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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
