Category Archives: Valentine’s Day

Explosion Box for a Man – Still in Love

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Recently a lovely lady ordered a customized explosion box as a gift for her beloved, to celebrate their love. Today I’m sharing the end results with you, for not only is this the first love-themed explosion box I created, it’s also the first that is intended for a man!

It’s a two-layer explosion box, created out of cardstock and decorated with the Natural paper collection by DCWV. It has several quotes and sentiments about love and family; some I came up with myself, based on what she shared with me about her beloved and their relationship. Others were copied from the Heirloom sticker sheet by Kaisercraft, which is a great source of inspiration for projects about family.

In the center of the explosion box is a tiny wooden treasure chest, super cute, that I altered with papers from the same Natural stack, on top of a copper-colored paint base.

If you feel inspired to create one yourself but don’t know where to start, check out my explosion box tutorial in my Etsy shop, based on my Explosion of Joy version. As a bonus, this tutorial covers a three-layer explosion box, so that’s a whole extra layer compared to this one!

Enjoy the video!

 

Curly die by Crealies:

These tags were made with some tag die sets by Crealies:

A supercute, fully functional micro album

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Like most scrappers, I’m totally addicted to my paper. I like the colors, the smell of a new pad, the sense of being able to kind of ‘shop around’ in my own paper stash, total fabulosity!

So I find it very hard to throw away any leftovers, especially anything larger than, say, ½ x 2 inches (1,5 x 5 cm). So I try to come up with ways to use my leftover scraps. In my starting days I did a scrap ornament, later I came up with a scrap mat (which I use like all the time!). And yet another great way to use those smaller pieces of your gorgeous paper, is to create a fully functional, pocket-page style micro album! I’ve already shown you four of them in some of my previous posts and I still find them great to work on – plus, they make terrific gifts! You can find them all here.

In this post, I’m sharing my fifth one with you, created with Immortal Love paper by DCWV + 1 sheet of DCWV’s The Colorful Life matstack. Its measurements are 3⅛” x 3½” (8×9 cm) and it’s a very cute tiny little micro album, with fully functional pocket pages. Great for your wallet sized pictures!

In the video I also explain how to suspend a charm or trinket from the spine of your album, so there’s a little bonus How to for your convenience 🙂 .

Stay crafty, and until next time!

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Treasured Memory Keepsake Album DeLuxe

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This is probably the largest (or rather bulkiest) and most complex mini album I’ve created so far. My mother asked me to create a beautiful keepsake album in memory of my father, so you can imagine I went all out on this one.

She chose one of the paper lines in my stash, the gorgeous and very fittingly vintage romantic Stationer’s Desk by Prima Marketing.

The show & tell video has turned out rather long, approx. half an hour, so I decided to do a second version, a Fast Forward Edition so to speak, for those of you who just want a quick overview. You find both videos below plus lots of pictures, so take your pick or enjoy both of them 😉

Full Show & Tell video: Continue reading →

Haul video & paper walkthrough: Stationer’s Desk by Prima

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Stationer’s Desk is very vintage, very romantic, perfect for keeping those particularly precious memories. It reminds me somewhat of Romance Novel, one of their older collections. Stationer’s Desk is one of Prima Marketing’s latest however – and I did quite the shopping spree with this one. 🙂

So here’s my haul video – and stay tuned for the large keepsake album I’ve created with this collection, which I’ll post coming July!

How to decoupage a candle

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You may have heard of decoupage or napkin technique. It’s a fun way to alter objects, usually made of wood or paper mache. But did you know you can decoupage a candle as well? It’s the same technique, except you’re using special, flame-resistant candle podge instead of regular podge.

You can check out some examples of decoupaged candles in my blogpost on Easter decorations, for some inspiration. Meanwhile, here’s a tutorial on how to decoupage your own candle – and let’s make it a Valentine’s Day version this time, why don’t we 🙂
So enjoy the video and have fun experimenting!

 

Please feel free to like & subscribe and leave your remarks and questions in the comment section below!

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Valentine’s Day gift idea: Cute little tea basket

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For some Valentine’s Day inspiration, here’s a little photo shoot of a cute wooden tea basket that I altered. Photos only (no Youtube) so I guess it’s kind of a Blog Exclusive 😉

I altered the tea basket with some pieces of napkin – and a little paint. Very simple, fairly easy to make and, therefore, ideal if you want to create a great gift but don’t have enough time to start a Multiple Days Craft Project (capitals intended – we’re all doing some seriously hefty projects from time to time right).

The color scheme that I chose for this tea basket is perfect for Valentine’s Day, or any other romantic occasion. Of course you don’t have to use it for tea: you can fill it up with all kinds of neatness and romantic knick-knacks you can come up with. For instance, simply put some sweets for your Sweet into it 🙂

By the way, you want to take the time to work meticulously and with attention to detail, even with a fairly quick & simple design such as this one. For instance, I used more than one piece of napkin here, but can you honestly point out the seams between the pieces…?

… I thought not 😉
So, no matter how simple a design may be: always pay attention to these kinds of details, for it will make a difference.

When it comes to finishing touches, especially with rounded edges, nooks, crannies and other ‘precision stuff’, I don’t go near decoupageing: too difficult to get it done near-perfectly, it’s messy and it’s hard to correct if you make mistakes. In these cases, paint is my best friend!

Like this handle…
…and the top edges of the basket. I mixed that warmer, darker red color on the edges myself, by the way, adding more hints of dark colors to the handle’s bright red until it was just so.
Because the decoupage technique gives you the opportunity to create great projects relatively quickly, it’s also fairly easy to expand your project. Just use more of those awesome napkins that you picked, and make one or more companion pieces.
Like I did with this candle! Just in case you didn’t know that you can in fact decoupage a candle just as simply as any wooden object, I will show you how to do this in my next post.

So stay tuned for my upcoming video tutorial on How to decoupage a candle!

Stay crafty, and may God bless you all!

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Tutorial: How to make a double circle paper closure

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Lately I’ve gotten some requests to do more tutorials, which was very encouraging and which inspired me to share this design with you all.

For an interactive element in my Little Miss mini album I designed a special paper closure, that I’m calling Double Circle Closure. In this video I’m using design paper from DCWV’s Immortal Love stack, which would also make it a great Valentine’s Day card or interactive element in your Valentine’s Day mini album – just a tip…;-).

It may take a bit of practice, especially since I’m eyeballing the whole thing so I can’t give you any measurements, but I hope you’ll get the idea. I apologize in advance for the lighting, since I filmed at night and didn’t have a so-called “daylight lamp” or any other kind of photo lamp. Anyway, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, simply use the comment section below. I usually answer within 24 hours.

By the way, feel free to use my design on any of your projects. Whenever you decide to share these on your blog, Youtube, Facebook or any other website or medium, please do mention my name (Katja), the name of my blog (Creator’s Image Studio) and please share the link to this blog. Thank you!

Note on video quality: Most of my videos are 720p; the rest is 540p. If you’re not able to get 720p or 540p  while viewing the video on this blog but instead have to make due with some rather unsharp videos, you should be able to adjust video quality by clicking the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the video player, and selecting your preferred quality. If you don’t have the gear icon, then click the Youtube sign, also in the bottom right corner of the video player. This will take you directly to Youtube, where you’ll be able to change the video quality with the gear icon after all. Hope this helps.

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Flip card in Red

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This is a cute little flip card I made in a lovely red color scheme, ideal for Valentine’s Day or any other love & romance theme! It has two flaps that close with magnets and its last “page” has a little pocket.

Well, ’nuff said, let’s go to the two-minute video!

By the way, you can find the tag card I’m referring to in the video here.

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think! 🙂

Prima Romance Novel Altered Treasure Chest, pt. 2 – Completed

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Here’s the little treasure chest again (see part 1), the one I altered with paper from Prima, the Romance Novel 6×6 inch (15×15 cm) design paper pad.

The mini tags were an extra challenge, in that I wanted to print text on them instead of writing them by hand. How do you print text on teeny-tiny labels and tags? I can’t say everything went perfect from the start, can’t say there were no misprints either, but: in the end I was able to come up with some pretty awesome mini prints on some pretty tiny mini tags! 🙂 And if you’d like to learn how to do this as well, check out my free tutorial!

Of course there’s a video below, but first a quick reminder of what I started with: “Before”

And here’s “After”:

I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I really like how it matches my colonial wooden cabinet so perfectly… Plus, I’m especially pleased with how the quilled dandelion turned out – thanks to a tutorial by Inna from Inna’s Creations.

As I mentioned in part 1, I made this box on commission for someone who is going to send it to his lady friend who lives far far away, across many oceans and seas. Of course I sincerely hope that the intended recipient, “R”, really loves this little treasure chest her friend commissioned for her!

So, on to the video! The first one is in English, the second in Dutch.

Click here if you don’t see the video.

 

Klik hier als je het filmpje hieronder niet kunt zien.

 

 

Safely arrived at its destination! 🙂

Prima Romance Novel altered treasure chest, pt. 1 – Preview / Work in progress

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I’m working on a commissioned altered box at the moment, and I thought it would be fun to share some of the progress.

The person I’m making this for wants to send an altered box to his dear friend in New Zealand (yea, I’m being shipped overseas, woohoo! :-)). He has sent me some short notes he wants to be written on the box and furthermore he’s asked me to do something with a dandelion, or a dandelion theme, as this flower has special meaning to him and his friend.

Here’s what I came up with so far:

  1. I’m going to use the Romance Novel design paper stack, I don’t think there’s a paper out there that’s more fitting! It has everything you could want for a commission like this: it’s gorgeous, it’s romantic AND it has a love letter theme, including vintage postage stamps and the like! How cool is that for a gift that will actually be sent overseas by mail!
  2. I decided I wanted to find a way to create an actual paper dandelion, 3D, life size. Didn’t have a clue how to do it, but I was going to find out and make it work!

So, here’s some pics of the work in progress, enjoy!

The wooden box I’m altering. It’s kind of a mini treasure chest and it’s about 3.5×2.5×2.5 inches (9x6x6 cm). Isn’t it adorable?

First I removed its lock and the hinges on the back. Then I painted it dark brown except its little legs which I painted gold, using simple acryllic paint. I mixed it with a pearl paint to create a pearly shine. Then I sprayed glimmer mist on the whole thing, using Tattered Angel’s Iridescent Gold and Vanilla Breeze. Nothing too fancy, but it does create a very nice, subtle effect. Plus, this box has Golden Feet! 🙂

Here’s the layout for the box. I sprayed each piece of paper with a bit of glimmer mist, using the same two colors I used on the box. Of course I’m going to distress everything as well, for which I’ll be using Tim Holtz’s Black Soot distress ink.


On to the creation of the dandelion. Fortunately the internet was there to teach me how to make one (check out Inna’s Creations, a very creative Israeli lady whose website I stumbled onto. She makes gorgeous paper art!). I started by creating the paper strip on this picture.

Roll up tight!

And spread the little petals. Done – A cute little life-sized paper dandelion! Thank you Inna! 🙂


I’m going to put this inside the box, so that when my friend’s friend opens it, a lovely, bright piece of summer will smile at her 🙂

So, this was part 1 – hope you enjoyed it!

I’ll be showing you the finished product in part 2. Until then, stay creative!

Paper walkthrough: Romance Novel by Prima

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Ah, this gorgeous gorgeous design stack is such a delight that I’m hesitant to even use it! Perhaps I’ll simply stare at it for a couple of minutes a day…

Click here if you don’t see the video / Klik hier als je geen filmpje ziet.

 

Edit April 10th, 2013: As it turns out, this design stack is also available in A4 size. I don’t think it’ll come as a very big surprise that I immediately bought that too as soon as I heard of its existence… 😉

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Tag card in Red

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Voor Nederlandse versie klik hier

A tag card is a card that features, well…. tags. I’ve discovered that scrapbookers use the term rather loosely: to them it basically stands for any piece of paper or chipboard that you can either write on or glue a photo onto, that is not glued to something else itself. I’ve seen people call huge sheets of paper “tags”, and I’ve noticed them applying the same notion to the tiniest of scraps. As for me, I simply find the whole concept fascinating – who knew that such simple things as tags could be used in so many creative ways!

For this, my very first tag card, I got my inspiration from Elsa Justafew’s Father’s Day tag card on Youtube – you can find a link to her video in the description of my video on Youtube. Mine was a birthday card – also: gift card holder – for one of my dear girlfriends who turned an undisclosed age last February 1st 🙂

I also added something of myself to this design: digital photo editing. To have every picture that I used fit the design and color scheme of this tag card perfectly, I digitally altered them and gave each character a gorgeous new background. Like with my friend’s cute doggie:

It was quite some extra work, but I’m very pleased with the effect.

So, have fun watching the video – and do let me know what you think!

 

Oh, and don’t forget to check out my Mediterranean variation on this card!

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