Category Archives: Low budget

Here’s all my low budget projects, by which I mean you need only very few basic materials. Enjoy!

Low Budget Quickscrap Tip: Close-ups of Your Own Projects

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This week I’m sharing a project tip on this blog exclusively, so no Youtube video this time. If you’d like to peruse the other (over 40!) blog exclusives I’ve offered so far, click here!

So, the tip I’m sharing with you today belongs to what I’ve dubbed the quickscrap category, that is to say projects you can finish in 1 hour or less. Perfect if you’re in a bind and absolutely need a card or a gift pronto! And as an extra bonus it is super low budget.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve taken pictures of all of the craft projects you created thus far – and if you haven’t, start doing that right now! For the only thing you really need to create a lovely and most importantly superquick card, is a nice close-up picture of one of your own projects. And by close-up I mean: no background, no borders, just the details of your project. Crop the picture (digitally or physically) if you have to, to make it so.

Step 1

Print the close-up picture on photo paper. Crop it if that’s necessary to get a 100% close-up without backgrounds or borders.

Step 2

Get some nice folded cardstock and accompanying envelope from your stash.

Step 3

Glue the picture onto the front of the card.

Step 4

Cut off the excess of the card if that’s needed to perfectly fit your picture.

And you’re done!

How easy was that! Let me know in the comment section and have fun upcycling your old projects! 🙂

There’s more where that came from! For my other quick photo card tips, check out this post and this post. And for all of my low budget tips, click here!

Don’t forget the Birthday Sale in my shop! Because my birthday is January 11th, I’m celebrating it with you all by offering you a 40% discount on all of the tutorials in my shop, from January 11-13th!

How to Make a Pattern-Border Christmas Card

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Now that Christmas is only three weeks away (can you even believe how time flies?!) I thought I’d share a nice Christmas card tutorial with you all. This time it’s a card of which one of its border follows the shape of your paper pattern.

I’ll teach you how to set it up, how to back it up with cardstock, and also how to mat it on the inside. And I’ll show it all to you in under 9 minutes! – though it will probably take you a couple of hours to actually create it 🙂

And the great thing is, you don’t even have to use Christmas papers, look at how gorgeous this wintery Unicorn paper by Stamperia is! 🙂

Enjoy this free video tutorial, and feel free to send me the links to yours!

 

Christmas Card Tip: Using Only One Sheet of Design Paper!

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So, it’s that time of the year again 🙂 You can never be too early creating your Christmas Cards. The coming weeks, like every year, I’ll sharing lots of Christmas card tips with you, helping you along to get yourself unstuck and go create your own! It really doesn’t have to be difficult, nor expensive! To prove this, I’m kicking of this C-card season with several easy-to-create lowbudget Christmas cards that I decorated with only 1 sheet of design paper! And of course a few extra embellishments, but you can even do without those if you want to – or perhaps have to because of budget reasons.

So go ahead and check out the video, and then go ahead and Create!

 

 

Tips & Variations for Napkin Fold Cards

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Napkin fold cards or origami fold cards are always the perfect creative card if you don’t have a lot of time. You can make this within the hour, which adds it to my quick scrap category 🙂

I’ve done several of them in the past, for inspiration you can check out all of those posts in a row.

This week I’m sharing three tips with you for this type of card, variations you may not have tried yourself yet and which I hope will inspire you. So check out the video for those tips. Below that you’ll find my free video tutorial for napkin fold cards, which I hope will come in handy 😉

 

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New Design: Envelope Folio Albums!

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The envelope mini album is a fairly well-known phenomenon in the scrapbooking world, but this week I’m sharing my own unique design variety, which I’m calling the Envelope Folio Album.

I designed two different versions, mostly by accident for I aimed at only one 🙃, and while I was at it I prepared two pdf tutorials, which I’m offering as one tutorial set. Take advantage of the EASTER SALE I’m running until Monday April 2nd, for you’ll get a 15% discount on all of my tutorials!

Each of my spring-themed Envelope Folio Albums consists of eight envelopes, either square or rectangular – that’s up to you – and only a little bit of cardstock for the photo mats & wallets.

The square one is perfect for your 6×6″ paper pads – I don’t know about you but I have like a ton of those in my stash! – and for the rectangular one only 7 sheets of 12×12″ design paper are enough. So both iterations of this design keep the costs of creating them relatively low, especially when compared to a mini album!

These designs are really fun, for they offer lots of hidden nooks & crannies for pictures and memorabilia, for they sport lots of flaps and pockets. They make great original gifts and are of course easily customizable by simply choosing papers & embellishments in the theme of your choosing.

Feel free to leave your questions in the comment section! 🎓

Happy Easter, enjoy this new spring!

 

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Spring-colored Chocolate Bar Envelope (and some tea)

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One of the great craft ideas floating around on the internet is what I would call a chocolate bar envelope. I think lots of people have made these by now, but only after I had the pleasure of receiving one myself, was my attention drawn to it.

I waited for the right occasion to create one myself and when the moment came, tadaa! 🎉 There it was, my very own version.

I sent it to my friend Christa, so it would be waiting for her when she got home from a short vacation. I mean, nothing says Welcome Home like chocolate & tea don’t you think? 🙂

Have you ever sent someone food or snacks? 🙂 Let me know in the comments!

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Gift Idea: Upcycled Jewelry Box

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Sometimes that accessory you buy comes in a small jewelry box. My recent such purchase sported the name of the shop on its lid, but apart from that the box had a very nice antique bronze color, which inspired me to re-use it as a gift box.

So I thought I’d share this idea with you today, for this is the perfect little quick scrap gift idea, which you can finish in about 15 minutes (tops). Simply alter the lid, covering the shop’s name or logo, by decorating it with some design paper, a brad, and some embellishments.
It’s very easy to do, it’ll cost you hardly any time at all, and you’ll have a uniquely customized gift box for your present. 🙂

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Low Budget Tip: Picture Card

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Hi all,

Today I’m sharing with you another Low Budget Tip, in other words how to create wonderful projects and presents that won’t cause a significant dent into your household budget. 🙂

There’s more where this came from by the way, check out all posts on this blog tagged Low budget!

This week’s tip is to create a picture card. For this type of card you won’t need much design paper for on the front the focus will be a picture you took (any occasion possible!), and on the back you will simply use cardstock or even printer paper of a different color than your base card.

You can keep the embellishments to a minimum by only using some glitter glue to trace around the picture and/or the journalling spot on the back, or you can add some simple decorations as I have, which still won’t have to cost a lot – especially if you’d die-cut the flowers and leaves.

So I hope you’ll enjoy this tip, let me know if you’d like to see more!

 

Photo Gift Booklet

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From a very sunny Portugal ☀️ I’m sharing this new Photo Gift Booklet, which I created with some cardstock and a couple of sheets from DCWV’s Colorful Life paper collection. It is custom-fit to hold four 9×13 cm (3½ x 5⅛”) pictures. You only need four pieces of design paper of that same size for the covers, and your’re done!

Being a hybrid between a card and a small photo album this little booklet is the perfect gift to send over the mail to your far away friends & relatives! ?

If you’d like to create one yourself, go to my Autumn Time Ultra Mini Album for a quick explanation on the page technique.

Have fun, see you next week!

 

 

Limited Budget Christmas Card Tip

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Low-budget scrapbook papers are usually also fairly low quality; they’re thin, crack easily and they sometimes even lose their top layer – hence, their colors! Nevertheless, if you’re on a limited budget you can still create some lovely cards with the more affordable, brandless paper pads.
Just don’t fold them and glue them down really well…

Check out the video for two examples, in which I’m sharing some more low-budget tips – and have fun Christmas Card crafting! 🙂

 

 

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Summer is coming! Two cards to celebrate!

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This week I’m actually posting from beautiful Gran Canaria (one of Spain’s Canary Islands just off the southern coast of Morocco), so I’m at least really feeling summer’s Promise of Bloom 🙂

Because of my holiday there will be no video this week, but I will share two very Summer-spirited cards with you.

My tip for you this week is one of Affordability & Frugality: the design paper you’re using does not have to be expensive, nor of ‘Brands of Renown’ so to speak, for you to be able to create some lovely cards!

For instance, the paper I used here was somewhere in the obscure dollar bin of a very affordable (and therefore not the hippest) line of shops in the Netherlands. So the paper may be brandless, but applied well it is able to remind us of a festive summer garden party nonetheless!

So, don’t skip everything that has no brand worth mentioning, but go treasure hunting and see what you can come up with! For some inspiration, check out the other projects that I created with paper lines belonging to those Cheap & Brandless Ones… 😉

Enjoy, and see you next week!

Card 1: Two bi-fold doorlets, held together with a bow

Doorlets opening up to the journalling spot inside – on which I wrote a personal wish to my aunt 

Card 2: Tri-fold card with magnetized closure

Opening up to a journalling spot inside. Just like card 1, this card can stand on its own when opened.

 

Free Tutorial: Vellum Card in Black & White

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Today I’m happy to share a tutorial with you all, of a sophisticated birthday card designed for a man. It’ll be great fun to make for all of you who, like me, don’t like to use any fluff when creating something for a guy. I always like to keep it clean and stylishly simple, and this time I’ve created the cleanest and simplest one yet of all of my projects for guys. 🙂

You can watch the show & tell video to see every detail of the card, so enjoy and have fun creating!

Tutorial

Let me know if you’d like me to do a (free) tutorial for this elegant card! (even years after this post is fine with me, just drop me line or leave a comment – I’m always in for new blog and/or video ideas 🙂 )

More detailed tutorials on a growing number of projects are available in my Etsy shop.

If you have any questions, just let me know!

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