Category Archives: Holidays

Last-minute Christmas Card #1 (tutorial)

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I don’t know about you, but usually I come up short on Christmas cards, whether I buy them or handcraft them. There’s always people who come to mind when the 25th of December comes closer and closer, and sometimes I send out my last cards after Christmas, just in time for New Year…

So I’m going to share two ideas for those times you find yourself in need of one or more extra Christmas cards – and quickly! The first one is a blog-only photo tutorial – which you are reading right now 🙂

You’ll find the second card idea in the next blog post, and it’s a video tutorial.

Quick Christmas Card Tutorial – Enjoy!

Supply list: cardstock, design paper, cut-a-apart sheet or ATC card, ribbon, Stickles, double-sided tape, dimensional tape, Christmas stamp or rub-on.

Paper collections used: Kaisercraft – Turtle Dove, Kaisercraft – Just Believe (cut-a-apart sheet)

1. Mat your card. Adhere two short pieces of ribbon, for decorative purposes, as shown.

2. Take a cutapart (or cut something like it) and decorate to your liking. E.g. I stamped a sentiment and went around the edge of the pattern with glitter glue.

3. Attach the cutapart to the front of the card (covering the loose ends of the ribbons).

4. Fussy cut some elements.

5. Attach the first element to your card.

6. Apply dimensional tape to your second element.

7. Adhere the second element to your card.

8. Add some glitter glue accents to your elements.

Done!

Next: Last-Minute Christmas Card #2 – even less supplies needed!

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Gift idea: Christmas Paper Bag Album

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Before you read any further: this album is for sale for a special opening price, so please check it out on my Showroom page! (International customers: please pay attention to the fact that international shipping fees will have to be added).

Tis the Season, yea! 🙂 I haven’t got my Christmas tree yet, but nevertheless it’s that time of the year again, which means holiday-themed projects for crafters all over the world! Soooo many gorgeous new Christmas collections and I haven’t even bought a single one this year. Not because I don’t want to create anything for Christmas, on the contrary. But since I bought like a gazillion Christmas collections last year, I’m afraid I’ll be not-buying any new Christmas collections the coming years until I’ve used up the ones I already own…. (Right. Like that’s going to happen! But: at least this year it is! 🙂 )

Anyway, here’s a so-called paper bag mini album, the pages of which are basically created from paper bags – and some cardstock. I really love this type of album, for it requires less basic construction than the usual cardstock albums, so you can relatively quickly move on to decorating and embellishing – which, you know, is grrrrreat! 🙂

The paper collection I used is North Country, by Prima Marketing, plus some separate sheets from other collections. I also used this paper line for my Christmas cards this year.

Layout in Altered Frame: Your Guiding Hand (about my dad)

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Here’s my very first framed layout, which I created in memory of my father. In this season of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for who he was all through my life.

I bought an Artemio 12×12 scrapbook frame, glued one of Bo Bunny’s gorgeous Autumn Song design paper sheets to its back, and got to work. I used several extras of the collection, like brads, pearl & bling stickers, trinkets, die-cuts, chipboard stickers etc. I also used some flowers from my stash, and a lot of cute autumn decorative pieces that I found in one of our home & garden shops.

I took care to include things my father loved: a sparrow, a bird’s nest, several butterflies, a cute little cartoonesk squirrel, flowers and lots of bright and warm colors.

The picture is very special to me, for it’s kind of a family moment even though it’s just my father. For my father and I were sitting outside, having some quality time while drinking a cup of coffee at one of the lunch rooms in the city I live in, and when I took this picture he was on the phone with my mom. So in a sense, we were all together, the three of us 🙂

Enjoy the video!

 

 

Double Layout Thank You Card (+ one bonus cardlet)

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Recently I visited an animal shelter with a colleague, which was a very special experience. My colleague and I wanted to send them a Thank You note, which I created using Graphic 45’s very suitable Raining Cats & Dogs design paper. I created a double card, with a layout on the inside as well.

Although Raining Cats & Dogs isn’t a Thanksgiving paperline specifically, it’s great to use it as such anyway!

The leftover scraps I used to create a cute little birthday card for a (different) friend/colleague. So enjoy, and see for yourself how gorgeous this new G45 paperline is!

 

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! 🙂

Mini Thank You Wallet

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We’re pretty used to sending eachother birthday cards, but this time the theme is Thank You! 🙂

In my case, to thank my singing teacher for a year of great lessons – but you can of course come up with many things to be grateful for, and actually sharing that with someone! In that sense it would also be a great little wallet to add to your Thanksgiving present that you’ve bought (or created!) for your Thanksgiving Dinner Hosts!

I’ve done a tutorial a couple of blog posts ago, in case you want to create one yourself – it’s really very easy! 🙂

So, what are you grateful for? Leave a reply in the comment section! 🙂

Some fun little Easter projects

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It is as they say: time flies when you’re having fun! I could have sworn Christmas was only yesterday, and yet this morning Easter arrived!

Luckily I had already finished some fun little Easter & springtime decoupage projects, check them out, they’re really easy to do and look genuinely lovely on your Easter breakfast (or brunch) table!

 

Decoupaged Easter candles:

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A Christmas micro album

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A short while ago I created a Christmas mini album, using Kaisercraft’s ‘Tis the Season paper pad. Of course I had some scraps left over and I put them to good use, creating another one of my micro albums. And it’s turned out very cute – especially when you see it next to its ‘big sister’! 🙂

Of course there are a lot of my scrap mats in this little micro, and you can check out my tutorial on those if you want to try your hand at them as well.

Enjoy the video!

Thank you for liking and subscribing, and feel free to leave a comment or a question below!

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My first Christmas mini album

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This past year has been my first “full” year of paper crafting: it all started with the calendar I created for my mother back in November 2012, which seriously infected me with the “paper crafting virus” 🙂 . It has been a year of wonderful creativity and I’m very grateful for the many new techniques (new to me, at least…) I’ve been able to learn. Looking forward to 2014, I’m hoping to plan my craft projects more around the different seasons: not just taking into account the uniquely different feel of winter-spring-summer-autumn, but also bringing some of the holiday seasons into the mix. Not with every single project of course, I mean, sometimes you just want to use a certain design paper because it’s simply too gorgeous not to 🙂 – but generally speaking I feel it should be doable.

So, starting right now, at the end of 2013, I’m very happy to present you all with my very first Christmas mini album!

I used the Tis the Season paper collection by Kaisercraft and inked around all the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink by Tim Holtz. I’ve also incorporated some so-called scrap mats again, a technique I actually came up with (and named) myself. If you want to know how to make them, feel free to check out my tutorial!

If you’d like to know how such an album would look with pictures in it, check out the pictures underneath the video PLUS the 2017 update here! 🙂

Right, ’nuff said, on to the video!

 

Inside front cover – decorated this time, plus a picture (of little me 🙂 ) added to the photo mat:

Die-cutting the picture and finishing its edges with glitter glue adds interest to your photo mat! I also stamped the year in the lower right corner, in copper-colored ink:

Liked this mini? Then check out its little baby sister, my Christmas Micro album! 🙂

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL, AND THE HAPPIEST OF NEW YEARS!

A stack of tri-shutter Christmas cards!

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A couple of blogposts ago I published my tutorial for a tri-shutter card. Since I’ve now sent out all my Christmas cards, it’s time to show you this holiday season’s version of a tri-shutter card – plus, how I made good use of the leftover scraps, as usual :-). Hopefully to inspire!

The paper I used was Holly Jolly by My Mind’s Eye. Enjoy!

Five Christmas paper stacks (walkthrough)

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Here’s five lovely Christmas paper stacks, a demo to inspire your Christmas holiday crafting wish list :-). (You will be able to watch yet a sixth – My Mind’s Eye’s Holly Jolly paper pad – when I’ll post my Christmas card video, probably next week).

So, enjoy your holiday shopping in your local craft store or on the interwebs!

The paper collections shown in this video are:

  • Tis the Season (Kaisercraft)
  • Kris Kringle (S.E.I.)
  • Christmas Day (Carta Bella)
  • Waiting for Santa (Webster’s Pages)
  • North Country (Prima Marketing)

Plus two separate 12×12 sheets:

  • Glistening labels & tags (Authentique)
  • Infuse (Basic Grey)

Tri-shutter Xmas card tutorial

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It’s that time of the year again – we’re preparing to send out our Season’s Greetings to all of our family and friends. So I did some research on the web and studied different kinds of homemade cards. The type of card that I chose checked all the boxes for me: you can use one template to create lots of unique cards; each card doesn’t take you more than one hour to create; you can decorate approx. 20 cards with one 6×6 inch paper pad to keep things cost effective.

Of course I’m sharing this with you all, so you can get some production going on your own homemade Christmas cards! The video below takes you through my tutorial for a so-called trishutter card. I’m showing you the finished products in a future blog post however, since I don’t want to give away any spoilers to the cards’ recipients ;-). There is a tiny little sneak peak in the video however…

So enjoy the tutorial and Happy Scrapping!