Tag Archives: card making

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.

 

New Spring Home Card

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Don’t you love spring? With nature – sometimes tentatively – stretching all of its green arms out to the sun, and the first flowers showing us this year’s latest Spring Colors (yes they’re the same as last year’s Spring Collection, but then again, that was gorgeous and absolutely worth the annual re-runs! 🙂 ).

So I was very happy to create this super springy New Home card, using the 2014 colorful spring collection by Webster’s Pages, called Nest. Which I also used to create my Springtime Dreams Keepsake Album, so if you’d like to see more of this collection go check out that album!

I also used some vellum on the inside of this card, for some added interest, using the same technique as I did with the aforementioned Springtime Dreams project.

So let me know what you think!

 

 

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Super Dimensional Birthday Card

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Creating a dimensional card requires lots of different cuts & folds. These can be done by hand of course, but sometimes I prefer using the various niftily designed dies that are on the market. Like the Create-a-Card die series by Crealies(.nl). For a demonstration of how to work with these dies, you can check out my free video tutorial for the stepcard I created with Crealies’s Create-a-Card die #8.

Today I’m sharing the dimensional card I created with their Create-a-Card die #18, which is a very playful type of card: I’ve seen several different and very creative ways of decorating these kinds of cards. As for my version, it’s a first try so I kept it fairly simple, but I did want to give the dimensional parts of this card their own decorated background. So I added a second layer of cardstock – as explained in the video below. Added advantage of this double layering is that it creates the look of an actual card when folded closed – for without this second (outside) layer there would be no ‘front’ and ‘back’, only ‘inside’, due to all the cuts & folds that make up the dimensional parts.

Hope this makes sense; in any case, just check out the video below and hopefully you’ll see what I mean, 😉 Anyway, these kind of cards are a fun and welcome variation to add to your general card designs; and even without the die you can make the necessary cuts and score lines fairly easily with a craft knife and a scoring board.

Hope you feel inspired, stay crafty and see you next week! 🙂

 

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Pocketstyle Birthday Card

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Today I’m sharing a second iteration of one of my wallet card designs. I used the Simple Stories Say Cheese collection, including some tags and cutaparts, to create a lovely birthday card. The bright, high-contrast colors of this paper line make it very suitable for winter birthdays – like my friend’s, who has her birthday in February. So I printed some fun birthday sentiments on the large tags – though you could also do some stamping or even use them as photo mats. The inside of the card offers room for journaling or a personal birthday message.

Although I used several sheets of design papers to decorate, this type of card will also allow you to use only one sheet of double-sided design paper – to see how that might look, check out last year’s Easter iteration!. That way you won’t need much more than two pieces of cardstock and one sheet of design paper!

All in all it was a very fun project which I enjoyed creating just as much as the first one, so check out the affordable tutorial if you’d like to create one too!

 

 

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4 Secret Admirer Cards

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Having already created two projects with Kaisercraft’s lovely Secret Admirer paper collection – a Folio Album and a Romantic Drawer box – I had hardly any papers left over, except some scraps.

But since I had really fallen for these gloriously colorful papers, I couldn’t bring myself to throw away even what little I had left. And good thing I didn’t, for as it turns out they had four lovely cards still within in them! 🙂

 

(Above was created with a step card die by the Dutch brand Crealies. Click photo for link to free video tutorial)

 

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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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Tri-shutter Birthday Card for a Golf Player

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A so-called tri-shutter card is easy to make and almost always generates amazed and admiring responses. You can create them at different sizes and shapes (i.e. rectangular or square), simply by playing around with both the horizontal and vertical measurements of your cardstock.

I created different Christmas versions in the past, with the square (when folded closed) Holly Jolly cards and the smaller, rectangular Caramel Christmas versions.

Today I’m sharing a third variation: a birthday card for a golf player, using a Proper Gentleman paper by Graphic 45.

I fussy-cut an actual golf player from the paper and glued it to the left front panel, making sure the glof club was sticking out.

I also die-cut and embossed the first letter of the name of the guy to whom I was going to send it. I lightly went over it with some distress ink, to highlight the embossed parts.

I always use a light color for the central panel, to be able to write or stamp a message. In this case: Congratulations in Dutch.

When creating a card or other project for a guy, I always keep the embellishments at a minimum. No fuss for a man! 🙂

Sometimes it’s difficult to establish whether the male recipient of your card genuinely likes it for its own merits – for though he may truly appreciate and enjoy the gesture, he might still feel neutral at best about the esthetics of your work. Nevertheless, in this case I think the colleague who received this particular card actually deemed it quite likeable 🙂

So, hope you feel inspired for your first new cards in 2016. As I said this design is very easy to make. If you’d like to try it but don’t know how, check out my free video tutorial!

Next week’s video: Boxing Days – A chipboard storage or gift box to create yourself!

 

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December Deluge 9: 8×8″ Signature Sheet Christmas Card

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This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you several December projects, the first of which was a quick Christmas Mini Album, so you can start there if you’d like to see them all. Today: Part 9 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

Today I’m sharing part 2 of my signature sheet ideas, so the sheets that feature the title of each Graphic 45 collection. In my case, just like in my previous post, from the 8×8″ Nutcracker Sweet Christmas collection.

Signature sheet

This time I hardly cut into it at all, using it in its entirety for an interactive 8×8″ Christmas card. Since this one was for my mother, I also added a present: a handmade voucher for the actual Nutcracker Suite classical ballet piece – for which I was totally inspired by this paper collection! 🙂

So there’s an idea to use your beautiful signature sheets, and you only need:

  • 1 double-sided signature sheet
  • 1 double-sided sheet of design paper from the same collection
  • some cutaparts
  • a piece of decorative chipboard

Have fun creating and enjoy your Christmas holiday season!

Using a chipboard piece as a closure: simple but very effective!

Next up: December Deluge 10: Decoupage Your Winter Home Decor + Happy New Year!

December Deluge 7: 6×4″ Nutcracker Sweet Christmas Cards

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This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you several December projects, the first of which was a quick Christmas Mini Album, so you can start there if you’d like to see them all. Today: Part 7 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

This year’s Christmas collection for me has been Nutcracker Sweet by Graphic 45. A couple of blog posts ago I already showed you a number of 4×4″ Christmas cards I created with this collection. ANd there’s more purple projects to follow, so stay tuned! 🙂

I always like to do double layout cards, by which I mean cards that have layouts both on the front and on the inside, which gives them a particularly finished look and adds a luxurious feel.

Today I continue my Purple Plethora of Christmas cards, with seven 4×6″ versions of Nutcracker Sweet!

Enjoy the video & pics!

 

Next up: December Deluge 8 – Nutcracker Sweet Treasure Chest!

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December Deluge 6: Candy Cane Lane – Twice!

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This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you several December projects, the first of which was a quick Christmas Mini Album, so you can start there if you’d like to see them all. Today: Part 6 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

Sometimes I buy only a couple of sheets of a certain paper collection. Perhaps there are no more available (because it is an older collection) or perhaps I simply want to create a few smaller projects and have no need for an entire paper pad.

This was the case with Candy Cane Lane, a 2014 collection by Bo Bunny. I bought only 7 sheets of 6×6″ (15×15 cm), plus the button set of the collection. Threw in some flowers from my stash, and I was perfectly set to create two lovely, double-layout Christmas cards! 🙂

1a.

1b.

2a.

2b.

Next up: December Deluge 7 – 4×6″ Nutcracker Sweet Christmas Cards!

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December Deluge 4: Caramel Christmas Tri-shutter Cards

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This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you a quick Christmas Mini Album, a 1-sheet Micro Wallet and a set of Nutcracker Sweet Christmas Cards. Today: Part 4 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂

You know how you often have reasonably large scraps of cardstock left over from a larger paper craft project? I always like to use them instead of throwing them out. For instance, I had some fairly broad strips of cardstock left over from my Caramel Christmas mini album, and I decided to turn them into some trishutter Christmas cards. Since their measurements weren’t the regular, like standard, size for this kind of card, they turned out somewhat smaller. Also, when folded closed, they weren’t square but a pretty small rectangle.

They turned out great nonetheless – and an extra bonus was that I could also use some leftover scraps of design paper of the aforementioned mini to decorate the cards!

Hence their name: Caramel Christmas Trishutter Cards 🙂

Oh and by the way, if you’d like to create some trishutter cards yourself, check out my free video tutorial!

Next up: December Deluge pt. 5 – Decoupaged Christmas Candle & Box

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Three Double Layout Cards with Raining Cats & Dogs

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After two projects (a mini album and a tea box) I’m still in love with working with Graphic 45’s beautifully colored Raining Cats & Dogs paper collection. So I created three cards with this same collection – the 4th of October was, after all, World Animal Day, so hey. 😉

All cards are (what I call) double layout cards, which have layered layouts both on the front and on the inside. Of course you can’t put too much bulk on the inside, but the collection offers plenty of non-bulky ephemera as well, like chipboard, die-cut flowers and tags & pockets.

So here we go, with two dog-themed cards and one aimed at cat lovers. Hope you feel inspired! 🙂

 

 

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