Most of us can’t go to our nail techs these days, so here’s a way to do some great nails yourself! You can do it straight onto your own (polished) nails, or if you have any falsies, use them instead.
Happy New Year!
Here’s some inspiration for your nail do-up for the holiday season 🙂
As usual I used sets of false nails in colors of my liking, and decorated them – mostly with decals this time.
So go on and go for your own Glam Holiday Nails – after watching my video of course 🙂
This week I’m sharing my annual Christmas card tips with you again, this time for those of you who would like to make their own Christmas cards but don’t have time or energy to design and create a lot of elaborate, unique cards.
Tip #1: Only decorate the fronts of your cards, and leave the insides and backs plain;
Tip #2: Use a die-cut card block, filled with all of the materials you need to create a set of nice cards, like design paper and a lot of die-cut punch-outs. You can add your own glitter glue and dimensional tape to add some more interest of course.
So check out the examples I created using such a card block, this one by Studiolight, and I hope you feel encouraged to make some of your own!
This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous post I showed you a quick Christmas Mini Album and a 1-sheet Micro Wallet. Today: Part 3 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂
The Nutcracker Sweet papers are an older (2012) collection of Graphic 45, but once I discovered it, I really fell in love with its beautiful purple, pink and clear-winter-sky-blue hues. So I decided to use it – papers & chipboard tags – for my Christmas cards this year.
I’ve created cards of several different sizes and styles, and today I’m sharing the first: the 4×4″ Double Card.
Next up: December Deluge pt. 4 – Caramel Christmas Trishutter Cards
Having done several mini and micro cards & booklets, I figured it was time to go in another direction and create a super-sized card! 🙂 It’s a Happy Birthday card, created with DCWV’s Serenity paper and measuring 17×25 cm (approx. 7×10 inches). It has three pockets, which hold two photo mats plus an “actual” birthday card – from a local store. Of course I used my scrap mat technique as well, on the front pocket.
Enjoy the video!
Have you ever created a super-sized card or other project? Please tell me all about it in the comment section below! 🙂
Don’t forget to like & subscribe, so you won’t miss future projects 😉
I got a great Christmas wreath from my friend, who made it herself. Thought to share that with you, for some extra holiday decoration inspiration!
This past year has been my first “full” year of paper crafting: it all started with the calendar I created for my mother back in November 2012, which seriously infected me with the “paper crafting virus” 🙂 . It has been a year of wonderful creativity and I’m very grateful for the many new techniques (new to me, at least…) I’ve been able to learn. Looking forward to 2014, I’m hoping to plan my craft projects more around the different seasons: not just taking into account the uniquely different feel of winter-spring-summer-autumn, but also bringing some of the holiday seasons into the mix. Not with every single project of course, I mean, sometimes you just want to use a certain design paper because it’s simply too gorgeous not to 🙂 – but generally speaking I feel it should be doable.
So, starting right now, at the end of 2013, I’m very happy to present you all with my very first Christmas mini album!
I used the Tis the Season paper collection by Kaisercraft and inked around all the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink by Tim Holtz. I’ve also incorporated some so-called scrap mats again, a technique I actually came up with (and named) myself. If you want to know how to make them, feel free to check out my tutorial!
If you’d like to know how such an album would look with pictures in it, check out the pictures underneath the video PLUS the 2017 update here! 🙂
Right, ’nuff said, on to the video!
Inside front cover – decorated this time, plus a picture (of little me 🙂 ) added to the photo mat:
Die-cutting the picture and finishing its edges with glitter glue adds interest to your photo mat! I also stamped the year in the lower right corner, in copper-colored ink:
Liked this mini? Then check out its little baby sister, my Christmas Micro album! 🙂
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL, AND THE HAPPIEST OF NEW YEARS!
A couple of blogposts ago I published my tutorial for a tri-shutter card. Since I’ve now sent out all my Christmas cards, it’s time to show you this holiday season’s version of a tri-shutter card – plus, how I made good use of the leftover scraps, as usual :-). Hopefully to inspire!
The paper I used was Holly Jolly by My Mind’s Eye. Enjoy!
So I decoupaged some Easter eggs a couple of days ago. Saturday, the day before Easter, I decided I definitely needed some candles to go with them. So, here they are!
I used the same napkin technique, only this time with different glue of course, in order to be able to light them safely. It’s a special candle podge, which will prevent your napkins from catching fire – instead, they’ll neatly melt along with your candle. Perfect.
So, here’s the three decoupaged candles, and my springtime living room to match! 🙂
Dutch translation:
Drie geservette kaarsen in Paas-/lentethema zorgen voor extra kleur en gezelligheid! Let op: om kaarsen te servetten moet je wel speciale lijm gebruiken om ongelukken te voorkomen (zie foto hierboven).
Usually I don’t decorate my Easter eggs – assuming there are any Easter eggs in my house at all, which isn’t necessarily the case each year, I simply buy them in the color I want. This year however, when I bought myself some eggy Easter branch ornaments after all, I decided to decorate the few white ones.
I used yellow and two shades of pink, since at the moment gold, yellow and pink (of the vintage kind, like Tim Holtz’s Tattered Rose distress ink that you can see in my explosion card post) are the colors I’d already decorated my living room with.
There were four white Easter eggs in the stash that I bought, in three different sizes. I decorated them by applying the napkin technique and adding some gold stickles, and here’s the results!
By the way, I found some mirror-imaged stickers with a cute spring theme – and I decided couldn’t not use them: how often do we find mirror-imaged stickers right? So, I stuck them onto a piece of card board with a small piece of thread to create a loop. Then I added a little gold stickle on a few spots. And lo and behold: Yet Another Easter Ornament to hang from my “tree” (which is actually a lamp, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed from the picture above).
Dutch translation:
Tot nu toe versierde ik nooit paaseieren – als ik überhaupt al paaseieren in huis had. Dit jaar vond ik echter een paar mooie, makkelijk op te hangen paaseieren, van het een kwam het ander en ineens hing mijn multifunctionele staande lamp vol. Deze lamp staat er normaalgesproken bij als een soort populier, met de takken helemaal omhoog, en doet verder alleen dienst als kerstboom (takken helemaal uitgevouwen). Vanaf dit voorjaar heeft ie een nieuwe functie: de Paasboom, met de takken ergens halverwege populier en kerstboom!
Er zaten een paar witte eitjes tussen de gekleurde en ik besloot om die dan toch maar te gaan versieren. Ze waren van kunststof en verven werd me te ingewikkeld (moet je eerst weer gaan primen en zo). Daarom koos ik voor de servettechniek. Omdat de rest van mijn woonkameraccessoires ook geel, goud en oud-roze zijn heb ik servetten in geel en twee tinten roze gebruikt. En vervolgens afgewerkt met gouden glitterlijm.
Hierboven het resultaat!
I’ve always had a thing for paper and all related stuff – when I’m in an office supply store or, even better yet, an arts & crafts place, I always breath in deeply, to smell all that papery stuff. I’ve loved the beautiful 12×12 inch design paper stocks for many years now but never bought any, because I didn’t really know what to do with it. Yet!
Last December I finally got my chance: I decided I’d try my hand at scrapbooking – and what a ride that was!
My mother had asked me to make one of these digital print-it-yourself calendars, like I’d done each year for her for a couple of years now, but the pictures she wanted me to use were all mostly in black and white. And for a color addict like me, that simply wouldn’t do. So on an impulse I figured I’d add at least some color, bought myself some designer paper and got to work.
Oh, and did I tell you this was about three weeks before Christmas? Well, it was, and I had never scrapped anything in my life, plus I had my fulltime job… I discovered I not only needed far more materials than just the paper, it also cost a lot more of “creative time” than I’d thought – hours and hours of thinking how to layout this or that month, and how to get the small contraptions I wanted to design to actually work. I could have easily burned out with those kinds of hours days in a row – that is, if I hadn’t enjoyed myself so much!
Like April, for instance (see picture below). I wanted one 12×12 inch sheet to open with two different kinds of doors cut from and still part of that same sheet – and they had to be able to open and close without any magnets or glue (the reason for that was simply because that was the challenge I had given myself for that month).
Anyway, this was a great project to actually use full size 12×12 inch cardstock in all its gorgeous glory! How I love my paper…
I used The Natural Stack and the Immortal Love stack most of the time, both by DCWV. Plus two tiny bits of cardstock from DCWV’s Once Upon A Time, and some brandless cardstock from the Netherlands.
Enjoy the pictures below!
Btw, I apologize up front for its length; I guess I just had a lot to say for each month, and there are twelve months and a cover, so…. Plus, at the time I shot the video I had no idea I would start a blog two months later. Anyway, I’ll try to seriously cut down the length of my next videos. If nothing else, there’s always fast forward… (On the other hand, it could be quite a relaxed watch if you pour yourself a nice cup of tea to go along with it, and of course some cup cakes on the side 🙂 )
