Sunny Times – an XXL Flexible Spine Photo Album!

Hi all! I’m excited to be able to share this, my latest album! It is HUGE: it measures 9 x 12″ (23 x 30.5 cm), which makes it perfect to house the loads of pictures from any event or period of which you want to cherish many memories.

Since this particular album is beach-themed, it was created with our summer vacation in mind – so I named it Sunny Times!

It houses ten base pages – so 20 page surfaces – with lots of extra add-ons for your many pictures. You can add pictures of all sizes, ranging from wallet-sized all the way up to 8×10″ (20×27 cm), and in addition it offers lots of pockets and tuck spots for your memorabilia.

So check it out, enjoy the video, and consider your purchase options if you’d like to create one yourself: there’s the tutorial only option – a 178-page written tutorial (with over 500 clear pictures!) by way of immediate download – and then there’s the kit + tutorial you will very soon be able to get from Photographs and Memories, which is a kit full of goodies to create the album plus my aforementioned tutorial (no extra costs).

 

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Romantic Nursery Baby Boy Mini Album

When my cousin had her first baby, a cute little baby boy, I wanted to make her something special. I decided to make her a mini album to keep her most precious pictures and notes of baby’s first couple of months. I wanted a somewhat romantic baby theme, with nostalgic colors instead of bright blue pastels, which I found in Marianne Design‘s lovely Romantic Nursery design paper.

The mini album has three page assemblies, which makes it a bit thinner than my other mini albums which usually have six or eight. It still has plenty of room for photos and other memorabilia though, with all its pockets, tags and even hidden photo wallets. Of course I inked around all the edges, this time with Vintage Photo distress ink by Tim Holtz.

And here’s the video, please feel free to let me know what you think!

 

So what kind of baby shower gifts have you been looking for, or even created yourself?

 

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Stacks of Love: a Stacked Page Mini Album – Tutorial version

StackedPageAlbum

Several weeks ago I shared my first stacked page mini album with you, an experiment with a different kind of binding system than I had been used to. For instead of the hidden hinge system, this one is based on stacked pages – hence the name… 🙂

It is not my invention, I’m not sure whose it is. I’m guessing it’s most likely based on Laura Denison’s stack the deck binding system, on which someone then elaborated.

Anyway, I did add a personal flavour, for my stacked page albums have twelve pages instead of the usual six – so 24 page surfaces! – but with a regular-sized spine. You can see the first iteration of this album in the above-mentioned earlier blog post, created with the Domestic Goddess collection by 7 Dots Studio.

This week I’m sharing the version on which I based my tutorial. This album is somewhat larger, has more elaborate page designs and sports several photo mats and tags, the latter – among others – by Crealies. The album was made with Prima Marketing’s lovely Tales of You & Me collection. I’m calling this version the ‘Stacks of Love’ mini album 🙂

The tutorial is listed in my Etsy shop. It is a (written) English language tutorial with measurements in centimeters and inches. It is 130 pages long and holds 324 clear pictures aimed at visual learners. As a bonus it also contains the main measurements for the Domestic Goddess version!
Moreover, I’m very happy to be able to point you to the kit that is available for this album as well! Go to the (US-based!) Photographs and Memories online store, where you will find kits for several of my projects, including this one.

So enjoy the video and please feel free to leave a little note below, in the comment section 🙂

 

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Hidden Treasures: an Explosion Boxed Mini Album (new!)

Hi you all! Time for a spring & summer project! 

This is what would happen if a mini album and an explosion box married and had a baby. 🙂 It’s an… Explosion Boxed Mini Album!

This lovely box can hold over 55 pictures and sports LOTS of embellisments on the pages. And it’s its own gift box to boot, so a double bonus!

I designed it around a Prima Marketing collection (called Free Spirit), so a 48-sheet 6×6″ paper pad, an ATC card pad, some 12×12″ sheets and lots and lots of flowers. My goal was to have as little leftovers as possible, so it is also doubling as a destashing project 🙂 (triple bonus, yea!)

Check out my (written) tutorial if you can’t wait to destash work with your own lovely papers and create, for instance, a nursery gift, a wedding gift, a birthday gift, or simply a stunning way to present your own holiday or Christmas pictures.

And for those of you who prefer complete kits, that is to say everything you need to create this project, including materials AND my tutorial, go to the Photographs and Memories (USA-based!) online store and have at it 🙂

But first, let me know what you think!

Photo Gift Booklet

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!

 

 

Newsflash: Kits available!

Good news for anyone who’d like to create one of my projects but would like a kit to go along with the tutorial – and lives across the Atlantic:

As of May 2017 kits are available for some of my projects at Photographs and Memories, a lovely online store based in Kansas, USA. You can go to the store and search for “Katja” using the search field, or – much easier ? – click the logo below, and you will find all of my projects for which kits are available. Each kit comes including my elaborate and detailed tutorial for that project, at no additional cost!

If you wish to purchase the tutorial only, please go to my Creator’s Image Studio online shop. I offer many different methods of payment, including Paypal, creditcard and iDeal.

The first two kits based on my projects are my Memories Fold-out Folio Album and my Holiday Dreams Gatefold Album. These kits offer, among other things, the same paper collections as my original projects 🙂

 

Dutch:

Woon je in Nederland en wil je ook een kit voor een van mijn projecten, neem dan contact met me op op creatorsimage at icloud.com (spaties verwijderen en ‘at’ vervangen door @), want dat loopt natuurlijk niet via Amerika 😉 .

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Stacked Page Mini Album

This week I’m sharing a mini album with twelve pages. As in 24 individual page layouts!
To make it, I tried a new binding system – new to me at least, it’s been ‘out there’ for quite some time I think. The best way to describe it is the stacked page binding.
I kept this one simple to try it out, but I’ll create another one to be able to make a tutorial for you all, so stay tuned!

And please notice this paper collection you guys, isn’t it stunning? I love it! ❤️
It’s a somewhat older paper line by 7 Dots Studio, and it’s called Domestic Goddess. I think its graphic designer at the time was Finnabair, a well-known name in the paper craft world!
I only had 15 sheets, but that was enough to create this mini album and two beautiful cards – which I’ll share with you in my next 🙂

Let me know what you think, and stay crafty!

 

A Double-paged Keepsake Album

I designed this new mini album around three criteria: its dimensions should be something like 15×15 cm (6×6″),  it should have two spines and each spine should hold its own set of pages.

My creative process ended up with me coming up with this 14.5×17 cm (5¾ x 6¾”) gatefold mini album, in the fresh colors of Kaisercraft’s Ubud Dreams collection – colors that remind me of the sea and small mediterranean villages 🙂 Which is why I’m dubbing this my Holiday Dreams keepsake album.
And guess what, Ubud turns out to be a town on the Indonesian island of Bali! Okay, so not the Mediterranean but still: Holidays galore 🙂

The album holds seven interactive page assemblies with all new page designs, four attached to the left spine and three to the right; the inside covers offer even more room for pictures.

If you can’t wait to make this album yourself, check out the (written) tutorial which is available in my Etsy shop. 🙂

NEW: There’s also a kit available at Photographs & Memories online webshop! This includes my tutorial at no additional cost!

Enjoy the video and pictures below and let me know what you think in the comment section! See you next week! :-).

 

How to Gift an E-book as a Paper Craft Project

Have you ever tried gifting an e-book to someone? If so then you know there’s not much fun to be had. You either give the person money or a gift card to buy it himself, or perhaps you email them a gift code. Or if you’re really making an effort, you find an online e-book vendor which allows you to buy a specific e-book for someone else. Which requires you to register at said vendor, which you may find very annoying.

Your purchase will then result in an email of the vendor to the recipient, or maybe a voucher will be mailed to you so you can email or print it. Pfff. Like I said, not much fun to be had. No gift wrapping, no happy anticipation before unwrapping the surprise gift, no happy squeals when the present is finally revealed. Welcome to the Digital Age.

Though we cannot change the digital nature of the e-book, we can make it more fun to gift an e-book to someone! The only thing you have to buy is a (physical) gift card that will allow the recipient to buy e-books. You’ll probably be able to buy those in several brick & mortar shops – so no registration required, no annoying emails received.

And then you’ll craft a very festive Mini File Folio like the one I’m sharing with you today, in which you’ll put your gift card and a nicely printed title & summary of the e-book(s) you have in mind for your recipient. And voila, there’s your Very Presentable present.

As an added bonus you’ll probable be able to gift them two e-books for the price of one physical book!

To whom are you going to gift an e-book this way? 🙂

 

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Memories – A Fold-Out Folio Album (new design)

One of my favorite kinds of mini album to make is what I call the folio albumAs long as it’s closed it looks like an actual mini album, but when you open it… it turns out to be an intricate fold-out spread of photo mat real estate!

Cross-haired Memories Folio Album

With some folio album designs you’ll need some serious surface to show it off, like with my Cross-haired Memories Folio Albumwhich sports a whopping 3½ ft (1 m) diameter, but in most cases the spread will fit onto your dining room table, offering a unique chance to show off those great pictures you’ve been wanted to share, in one large overview.

This week I’m sharing a folio album of that fit-the-table category, my purse-like Memories fold-out folio albumI mostly used the lovely 2012 Almanac paper collection by Prima Marketing. It will hold at least 33 pictures sized 4×6″ (10×15 cm), which makes it a perfect size for a one-day-occasion photo shoot, like a birthday, an office party, your high school reunion, highlights of a wedding, baby’s first month (or so), and let’s not forget the family tree album!
Well, etcetera. 😉

And yes, there’s a tutorial for all of you who’d like to make this one! 🙂 It’s really not difficult to make and if you by any chance have purchased my Pouch-Paged Album tutorial and made it, you won’t need any new cardstock at all – for this Memories fold-out folio was especially designed working with the leftover cardstock from the Pouch-Paged Album! (big Yea for frugal crafting! 🙂 )

NEW: There’s also a kit available at Photographs & Memories online webshop! This includes my tutorial at no additional cost!

So enjoy the video and do let me know what occasion you think would be perfect for this Memories Fold-out Folio Album!

 

Nursery Gift: Cute Micro Album with Forest Friends

When a new grandmother asked me to create one of my little micro albums as a nursery gift for her daughter, she wanted a modern, on-trend paper line, and “no pinks please!” – even though her grandchild was a baby girl. And why not, after all, practically every color looks cute on a baby and why should her granddaughter be limited to the most predictable one 😉 .

We settled on Scrapberry’s very cute Forest Friends. Not specifically a nursery collection I don’t think, but very fitting nonetheless with its soft colors and adorable little animals.

I created it after one of my own previous designs, the Fresh & Bright micro album – the tutorial of which is ready and waiting for you in my Etsy shop.

Have fun watching the video and please don’t forget to like this post before you leave! 🙂

Next: Check out my Baby Boy version!

New Design: Pouch-Paged Mini Album

Happy New Year everyone! 🙂

I’m not a New Year’s Resolutions Person, but I do have one for 2017: I’m committed to keeping up my schedule of weekly blog posts, which means I’ll again have to do at least 52 papercraft projects this year… How’s that for a SMART resolution 🙂

I’m also striving to keep up my almost-monthly mini album schedule, or more specific, to create at least 10 mini albums in 2017. Yes, a bit less SMART, but intentionally so since I cannot guarantee my own periods of inspiration & creativity. It’s a lot of hard work and keeping to a tight schedule, all while doing (and trying to excel at) an actual fulltime job. But to be clear, I am NOT complaining! I love my job, and I love papercrafting!

So, let’s kick off this new year as best I can – with a new blog wallpaper & background (again a detail from one of my projects, just like last year’s), but more importantly, with a new mini album design!

I’m very proud to present my Pouch-Paged Mini Album! It’s a very versatile design which will hold at least 75 large pictures (13×18 cm / 5×7″); with every pouch you add, the number of pictures will increase with an extra 25 pictures or so, while staying relatively thin and practical.

And that’s not even counting what happens when you decide to add digital photo collaging to the mix. In my case that ensured my three-pouch album to hold 165 pictures! Check out the video below to hear and see more about that.

So, I hope you are all as pleased as I am with this very practical design. Let me know what you think, or create one yourself with my tutorial – the first of 2017, and many more follow 🙂 .