Flora and Fauna gatefold keepsake album deluxe

When my mother saw the Butterflies & Stars keepsake album I had recently designed for a friend, she immediately commissioned one herself, as a present for her cousin. There are some differences between the two albums though. For instance, this Flora and Fauna album is somewhat larger than its predecessor; the designs of both its base pages and its cover pieces are different as well.

All in all it took 21 sheets of A4 cardstock for the construction of the pages and tags and about 23 sheets of double-sided design paper (12×12 inches). For the cover I took two 12×12 inch pieces of cardboard, created five unique pieces and arranged them just so.

Two pieces of linen bookcloth strengthen the folds of both spines. The magnets I used for the closure are by Basic Grey, they’re absolutely the strongest crafting magnets I could find!

My mother’s cousin is a dear 80-year-old who loves her garden and everything in it, so my mother wanted somewhat of a “garden theme with little birds and bees and butterflies”.

Fortunately K&Company’s gorgeous Flora and Fauna design paper was already eagerly awaiting me in my stash, begging me to be used – and the very pale lavender color of the cardstock turned out to be the perfect combination. I also used some of the matching embellishments and design elements that go along with this paper – which I’ll show you in de video.

Anyway, long story short, the keepsake album turned out rather beautifully and I’m more than happy with it myself. If you’d like to create an album like this yourself, check out the tutorial for my Springtime Dreams Keepsake Album, for it has the same basic page design!

Now, on to the video, and the pictures below!

 

Commemorative keepsake album “Butterflies & Stars”

My friend commissioned a mini album and she wanted something special, a true keepsake, easy to put between other books (so no dimensional embellishments and extra protection for the pages) and last but not least: incorporate a two-fold theme of butterflies and stars (for personal reasons).

Some commission! 🙂 So, I came up with a new design, taking a little bit of inspiration from both Kathy Orta and a lady calling herself Angelwings14100 on Youtube. Of course I personalized it, creating a unique design by adding my own style, interpretation and of course some original design elements.

Above: One of my original design elements; I created a charm element that incorporated both my usual little Handmade token and the the dual theme of the album, in this case Butterflies & Stars

Here’s the Show & Tell video of my Keepsake album:

And here’s the links to the inspiration videos I mentioned:

Looking forward to you letting me know what you think!

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Timeless Moments mini album “Serenity”

Counting by the number of mini album blogposts I’ve published you’d think this mini album is my sixth. However, it was actually my third, but I wasn’t able to publish this post until the recipient had actually received it as her birthday gift – which has only been the case since yesterday, so here we go! 🙂

DCWV’s Serenity paper is particularly gorgeous imho and therefore I was extra pleased to be able to use it for a mini album!

Above: DCWV’s Serenity paper stack consists of 24 stunningly beautiful designs.

My mother commissioned it for her sister in law, my aunt, and I did my best to create something special for her.

I took most of my inspiration for the construction of this album from Kathy Orta’s Timeless Moments albumI set myself the added task of incorporating a number of different so-called bonus projects into the album, by which I mean different kinds of fold-outs, micro booklets or special wallets. All of these can be filled with photos or journaling or other treasured memorabilia. And there was another “acryllic tag” in this album as well, just like the one I used on the cover of the Ancestry mini album – only this time I attached it to the inside of the cover!

So, please enjoy the video and feel very free to let me know what you think!

Click here if you can’t see the video below.

DCWV - Serenity 4

Pocket Page mini album + Mini booklet – Bohemian Bazaar

Bohemian Bazaar is one of Graphic 45’s new collections of this summer. The colours are bright and primary, the atmosphere of the collection is… well, I guess you could say Bohemian. Although I was immediately drawn to it and didn’t hesitate to buy it, I suddenly had some doubts once I held it in my hands: was this really as beautiful as I had imagined it?

A love-hate affair was brewing and during the worst of it I had even offered it up for sale on some online marketplace. Lucky for me, there weren’t any interested buyers at the time; lucky, for a couple of weeks later I suddenly liked it again (did I mention it was love-hate?). So, I decided to immediately make good of this positive moment in my hesitant relationship with this paper, and whipped-up another pocket page mini album. Its construction is basically the same as my Little Miss mini.
I keep being amazed at how much a simple change in design paper matters, for this one looks completely different from the Little Miss mini album!

And the great thing is: I absolutely love how this little mini has turned out! Who’da thunk…
In fact, I find it so gorgeous that I can’t even imagine not having liked the paper for even one day. 🙂
Oh, and I threw in a little mini booklet as well, to go along with it as a companion piece, like say, for a birthday card or something. I mean, I couldn’t just throw away all those scraps could I? – Ah, those gorgeous little pieces of paper…. Did I tell you how much I love this paper?

Anyway, click here if you can’t see the video below.

 

How about you? With which project, material or tool do you have a love-hate affair?

Pocket page mini album “Little Miss”

Once I discovered Bo Bunny’s lovely design paper Little Miss, I couldn’t wait to do a project with it. Okay, what else is new, right. But guess what, this time I really didn’t wait and have actually already finished a project with it – and after several “for a guy projects” the past month, I went all out and made it a very girly little album! 🙂 For this 6×6 inch mini album I was inspired by Ginger from My Sisters Scrapper; you can check out her original design here.

I gave it my own style and design elements of course, using Vintage Photo distress ink by Tim Holtz to distress the paper.

Above: a unique design element: I came up with my own paper closure technique for this interactive little fold-out piece, which was great fun!

With its warm browns and soft, lush pinks, this paper is very easy to fall in love with. It also seemed to invite me to embellish more than I usually do…. So I went a little more baroque (only a little) and added my first “spine ornament” to the cover. Anyway, see for yourselves and let me know what you think! 🙂

Oh, and I went on to make a tutorial for the Double Circle Closure I invented, as seen on the last page of this mini. You can check that out here.

Click here if you can’t see the video below.

 

So what girly projects have you enjoyed creating yourself?

Ancestry mini album

I’d had my eyes on K&Company’s Ancestry design paper stack quietly sitting in my stash for a while. Its gorgeous, rich vintage tones, the nostalgic feel and of course its family tree sheet just screamed to be used for some cool project!

So, here’s my second mini album, created for those very old family pictures that may have been in your family for a couple of generations now. You know, like those black & white ones of your grandparents and who knows even your great-grandparents. Or those yellowy ones from the sixties and seventies. Ah, how time flies…

This particular mini album will stay in the family by the way, since my mother is gifting it to her sister, my aunt. 🙂

This is a rather large “mini” album, about 8 x 10.5 inches (20 x 27 cm), which makes it great to house lots and lots of photos and other memorabilia. Plus, I really wanted to show off this gorgeous paper, so the larger the pages the more design paper real estate I would have to work with! 🙂

I was inspired by Kathy Orta’s All Occasion mini album for its basic construction, adding of course my own styling, embellishments and personal touch.

I’m very pleased with the way the album has turned out. Let me know if you like it too!

Click here if you can’t see the video below.

Klik hier als je de video hieronder niet kunt zien.

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Explosion box with Uptown Flair design paper

Here’s my second explosion box, decked in the gorgeous summer colors of The Paper Studio’s Uptown Flair design paper. Not only is an explosion box a great alternative for your usual birthday card or gift, it is also kind of a mini album since it will actually hold about 20 pictures!

I had so much fun creating my first explosion box, in the blue jeans colors of the Fiddlesticks paper pad, so I was very happy when I was commissioned to create a second one.

Uptown Flair’s color theme is so inspiring! Almost every sheet of its 12×12 inch paper stack has glitter in its design, which gives it a truly glamorous and festive look and feel. I had already used it on some other projects – two birthday cards, one a mini wallet and the other a photo wallet – but when you make an explosion box you really have to use each and every sheet of paper; which automatically means you get to enjoy working with each individual design.

Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think. If you’d like to create one yourself, please check out the tutorial in my Etsy shop. Oh, and for the link to the “Print your tags” (free) tutorial I refer to in the video, click here.

Click here if you can’t see the video.

 

Klik hier als je het filmpje niet kunt zien.

Dit explosiedoosje is een leuk alternatief voor een verjaardagskaart of zelfs een minialbum – er kunnen nl. ongeveer 20 foto’s in!

Ter inspiratie om zelf ook te maken – er is een Engelstalige werkinstructie beschikbaar in mijn Etsy shop. Ik kan ook een Nederlandse versie voor je maken, tegen dezelfde prijs. Geen tijd/zin om zelf te maken? Je kunt er ook eentje bestellen op dit blog, via de Showroom, papierkeuze/kleur/thema in overleg.

SEI Couture cards & envelopes mini album

— Nederlandstalige video onderaan!

To this day I’m not quite sure what, in “scrapbooking speak”, exactly counts as a mini album; based on what I’ve seen so far, I tentatively conclude that it means something like “any photo album smaller than 12×12 inch (or 30×30 cm)” – which is the standard size for the design paper stacks we all love so much. This of course would automatically mean that virtually every photo album we make is called a “mini album” even if it’s 11×11 inch, the logic of which escapes me somewhat – but since I haven’t yet found any proof to the contrary, I’m sticking to this definition. 😉

Anyway! On to the album! Excuse me, mini album. 🙂

I was inspired by one of Kathy Orta’s mini albums, added some of my own ideas and together with the gorgeous Couture paper stack by SEI it led to a pretty nice result. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. And by all means, let me know what you think!

Click here if you don’t see the video below.

 

Hieronder de Nederlandstalige video. Klik hier als je niks kunt zien.