Tag Archives: Cinch

Here’s all my projects with a wire binding, using a Cinch:

Free tutorial: Wrapping, Matting & Wire Binding (+ printable pages!)

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Hi all,

New year, time for new things – as I think I mentioned in my first blog post of 2018 🙂

So I designed my first printable, namely the pages for a so-called networking booklet. This booklet is perfect to keep with you on your (new) job, as an easy little notebook to jot down all of your networking connections: their names, position titles, departments/companies, and their connections to your own work and position. It offers page layouts in SIX color schemes (the video shows four, but I designed two more: black/gray and blue/red), plus matching title pages. It’s available in my Etsy shop as of right now, and comes both in English and in Dutch (in 1 purchase).

As I’m still a hardcore paper crafter, I also did a video tutorial on how to create the covers & binding, and threw in some matting technique as a bonus. Freely available for you all, as a thank you for your ongoing support. 🌷

Feel free to let me know what you think, and what kind of future printables you might be interested in!

 

 

 

Some Photo Embellishment Tips

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A short while ago I designed what I called the Easiest Mini Albums Ever Made. Today I’m showing you two more iterations of this kind of wire-bound album, filled with pictures, to demonstrate how you can easily embellish your pictures with some punches, dies and glitter glue.

This way it’s even more fun to peruse your little mini albums again and again, and though it might take you some time, it’s really very easy to do 🙂

 

Stamping a sentiment (stamp by Kaisercraft) on top of the picture! Use ink for non-porous surfaces for this.
Punches come in all kinds of fun shapes and sizes and are a great way to add interest!

Hiding a bystander with some die-cuts helps pulling the focus to the main subject of your picture.

Using a little glitter glue here and there helps to add that little Something Extra!

Two different examples of embellishing the same picture 🙂

 

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The Easiest Mini Albums Ever Made

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Creating mini albums can be quite a lot of work, demanding precision, dedication and, above all, time. Which is why I decided to go the other way this time, and set out to create what I wanted to be the easiest mini albums ever made, while still deserving of the name mini album. I wanted to be able to finish them within 2-3 hours, while not needing a lot of materials and tools. Also, they needed to be able to hold a reasonable amount of pictures.

Today I’m sharing the results of my experiment – which were a success for these mini albums are in fact so simple that no tutorial is required! The only things you need are the materials and some tools:

  • double-sided design paper
  • very light-weight chipboard (or heavy cardstock)
  • paper trimmer
  • wire binding tool like the Cinch or the Bind-It-All.

The largest of the albums will hold up to 68 pictures, the smaller one about 25.

Just watch the video and you’ll immediately know what to do to make these 🙂 Have fun!

 

 

The card I created with the leftovers:

8×8 Mini Album: Lucky Dog

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The challenge I set myself for this months mini album was to design an 8×8″ album that would perfectly accomodate a Graphic 45 collection. So not just the design paper, but also the many extras that come with such a collection: the journalling cards, flowers, chipboard pieces, stickers, tags and pockets. One of my main goals was to use as little 12×12-sized design paper as possible. And I succeeded (yea!), for I only used 1 sheet of 12×12 design paper, namely for the back cover!

I also wanted to create a wire-bound mini, for I hadn’t done one of those in a while and there are certain advantages to the page design: you don’t have to create pocket pages for there is no hidden hinge binding. And this means: less bulky!

So I got to work with my Raining Cats and Dogs collection – what a glorious color scheme, and what a treat to see a nineteentwenties translation of a pets theme! Also, you can turn your scraps into awesome scrap mats, and in this blog post‘s free video tutorial I show you how to do that.

Since I created this particular album for my mother – with her dog as the main subject of the album – I can show video footage of the album both with and without pictures, so you can get an idea of how pictures could be incorporated in this design.

There’s a tutorial waiting for you in my Etsy shop – I hope you’ll like it, for this album sports many new page designs!

Enjoy the video and pics below, and see you soon!

 

 

Twice Upon A Springtime: Two Cute Little Minis

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Continuing from last week’s one-sheet-challenge, I came up with another challenge for myself – again, in the spirit of Spring and everything New 🙂

This time it was: How to Create Two Ring-bound Mini Albums out of Four Sheets of Design Paper (and some cardstock)

I don’t know about you but there are some paper collections I only ever bought a couple of sheets of. Like in my case, the Once Upon a Springtime collection by Graphic 45. (At the time I was so happy when I had managed to scavenge a few sheets of this wondrously lovely collection from the hidden corners of our local scrap shop. If only I had known they would reboot this entire collection all over again in 2015! 🙂 )

Another example of owning only a few sheets of a particular paper collection: sometimes I’ve got some sheets leftover from some large project.

Well, what to do with these if you’re not in the mood for cards? Here’s what: create two adorable little minis, and create them in two versions: a photo version and a notebook version.

You’ll need only four 12×12″ sheets of double-sided design paper and eight sheets of A4 cardstock. Plus some embellishments, and of course some tools and crafting supplies.

These little albums are relatively easy and fairly quickly to make, and they make great gifts! For instance, I filled one with photos and gifted it to my mother for Easter. The other I turned into a birthday gift for a colleague, who would now have a great little notebook to keep in her purse, with still room for a few treasured pictures if she wishes.

Like this idea? Great, check out my video below! And if you’d like to create some yourself – admit it, you have several four-sheet-sets left in your stash!! – hop on over to my Etsy shop to get the tutorial! It will be available from April 8th, it has 37 pages and 99 pictures and guides you through the process of creating the mini albums step-by-step.

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Mini Album “2Die4” – an idea to store your dies

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I haven’t been die-cutting from the beginning of my scrapbooking adventures (back in November 2012), but ever since I’ve been trying my hand at it, my stash of dies seems to keep growing no matter what I do… It didn’t take too long before I was in need of a handy and practical way to store my dies, preferably without having to save all the packaging.

I figured: why not create a mini album with magnetic pages to hold all of them!

So I got to work, stumbling along while experimenting, encountering several impediments and difficulties. I finished the project nevertheless, although the end result is not the most esthetically pleasing of projects.

I’m sharing this with you anyway, for now you can all learn from my mistakes, apply my tips and create your own very practical and no doubt far more pretty storage minis! 🙂

Have fun, and let me know what you think!

Boys’ Heroes Ultra Mini Album

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This was a great project for me, for I got to get my Geek on! 🙂

I created this Cinch-bound mini album for Merijn, the 8-year-old son of a friend. A couple of weeks ago I also created one for his older brother Thijmen, and because they are brothers I really wanted each album to have a unique look and feel, so that each boy would really have their own very personal album.

Whereas Thijmen’s album was all about natural history, with wildlife, animal foot prints and dinosaurs, the one I created for Merijn sports several superheroes and other boy favorites. (Of course I consulted their mother to find out what each boy liked.) The paper I used is That’s My Boy by Echo Park, the 6×6 inch pad.

Anyway, it was great fun to create this album and in the process come up with an alternative use for your Marvel comics calendar  – which of course you would have lying around if you’re even half the geek I am. 😉

Okay, so here’s the video. After which, please take a moment to like & subscribe. And, if by any chance you’re curious about my geeky side, try my other blog, Comics & Gadgets! (or its original Dutch version, Gadgets and Geekery.) And, you know, like & subscribe, or just say Hi in the comment section 🙂

 

 

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WonderFall – a 42-Layout Cinch Mini!

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Remember the little autumn-themed ultra mini album I showed you a couple of blog posts ago? I had created it with the leftover scraps of a larger, regular-sized mini album that I was working on. Well, I’ve finished that one and I’m very happy to share the results! 🙂

This 6×6 mini album is Cinch-bound, it has TEN page assemblies with 42 (!) photo layouts, a lot of diecuts by me, plus a lot of extra embellishments. The page construction was very very simple, so I’ve incorporated a short page tutorial as well.

The paper collection I used is Autumn Song by Bo Bunny – of which I totally forgot to film a walkthrough before I started the project, but there’s a link to Amazon below should you be interested in this collection, which is absolutely gorgeous and perfect for this time of year!

This mini album is all about Shalem, my French lop who passed away two years ago. So I decorated the front cover of the album with a picture of him, but before I had the photo printed, I did some digital editing first! I cut Shalem from his original background (the grass in my garden) and then pasted him into a fantasy fall landscape that I found on the internet somewhere. In the lower right corner I digitally wrote his name and dates of birth/death. So before we go to the video, here’s a close-up of the album’s front cover:

So enjoy the video and please leave a comment to let me know what you think! Also, click the Like button…. 😉

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A Natural History Adventure Ultra Mini Album

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Hello, and welcome to part 2 of September Mini Album Month on my blog! (which simply means I’ll upload a mini album video every Sunday, instead of the usual once a month). We started off Mini Album Month with a sweet baby girl mini – if you’ve missed it, you might wanna catch up 😉

This week it’s all about the ultra mini album I created for the son of my colleague & friend, who would be turning ten soon and his mother wanted him to have his very own 10-year-old’s-mini. She told me that of all the things he liked, he loved animals, nature, sea shells, and Minecraft the most. A fun challenge for me, for I had to imagine myself a little boy and try to answer the question: what kind of mini would I like?

I came up with an album that fit the ultra mini album category, by which I mean a type of album that sits right between the regular mini album and the micro album, both in size and complexity. Bo Bunny’s Trail Mix collection perfectly fit the natural history theme I had in mind.
By the way, I’ve shown you an ultra mini album some blog posts ago, so check it out for a Flora & Fauna-themed one.

For your convenience I included tutorials for the basic construction of the pages of this mini, so stay tuned for those in the second half of the video.

Last but not least: during the page tutorial I mention the magnet closure and ribbon pull fairly briefly, based on the assumption that you guys already know how to create those. If you don’t, however, I recommend one of my earlier tutorials, where I go over them step by step.

Have fun and let me know what you think!

 

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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 →

A springtime Ultra Mini Album

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I decided to call this mini an ultra mini album – which automatically made it the first in my brand-new category of mini albums. 🙂 The ultra mini album sits right between my category of micro albums and regular, full-blown mini albums: sort of like an ultrabook – you know, the category of superthin laptops sitting right between a netbook and a regular full-blown laptop 🙂

Creating an ultra mini album turns out to be a great way to use up your leftover design papers, especially if you’ve got more than just tiny scraps.

For the binding of this ultra mini I used my Cinch; the design paper is Flora and Fauna by K&Company.

I invite you to check out the Flora & Fauna XL keepsake album that I mention in the video. And if you want to make some scrap mats of your own, I recommend my scrap mat tutorial!

Enjoy, and stay crafty! 🙂

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Forever Memories: a keepsake mini

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This is a mini album that I created in remembrance of my father, who passed away very recently. I’ve since filled it with pictures of my dad, which makes it a true keepsake. I’ve called it Forever Memories.

I used DCWV’s Immortal Love paper to decorate. Although this paper stack was probably originally designed with a romantic theme in mind, I found it is also perfect to remember a loved one who passed away.

You can read the eulogy that I wrote and spoke at my father’s funeral here, should you be interested; there’s also a Dutch version available here.

Thank you for liking & subscribing, feel free to leave a comment.

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