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!
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!
Although at the moment designing and creating mini albums, cards and altered objects are my main focus when it comes to paper crafting, I really like the occasional mini (or even micro) booklet as well. This one for instance, with its 1 5/8 x 2 1/4 inches (4,3×5,7 cm) is the tiniest I’ve created yet. And it still has pockets & tags! 🙂
I used Madeline design paper by Prima Marketing, the same as with my Madeline cinch mini. This would also make it a great companion piece to this mini, for instance as an alternative birthday card.
So please enjoy the two-minute video!
By the way, in the video I refer to my Bohemian Bazaar mini booklet – which you van check out in more detail in my blogpost on the Bohemian Bazaar mini album.
Want to create your own micro booklet? Then check out my tutorial on this blog!
Here’s a little tutorial on how I make so-called ‘scrap mats’. This is what I call the photo mats that I create from leftover scraps of design paper.
You see the thing is, I just like to use up as much of my design paper as I can – I guess it’s a combination of enjoying as much of a particular paper stack as possible on the one hand, and frugality on the other. I mean, you’d be surprised how much photo mat real-estate the right combination of scraps generates! (What can I say, I’m just weird that way 😉 )
Meanwhile, the results have been quite cool, imho. So check it out and find out how to create these mats yourself!
So what if it’s not Father’s Day anytime soon! I just wanted to give my dad a special card, just to let him know I love and appreciate him, and I was going to do it right now. 🙂
My father loves his nature, flowers and animals, so I took a sheet of cream-colored A4 paper, added a couple of pieces of the perfectly fitting Flora and Fauna design paper and got to work! Oh, and also, I harvested some of the pears and apples growing in my garden so as to make a cute autumn harvest basket for my dad. Needless to say, he loved it!
I’m so excited to share my latest project with you all! As you may have noticed in some of my previous posts, I have a “thing” for creating mini booklets. Not just because they’re cute, but also because it’s a nice way to use leftover scraps of paper. Recently I decided to take it to the next level and I came up with a full-blown micro album! 🙂 By which I mean the perfect miniature version of a mini album I had created previously. And I’m so very pleased with the result!
So here’s my Little Miss micro album. As a bonus, I added a “scene” to the video featuring its big sister, my Little Miss mini album. 🙂
What do you do with the sheets and scraps of design paper you have left over?
When my mother saw the Butterflies & Stars keepsake album I had recently designed for a friend, she immediately commissioned one herself, as a present for her cousin. There are some differences between the two albums though. For instance, this Flora and Fauna album is somewhat larger than its predecessor; the designs of both its base pages and its cover pieces are different as well.
All in all it took 21 sheets of A4 cardstock for the construction of the pages and tags and about 23 sheets of double-sided design paper (12×12 inches). For the cover I took two 12×12 inch pieces of cardboard, created five unique pieces and arranged them just so.
Two pieces of linen bookcloth strengthen the folds of both spines. The magnets I used for the closure are by Basic Grey, they’re absolutely the strongest crafting magnets I could find!
My mother’s cousin is a dear 80-year-old who loves her garden and everything in it, so my mother wanted somewhat of a “garden theme with little birds and bees and butterflies”.
Fortunately K&Company’s gorgeous Flora and Fauna design paper was already eagerly awaiting me in my stash, begging me to be used – and the very pale lavender color of the cardstock turned out to be the perfect combination. I also used some of the matching embellishments and design elements that go along with this paper – which I’ll show you in de video.
Anyway, long story short, the keepsake album turned out rather beautifully and I’m more than happy with it myself. If you’d like to create an album like this yourself, check out the tutorial for my Springtime Dreams Keepsake Album, for it has the same basic page design!
Now, on to the video, and the pictures below!
A birthday card of my own design, using the gor-ge-ous Mariposa design paper stack by DCWV – the paper I also used in my recent Keepsake mini album.
There are two poems in the card, one of the front, one inside a flip tag. Both are printed of course, as is the tag containing the birthday wishes.
By the way, I tend to view designing a card the same way I approach creating page layouts for my mini albums, and this card is no exception. I guess it’s my personal style 😉
Take a look, and see what I mean 🙂
What kind of particular personal style do you have when it comes to creating your cards?
Recently I found myself in the unfortunate position of having to ponder the question whether or not it’s okay to craft a sympathy card. Would it be considered an annoyance, an act of inconsiderateness, or would it be received as the small, unique expression of well-meant sympathy it was intended to be? I decided to take the risk and go for the latter, and did my utmost to make it tasteful, warm and heartfelt. And I’m glad I did, for it was well-received!
The design is a familiar one that I have used a couple of times before, as you can see here and here. But I chose it anyway because it’s just the perfect little wallet for photos or small notes that a person who has just lost a loved one might want to keep inside the card, to carry with them easily.
I always use double-sided design paper for this type of mini wallet, so that both the inside and outside of the pockets aren’t simply white but show matching colors and patterns. This particular 12×12 inch sheet is called “Sunset”, by Creamotion.
Front: I deliberately wrote “With sympathy” by hand instead of typing or printing it, because I wanted to ensure a very personal feel.
The card is held closed by a belly band, kept clean and simple. The “With sympathy” part is actually a flip tag, tucked into the front corner pocket. On the inside of the tag I wrote my personal message.
The mini wallet holds six black cards, to hold photos, notes or to write down some cherished dates and memories. I created tabs for two of them, using the black pearlescent sheet of the Gemstones paper pad.
Flip open the paper wallet and two more pockets appear, holding one notecard each.
And finally, the backside of this little wallet, mirroring its front.
Have you ever created a sympathy card? What design and color theme did you choose?
This dreamy Congrats-On-Your-New-Baby card is 8×8 inch (20×20 cm) and created with DCWV’s Once Upon A Time design paper. As you may have noticed from my other card projects, I like to combine them with actual postcards. In this case, a postcard that I bought at an art museum – which adds to the dreamy atmosphere I was aiming for with this design, imho.
As you may have guessed this special card is entirely of my own design and harkens back to my very first scrapbooking project, a 2013 calendar.
So check out my 3-minute video – which includes a little paper walkthrough of the gorgeous Once Upon A Time 8×8 inch stack!
This envelope of my own design reminded me of a real purse, so I baptized it envelope purse 🙂
I’m still not done with my beautiful Serenity paper and once again it hasn’t let me down! So I’m glad I still have some of it left for small future projects.
Wanna see more Serenity paper projects? Check out my Timeless Memories mini album and my Serenity double pocket tag card!
My friend commissioned a mini album and she wanted something special, a true keepsake, easy to put between other books (so no dimensional embellishments and extra protection for the pages) and last but not least: incorporate a two-fold theme of butterflies and stars (for personal reasons).
Some commission! 🙂 So, I came up with a new design, taking a little bit of inspiration from both Kathy Orta and a lady calling herself Angelwings14100 on Youtube. Of course I personalized it, creating a unique design by adding my own style, interpretation and of course some original design elements.
Above: One of my original design elements; I created a charm element that incorporated both my usual little Handmade token and the the dual theme of the album, in this case Butterflies & Stars
Here’s the Show & Tell video of my Keepsake album:
And here’s the links to the inspiration videos I mentioned:
Looking forward to you letting me know what you think!
