fresh look.

Tea box:

Ephemera box:

Coffee mug:

Lamp:

Accessorizing! 🙂 (Lamp in the background) :

 

Happy New Year!

Thank you to all my subscribers and visitors for supporting this blog with your continuing attention, likes comments and questions!

I’m looking forward to meeting you all again next year, with new paper art projects, tutorials and ideas!

BewarenBewaren

December Deluge 6: Candy Cane Lane – Twice!

Posted on by
Reply

This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you several December projects, the first of which was a quick Christmas Mini Album, so you can start there if you’d like to see them all. Today: Part 6 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

Sometimes I buy only a couple of sheets of a certain paper collection. Perhaps there are no more available (because it is an older collection) or perhaps I simply want to create a few smaller projects and have no need for an entire paper pad.

This was the case with Candy Cane Lane, a 2014 collection by Bo Bunny. I bought only 7 sheets of 6×6″ (15×15 cm), plus the button set of the collection. Threw in some flowers from my stash, and I was perfectly set to create two lovely, double-layout Christmas cards! 🙂

1a.

1b.

2a.

2b.

Next up: December Deluge 7 – 4×6″ Nutcracker Sweet Christmas Cards!

BewarenBewaren

December Deluge 5: Decoupaged Candle & Box

Posted on by
Reply

This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you a quick Christmas Mini Album, a 1-sheet Micro Wallet, a set of Nutcracker Sweet Christmas Cards and some Trishutter Christmas Cards. Today: Part 5 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

Decoupaging is a great technique for altering projects, especially when you’re out of paper crafting ideas and want to switch materials a bit to stir things up again 🙂

This decoupaged set of a Christmas candle and a matching box is quite easy to make and will make for a great Christmas holiday afternoon. Plus, they’re a great little emergency gift set for that one neighbour you forgot 😉

The only materials you need are:

  • one or two Christmas napkins (the regular, layered paper ones),
  • some mod podge (and a brush to apply it)
  • the objects you wish to alter

And: some patience while it’s drying 😉

Note: if you wish to alter a candle like I have, please use special candle podge.

You can watch my free video tutorial on how to decoupage a candle to see how it’s done, and how easy it is!

Here’s the little Christmas set I created!

 

Next: December Deluge 6 – Candy Cane Lane – Twice! 🙂

BewarenBewaren

December Deluge 4: Caramel Christmas Tri-shutter Cards

Posted on by
Reply

This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you a quick Christmas Mini Album, a 1-sheet Micro Wallet and a set of Nutcracker Sweet Christmas Cards. Today: Part 4 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

You know how you often have reasonably large scraps of cardstock left over from a larger paper craft project? I always like to use them instead of throwing them out. For instance, I had some fairly broad strips of cardstock left over from my Caramel Christmas mini album, and I decided to turn them into some trishutter Christmas cards. Since their measurements weren’t the regular, like standard, size for this kind of card, they turned out somewhat smaller. Also, when folded closed, they weren’t square but a pretty small rectangle.

They turned out great nonetheless – and an extra bonus was that I could also use some leftover scraps of design paper of the aforementioned mini to decorate the cards!

Hence their name: Caramel Christmas Trishutter Cards 🙂

Oh and by the way, if you’d like to create some trishutter cards yourself, check out my free video tutorial!

Next up: December Deluge pt. 5 – Decoupaged Christmas Candle & Box

BewarenBewaren

December Deluge 2: A 1-sheet Micro Wallet

Posted on by
Reply

This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous post I showed you a quick Christmas Mini Album. Today: Part 2 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

There’s a particular 1-sheet mini photo wallet of which I’ve created several by now. It’s created from only one sheet of double-sided 12×12″ design paper, and it  looks something like this:

If you click on the picture, it will link to my free video tutorial for that kind of mini wallet.

This week I’m showing you a new micro version of this design, created with a 6×6″ sheet of paper! So cute! They measure only 2⅜” (6 cm) and can hold little pictures, or you could write little notelets with personalized messages, as I have.

These are quick to make and would make great alternatives for your standard Christmas present tags 🙂

Next up: December Deluge pt. 3: Nutcracker Sweet Christmas Cards! 

BewarenBewaren

BewarenBewaren

BewarenBewaren

Enjoying the Little Things – A Miniature Display

Posted on by
Reply

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! 🙂

BewarenBewaren

Raining Cats & Dogs Tea Box from Chipboard

Posted on by
2

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:

BewarenBewaren

Playing with Oxford: Two Magnetized Cards

Posted on by
Reply

One cannot have too many Happy Birthday cards in stock, can one? 🙂 For the two magnetized cards I’m sharing with you today, I worked with Basic Grey’s Oxford paper collection again, the first taste of which I got when I created my recent group card fold-out.

The first card is a gatefold, with clean lines and a warm color palette. I used a Hip Hip Hooray seal stamp on a piece of designpaper, then fussy-cut around it and backed it  up with some cardstock for sturdiness.

To pop it up, I used dimensional tape on the Hooray seal.

I matted the back of the card as well, for a consistend look & feel.

When you open the card, there’s a pocket in the middle that holds a tag. The tag shows the personalized birthday wishes, which I printed on the design paper before I matted.

I punched the border of the pocket with an awesome punch by Martha Stewart, the punch-around-the-page Party edge punch. It shows different little presents and a cute little birthday hat. Though I bought this punch as an afterthought when it was on clearance, I have absolutely fallen in love with it since!

 

The second card is a double card with a magnetized closure. It’s still masculine but some of the colors I chose are more vibrant than the first, although both are from the Oxford paper collection.

You can find a free tutorial for this type of card in my blog post on the City Lights card. You’ll only have to adjust the measurements of the card to your liking. My card below is 5⅛ x 5⅛ (13 x 13 cm). I stamped Happy Birthday onto the magnetized closure; this is a great stamp by Stampendous, I’ve used it before – on my City Lights card – and will use it again because I love it!

The inside of the card shows the personalized birthday message, which I printed on a piece of design paper.

To add a little bit of interest I popped up the birthday message with some dimensional tape.

The closure piece is attached to the card with two screw brads, which is one of my favorite embellishments to use on a card for a guy, for they really look like screws! 🙂

 

Hope you enjoyed this post and got some inspiration from it – for not every card has to be filled with complex layering and a lot of embellishments to still be awesome, right. So go ahead and take advantage of your spring or summer holidays to make a stash of gorgeous, magnetized cards for your peeps! 🙂

I’m off to enjoy Pentecost, which in the Netherlands always has a second day, so tomorrow (Monday) I won’t have to go to work for a change, woohoo! 🙂

BewarenBewaren

Three tips on creating layered card layouts

Posted on by
2

Lately I’ve been practising my layering, on two calendars which are still a work in progress, but mainly on some birthday cards. I already did a video tutorial on one way you could layer a card, back in August 2014.

This week I’m sharing some extra tips with you, illustrated by three of my latest birthday cards. The paper line I’ve used for all three of them is Lucille, a paper line by Basic Grey which some of you may recognize from my Life’s a Picnic mini album (tutorial available!), of which I had some paper left over, enough to create these cards – though I had to make use of all three of the techniques I’m sharing with your below, otherwise I wouldn’t have had enough paper after all.

Tip 1 – Use scrap mats – even when die-cutting


Above: Birthday stamp by Kaisercraft

I’m guessing I’ve mentioned my scrap mats (check out my free video tutorial by clicking this link) in almost every one of my projects by now – what can I say, I’m a sucker for squeezing out the absolute maximum of paper real estate out of my paper collections 🙂

So in the pictures you can see that the second layer on this card (counting from the bottum up) is in fact a scrap mat, decorated with punched corners. An extra tip however, is that you can die cut shapes from your scrap mats as well! Check out the second to last layer (counting from the bottom up), i.e. the layer directly below the stamped sentiment label: that is a scrap mat label!

Another use for this, next to creating labels and tags, is die cutting flowers and other decorative shapes. I used this technique in the Life’s a picnic mini album, here’s an example: in the picture below you can see that every layer of the flower consists of two different pieces of design paper.

 

Tip 2 – Use the paper pad’s cover

Many design paper pads have covers that have at least some imagery, patterns or shapes that are very useable for fussy cutting. So even if you have hardly any design paper left, you can still embellish your project with help from the paper pad’s cover.

The Lucille 6×6″ paper pad cover has a floral image that I fussy cut and used as a decorative element on my card.

 

 

Tip 3 – Use dimension

If you have die cut two labels in incrementing sizes (my largest label in this third card had been die cut from a scrap mat by the way – see Tip 1), you could of course simply layer them flatly on top of eachother. You can add some interest however by using some double-sided foam tape to adhere the smaller label to the larger.

Adding some glitter glue along the top layer’s edges is always a good idea as well!

 

I’m finding this dimension thing very exciting by the way, and I’m always trying to add some of it to my layered cards & layouts. Like in the Time to Flourish calendar below:

Leave some tips for me!

These were my tips, for now! If my layering adventures lead to any other need-to-know tidbits of knowledge on layering, I’ll let you know! 🙂

Also, if you have any layering tips for me, please let me know and leave a comment – or tweet me!

BewarenBewaren

BewarenBewaren

Teddy Bear Baby Card

Posted on by
2

Recently I found the most adorable baby scrapbook sheets while browsing through the clearance bin in my local scrap shop. They were from the Teddy Bear collection by K&Company, a collection I think is so old I can hardly find any information about it on the interwebs…

Naturally I decided I needed to have them 🙂 and to be on the safe side I chose a third sheet from an entirely different collection that coordinated well with the other sheets. So when my cousin’s new son was born soon after, I was very happy to use this cutest-of-the-cute paperline and created an interactive card.

My goal was to let the design paper speak for itself: it was already so cute & cuddly in and of itself, it didn’t need any fancy layering or embellishing!
So here’s the card I designed.

This gatefold card is kept closed by a swing tab. To create the swing tab I fussy-cut one of the bears from the paper, backed it up with some cardstock and attached it to the card with a brad.

I chose a nail brad on purpose, hiding it in plain site by attaching it to the spot in which a teddy bear would normally have some kind of nail or screw to function as a hip joint – especially the really ancient models… 😉
Centered on the inside is a pocket. For some added interest and to really show off the paper I kept the ‘marching’ teddy bear intact, fussy-cutting around it rather than simply cutting the piece to size to mat the pocket.

Hiding inside the pocket is a little card-inside-a-card. First I matted this little card, then embellished it with two separate teddy bears that I fussy-cut from the design paper.  

I lifted the smaller teddy with some dimensional tape.

 

I matted the back and stamped Handmade with love. This mat is actually from a fourth design paper collection: Romantic Nursery by Marianne Design. I left the inside plain so I could write a personal message.

 

I matted the back of the card with some button paper, which was the third sheet I found in the clearance bin. I thought it coordinated remarkably well with the two sheets of teddy bear paper!

 

I really enjoyed working with these three treasured sheets of design paper I found. What kind of projects have you created to show off a particular paper collection?