Tag Archives: card making

Time to Flourish – Three Graphic 45 Cards

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For these final months of the year (boy, how time flies!) I created some cards using the Time to Flourish collection by Graphic 45. This collection is the perfect seasonal collection, with a special focus on all things floral.

I already created some cards earlier in the year, there was May, including Mother’s Day, and fairly recently I showed you two versions of August birthday cards.
This time it’s the fall, and even one Christmas card.

So enjoy the video and pictures, and please like & subscribe!

 

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Time to Flourish – Two August Cards

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The Time to Flourish collection by Graphic 45 is really versatile. You could do a calendar of course, a mini album, or special greeting cards to send your friends and family actual month-based well-wishes. Back in May I created a birthday card and a Mother’s Day card, and today I’m happy to share with you two summer birthday cards, this time for the month of August.

One is a double layout card, the other an extra large card which measures an actual 8×8″ (20 x 20 cm)! I used a lot of layering with the design paper, cutaparts, chipboard pieces, die-cut flowers and some embellisments, mostly from the Time to Flourish collection.

Enjoy!

 

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A Scented Gift Box of Cards

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Fairly recently I added a sweet little paper pad to my (ever-growing) stash. It was the Spring Collection by what I think is a new Dutch brand, called Precious Marieke. It has lovely shades of purple and lavender, lots of florals and butterflies, and it really breathes spring or summer.

I decided to create an entire set of cards with this lovely paper line, and since I wanted to gift them to my friend for her birthday, I also needed a box to put them in.

So I upcycled the packaging of some scented candles. I painted it and matted it with the Precious Marieke design paper. And here’s what’s great: the enticing cinnamon scent of the candles was still clinging strongly to their former-packaging-now-gift-box!

So there you have it, a great tip to give someone an actual scented gift box! 🙂

By the way, creating a set of cards is also a great way to use an entire paper pad, without having to bother with leftovers you can’t get yourself to throw away but which are of no real use either 😉

Enjoy the video and pics!

 

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Deeply Loved – a Step Card

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It took me a while to figure out what a certain category of cards with all these different mountain & valley folds was called, so I started out with calling them ‘special folds cards.’ (Yeah, I know.)

Anyway, as it turns out, they already had a name, for they are called step cards. This is the category of cards that has different kinds of, well, steps…

You can create them entirely by hand, or use a die. My first step card was created manually and I figured out all of the cuts and folds by myself, just by looking at a sample picture in Kaisercraft’s free Workshop magazine. It worked out great, but was a lot of work.

Today I’m sharing my second step card, a different kind this time. And this time I used a die (by Crealies) – which does make life a lot easier. 🙂

This particular card was for a wedding, which is why I’ve dubbed it Deeply Loved. I used Prima Marketing’s Almanac paper pad, plus the cutapart sheet from Kaisercraft’s On This Day collection. And added lots of cute decorations.

See for yourself in the video and don’t forget the pictures below it, which you can also check out on my Pinterest page. 🙂

In a couple of weeks I’m going to show you what die you need and how to use it, so stay tuned!

 

Flower Seed Pocket Card with Boho Chic

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When one of my dear colleagues found a new job elsewhere, I wanted to say Thank you with a special card. I chose one of my previous designs, the Baby Girl card I showed you a couple of weeks ago, together with the four-fold photo board (go to time stamp 7:07).

This design has a magnetic closure on top of the card and it opens top down instead of sideways or bottom up. Inside are two pockets, one for your personalized messages, cards or tags, the other for a little gift. You could add a gift card in this type of card, but also a little sachet of flower seeds – as I have. Which is a great way of sending someone flowers when they are (or are going to be) far away. 🙂

The papers I used are by First Edition, from their Boho Chic 6×6 paper pad.

Enjoy your summer, and stay crafty!

 

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Time to Celebrate Cards & Paper Walkthrough

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I love the gorgeous spring greens and salmon pinks of Graphic 45’s Time to Celebrate!
That is why today I’m sharing two cards I created with it, after walking you through the papers and embellishments of this collection.

It is the perfect card making stack!
Because several sheets display more than one festive occasion at once, coming up with projects that are not cards turns out to be a bit of a challenge for me though, for I usually have one specific occasion or purpose in mind. But, that’s a puzzle I’ll (very happily) solve at a later time!

For now I’m very happy to say: enjoy the video and the pictures below! 🙂

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Video Tutorial: Gatefold Card

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A while ago I created a little gatefold card after which I received some requests for a tutorial. I’m happy to share that I’ve now finished such a tutorial and I’m sharing it with you all today! 🙂

For some extra inspiration I’m also sharing some photos of another one of these cards at the end of this post, below the video.

So have fun creating, and stay crafty! 🙂

A third example, for some extra inspiration 😉

A journaling tag hanging from a brad, instead of a tuck spot with several small tags.

No pocket on the back; instead, an embossed scrap mat.

On the front a dimensional sticker from the paper collection, instead of a flower.

Have fun crafting! 🙂

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Layered Card with Once Upon a Springtime

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Using some leftover pieces from my few Graphic 45’s Once Upon a Springtime sheets, I created this layered card for my aunt’s birthday.

This gorgeous paper is great to work with! Its base layer is what I call a scrap mat, i.e. a mat created from scraps of paper. If you wish to try this technique for yourself, feel free to check out my (free) video tutorial!

Other techniques I used were fussy-cutting, layering, matting, and stamping. I also used some liquid pearl around the edges of the journaling part on the inside of the card. And last but not least, I’m showing off my new 1½” butterfly punch and my new Yep, I made this stamp. 🙂

Hope you feel inspired to create a gorgeous card with relatively few materials too! 🙂

Enjoy the video, and your weekend; stay crafty!

 

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Mother’s Day and Happy Birthday with G45’s Time to Flourish

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I’ve been working with Graphic 45’s Time to Flourish collection since the end of last year, when I was creating the first six months of an 8×8″ calendar. (I’ll show you the second half of that calendar this summer, since I haven’t finished it yet.)

Meanwhile, I added some 12×12″ inch Time to Flourish sheets to my otherwise 8×8″ collection, to mix & match a bit and create four nice cards. Today I’m happy to share the first two, centered around the month of May. They were great fun to make, especially with all the cutaparts, tags and chipboard pieces that come with this collection! I also enjoyed playing around with two different sizes of the same May sheet, the results of which you can see in the video.

So here’s two layered cards, one for Mother’s Day, the other for a birthday, both centered around the month of May.
For some more month-based greeting cards, check out my August versions!

Please like & subscribe, and let me know what you think!
(If you click on the title of this blog post you’ll find the comment section underneath the post).

Three tips on creating layered card layouts

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Lately I’ve been practising my layering, on two calendars which are still a work in progress, but mainly on some birthday cards. I already did a video tutorial on one way you could layer a card, back in August 2014.

This week I’m sharing some extra tips with you, illustrated by three of my latest birthday cards. The paper line I’ve used for all three of them is Lucille, a paper line by Basic Grey which some of you may recognize from my Life’s a Picnic mini album (tutorial available!), of which I had some paper left over, enough to create these cards – though I had to make use of all three of the techniques I’m sharing with your below, otherwise I wouldn’t have had enough paper after all.

Tip 1 – Use scrap mats – even when die-cutting


Above: Birthday stamp by Kaisercraft

I’m guessing I’ve mentioned my scrap mats (check out my free video tutorial by clicking this link) in almost every one of my projects by now – what can I say, I’m a sucker for squeezing out the absolute maximum of paper real estate out of my paper collections 🙂

So in the pictures you can see that the second layer on this card (counting from the bottum up) is in fact a scrap mat, decorated with punched corners. An extra tip however, is that you can die cut shapes from your scrap mats as well! Check out the second to last layer (counting from the bottom up), i.e. the layer directly below the stamped sentiment label: that is a scrap mat label!

Another use for this, next to creating labels and tags, is die cutting flowers and other decorative shapes. I used this technique in the Life’s a picnic mini album, here’s an example: in the picture below you can see that every layer of the flower consists of two different pieces of design paper.

 

Tip 2 – Use the paper pad’s cover

Many design paper pads have covers that have at least some imagery, patterns or shapes that are very useable for fussy cutting. So even if you have hardly any design paper left, you can still embellish your project with help from the paper pad’s cover.

The Lucille 6×6″ paper pad cover has a floral image that I fussy cut and used as a decorative element on my card.

 

 

Tip 3 – Use dimension

If you have die cut two labels in incrementing sizes (my largest label in this third card had been die cut from a scrap mat by the way – see Tip 1), you could of course simply layer them flatly on top of eachother. You can add some interest however by using some double-sided foam tape to adhere the smaller label to the larger.

Adding some glitter glue along the top layer’s edges is always a good idea as well!

 

I’m finding this dimension thing very exciting by the way, and I’m always trying to add some of it to my layered cards & layouts. Like in the Time to Flourish calendar below:

Leave some tips for me!

These were my tips, for now! If my layering adventures lead to any other need-to-know tidbits of knowledge on layering, I’ll let you know! 🙂

Also, if you have any layering tips for me, please let me know and leave a comment – or tweet me!

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Happy Easter – With a Pocket-style Card Constructed from One Sheet of Cardstock!

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It’s springtime! 🙂 Although it’s still pretty cold where I live here in the Netherlands, you can already feel a certain ‘softness’ in the air as days are lengthening and nature is preparing to wake up. I don’t know about you, but I’m totally game for spring!

And this year we’ll have a fairly early Easter. Normally I don’t send out any Easter cards (it’s simply not a Dutch tradition) but this year I felt like letting at least a couple of people know that I’m thinking about them and wish them some great times with the upcoming holiday.

I found this lovely sheet of paper by We R Memory Keepers, from their Cotton Tail collection, and it immediately took my thoughts to all the wonderful things that make up springtime and Easter.

So in the spirit of spring, I decided to design something new. I challenged myself to use only one piece of 12×12 inch cardstock for the construction of this card! Of course you will need some extra materials, but not a lot and the main items on that list are 1 extra sheet of cardstock for tags (A4 will suffice), and 1 sheet of 12×12 inch design paper. That’s about it! This design will enable you to create an elaborate and interactive card that is still quite affordable in terms of the supplies you need – awesome right?! 🙂

Also, this card is perfect for more than one sentiment and personalized message, it can function as a gift card holder and it will come in very handy as a vehicle for a group gift, when a group of people are giving one gift together.
And last but not least, you could also use it as a mini album page insert!

Good news: I’m making this design available to you all in my Etsy shop – and like the card itself this tutorial is also very affordable, so check it out!

And here’s the show & tell video, enjoy and let me know what you think!

 

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Rose of Encouragement – An Interactive Wallet Card

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If you want to try your hand at this interactive wallet card yourself, please check out the tutorial I wrote for you, which you can find in my Etsy shop.

NEWS flash: this tutorial is now also available in Dutch – email me if you’re interested! Plus, several card kits to make this particular card are now available as well! 🙂

Recently Jessica, a young lady from the USA whom I had never met before, contacted me via Youtube, proposing a project swap. I loved this idea, as well as the great spontaneity she showed with this initiative, and we agreed to a friendly card challenge. I set the theme, she added some parameters. So here’s the homework we gave ourselves:

Create an interactive, not too bulky wallet-type card around the theme Encouragement. The projects would have to be true to our individual styles and personalities. Extra criterium was to try and make the message to the other person as personal as we could – without us actually knowing eachother… So we’d have to find our inner Encourager, as it were. 🙂

So, in the video below you can check out what I came up with! This wallet card measures 5.75 x 5.75″ (14.5 x 14.5 cm) and is of my own design. It has pockets, tags, layered layouts and several interactive closures. It’s perfect for more than one sentiment and personalized message, it can function as a gift card holder and it will come in very handy as a vehicle for a group gift – when there are several personal messages by different people and/or gift cards needing to be tucked away into one awesome card 🙂

I used Kaisercraft’s Lady Rose collection, which is stunningly beautiful, feminine and timelessly on trend. Plus, it has some great and encouraging sentiment labels which fit this challenge perfectly!

And here’s the video of the card Jessica created for me! So thank you again Jessica, for your lovely card and your great initiative – an encouragement in and of itself! And for those of you who’d like to see what Jessica’s up to, check out her website, which you can find at AT2 Design.

 

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