Don’t you love spring? The days are finally lengthening again, birds are coaxing potential mates to their side by singing to their hearts’ content, early flowers are blooming in happy colors and the sun is already tentatively testing the strength of it’s rays. I think God designed springtime to be an awesome reminder for us that their’s always New Life waiting for us after a period of death – no matter how long the winter in your heart may have lasted.
An explosion box is therefore an especially fitting springtime project: it’s literally an Explosion of Joy! 🙂
Enjoy the video – please like if you do & feel free to leave a comment! And – there’s a tutorial available in my Etsy shop!
A nice way to give someone a gift card of their favorite shop, is to hide it inside a gift box. And of course we crafters take the opportunity to alter said gift box!
Take this one for instance, it’s a cardboard box – perfect for altering. I chose DCWV’s The Colorful Life design paper, which basically consists of prints of very colorful paintings by Donna Estabrooks.
This paper is beautiful enough not to need any further embellishments, so I only did the lid – just a little 🙂 . Of course I inked around all the edges for a beautiful finish, using Tim Holtz’s Black Soot distress ink.
Well, check out the video, and then try one yourself – not only will it make a great gift for someone, it’s also very easy and fairly quick to create!
Note on video quality:Most of my videos are 720p; the rest is 540p. If you don’t get one of these resolutions 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.
This is truly a very lovely paper that reminds me of a walk through the park in spring with lots of grass and flowers, trees and birds – and their little eggs! I know it’s autumn now, but with gray, wet skies covering the Netherlands I like to think ahead and picture next year’s spring in my mind! 🙂
As its name suggests, its theme is all flowers, plants, birds and butterflies, although it also has one sheet of music & poetry – couldn’t tell you why for the life of me, but it’s beautiful nonetheless. Maybe there’s someone reading poetry in that park, accompanied by someone playing a soothing melody on the piano…..
My first ring-bound mini album, using my brand new Cinch binding tool! I designed a custom-made box around it too, which makes it very nice, tidy and compact, and easy to keep in your bookcase.
The paper is gorgeous by the way (what else is new 🙂 ) – it’s Prima’s Madeline design paper, and I used both the A4 stach and the 6×6 inch pad.
I’m very pleased with the result, but of course I learned a lot too while creating this ringed album: what to do and more importantly, what NOT to do… Just check out the video and see what I mean 😉
In the video I’m also showing you some of the tools I use by the way.
For this album I was partly inspired by Kathy Orta’s build-a-page design,
and also by Ginger from My Sisters Scrapper for the page insert at the back of the mini album.
What are your favorite tools for paper crafting? Let me know in the comments section below! 🙂
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 howthis 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?
Here’s another lovely design paper stack by Prima Marketing: it’s called Madeline and has a floral theme in teal, green, wine red and brown. I started modestly with only the 6×6 inch paper pad, but that didn’t last very long… 😉
Anyway, here’s the two-minute video – click here if you can’t see it.
I’ve fallen in love with the bright spring & summer colors of this 12×12 inch (30×30 cm) design paper. Its patterns remind me of the seventies, giving it a “retro” feel despite its bright-colored contrasts. And almost every sheet turned out to have glitter sprinkled all over it – how I love that!
Can’t wait to use it in scrapping projects (what else is new 😉 ).
Click here if you can’t see the video below / Klik hier als je het filmpje niet kunt zien.
Today I’d like to show you Olive Tree by K&Company, a 12×12 inch (30×30 cm) design paper stack in beautiful “woody” colors. Mostly brown and beige, with green and red accents. Probably not for everyone, but if you’re in the market for something different and sophisticated, this might be just the stack for you!
Click here if you don’t see the video below / Klik hier als je geen filmpje ziet.
Walking you through these lovely design & specialty paper stacks by K&Company.
To save some time and – hopefully – keep it interesting, I fast-forwarded several video segments. Although this did indeed speed up the process, it also seems to have increased some of the instability in the video – My apologies!
Opnieuw een gezellige papierdemo, zodat je beter kunt inschatten of je het wilt hebben 😉
Excuses voor het hier en daar onrustige beeld – om toon en tempo vlot te houden heb ik sommige stukken permanent vooruitgespoeld; pas na afmonteren zag ik dat het beeld daardoor ook instabieler werd.
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!
