Mini Layout with Ma Cherie

Today I’m sharing a little layout with my lovely mom as its center of attention 🙂 .

I used Kaisercraft’s wonderfully feminine and slightly oriental Ma Cherie paper collection for this fun little project, which has a chipboard base and measures only 6×6 inches (15×15 cm) instead of the usual 12×12″ (30.5 x 30.5 cm).

This smaller size makes it a very practical gift, for not everyone has room in their homes and hearts for a relatively large addition to their interior decorations – especially when the gift is a complete surprise. A smaller size is a lot less threatening and – more importantly – a lot easier to assign a nice little spot to somewhere in their house.

On the creator’s side, the small size makes for the perfect opportunity to use the 6×6″ (15×15 cm) cutaparts that sometimes come with collections, like the Fine sheet in this Ma Cherie paper line.

I used the top-left cutapart of the sheet called “Fine” for my layout

I embellished my mini layout with some Ma Cherie Collectables die-cuts, some flowers from my stash and some Stickles. I also fussy-cut two butterflies from the Exquisite sheet of the collection.

Exquisite

All in all I was very pleased with the end result – and more importantly, so was my mom! 🙂 So enjoy the video and pictures, and feel free to let me know what you think!

 

Curled up the lower left corner, added the word “treasured” that I cut from one of the sheets, then decorated the rest of the corner with some flowers and die-cut leaves. I also added two Collectables die-cuts right above the curled up paper.

Added a simple hanging mechanism, which I got in a home improvement store (very affordable!)

 

 

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Micro Album ‘Fresh & Bright’

As you may have noticed by now I love to collect older paper collections that are difficult to come by. Lush by Kaisercraft  is one such design paper collection, stemming from 2010!

I used this lovely paper to create a micro album, following the design of my very first micro pretty much literally in order to write a tutorial for you all.

So have fun watching the show & tell video and Go Create! 🙂

 

Layout with Kaisercraft’s Limelight, ft. Nita

As of yet scrapbook layouts have not been my core business when it comes to paper crafting, but I do love to do them when inspiration hits me. For some examples of my personal style, may like to check out my layout-in-altered-framebut also my two calendars: 12 months of Place in Timeand 12 months of Time to Flourish.

The focus of this new layout is my mother’s dog Nita, a beautiful black labrador mix. The picture itself immediately reminded me of Kaisercraft’s Limelight paper collection, which echoed the green and black, plus the white florals. A perfect fit!

Materials used:

Emjoy the video and pictures below! 🙂

Framed, hanging from my wall:

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4 Secret Admirer Cards

Having already created two projects with Kaisercraft’s lovely Secret Admirer paper collection – a Folio Album and a Romantic Drawer box – I had hardly any papers left over, except some scraps.

But since I had really fallen for these gloriously colorful papers, I couldn’t bring myself to throw away even what little I had left. And good thing I didn’t, for as it turns out they had four lovely cards still within in them! 🙂

 

(Above was created with a step card die by the Dutch brand Crealies. Click photo for link to free video tutorial)

 

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1-sheet Valentine’s Project: Romantic Drawers

When it comes to design paper, I’m a bit of Collector. By which I mean that collecting specific older collections that are no longer manufactured, particularly scratches my collecting itch. It’s the Hunt you see, scouring the most obscure local scrapbook stores, the forgotten corners of the internet, and the hidden treasures of people who are destashing all of a sudden. And then the thrill when I find that one last sticker sheet, belonging with an ancient collection in my stash!
Of course I do regularly buy some of the latest collections, but even those I tend to leave alone for quite some time. Not consciously, but usually it’s only when they are somewhat older and no longer in print, the urge to create something with them hits me.

The Secret Admirer collection by Kaisercraft is one such treasure. It’s a Valentine’s Day collection from 2012, and I designed my Cross-haired Memories Folio Album with it, which I showed you a while ago. Of course I had some papers left over, so in this and the next post I’m sharing the projects I created with them.

Today it’s a 1-sheet project, with a particularly gorgeous 12×12″ Secret Admirer sheet. I found this mini drawer box in one of our dollar bins, and after painting it, I used the Mystical sheet to mat. Added some labels and flowers, and there it was, a beautiful, romantic set of drawers. Love it!

As a bonus projects, I used the tiny scraps I had left from my previous project to decorate a chipboard box, turning it into a great stamp little storage!

Enjoy!

 

 

To My Sweetheart – A Romantic Mini Album

Hello my sweet readers!

Although most people in the Netherlands don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d post a romantically themed mini album today anyway. 😉
This album was commissioned by a young man in Singapore who wanted to surprise his girlfriend. He wanted it to be romantic – with pinks, flowers and some love-themed ephemera, etc.

So I chose Kaisercraft’s Oh So Lovely paper collection, which is perfect for precisely such a mini album! It has florals, pinks, wood patterns and some great sentiments!

The album is a pocketstyle mini with 5×5″ (12,5 x 12,5 cm) pages.  It sports ten interactive page layouts, including the inside covers, and four large photo mats. I decorated it with the O So Lovely Collectables die-cutsthe ATC cards of the collection (called Captured Moments – Pretty Little Things) and some decorative elements from other brands on the front cover and throughout the album.

For the page designs I mainly followed my Life’s a Picnic mini album tutorial – which by the way has 14 interactive pages so you’ll get 4 extra page designs if you purchase the tutorial!

So enjoy the video, and don’t forget to check out the close-ups below of the two Oh So Lovely cards I created with the same paper collection! 🙂

For those of you who celebrate it, have fun preparing for Valentine’s Day 🙂

 

 

Two Oh So Lovely cards:

 

Cross-haired Memories – Folio Album II (new design!)

I always love my papercraft, but sometimes – alas, not often enough – it’s extra special, when I feel like I’m just in the Zone! That mysterious place where I’m actually creating, you know – designing, coming up with someting I had never even thought of before.
Back in February of this year I came up with what I’m calling a folio album: a folio spread that folds into a nice & tidy mini album.

And today I’m very happy to share with you my folio album II – sort of a Sequel, a Second Edition, an extrapolation even 🙂 . This time I went all out, for when this baby is entirely open, it spans a whopping 42 inches! (over 1 meter!) which makes it much larger than the first edition (which itself wasn’t really small either).
And on top of that, when this folio album II is folded closed into a cute little mini album, its actually smaller than its predecessor, measuring a mere 5½ x 5½ inches (14 x 14 cm).

So I can honestly say it’s both larger and smaller than my first design, which I really had to think hard about while creating it, but I had great fun designing it! 🙂

This time I used the gorgeously colorful, summer-romantic Secret Admirer paper collection by Kaisercraft. This is a 2012 collection, but still timelessly beautiful and I enjoyed working with it. You may have some trouble getting it by now, but I think there might be some good news for you, for their latest 2015 summer collection Fly Free shares a number of colors from the same pallette.

Anyway, check out the video and pictures below, and I’d love to hear what you think in the comment section!

If you like what you see and would like to create one yourself, there’s an (English) tutorial waiting for you in my Etsy shop – it’s 39 pages long with 114 pictures!

Stay happy crafting, see you next week!

 

 

Deeply Loved – a Step Card

It took me a while to figure out what a certain category of cards with all these different mountain & valley folds was called, so I started out with calling them ‘special folds cards.’ (Yeah, I know.)

Anyway, as it turns out, they already had a name, for they are called step cards. This is the category of cards that has different kinds of, well, steps…

You can create them entirely by hand, or use a die. My first step card was created manually and I figured out all of the cuts and folds by myself, just by looking at a sample picture in Kaisercraft’s free Workshop magazine. It worked out great, but was a lot of work.

Today I’m sharing my second step card, a different kind this time. And this time I used a die (by Crealies) – which does make life a lot easier. 🙂

This particular card was for a wedding, which is why I’ve dubbed it Deeply Loved. I used Prima Marketing’s Almanac paper pad, plus the cutapart sheet from Kaisercraft’s On This Day collection. And added lots of cute decorations.

See for yourself in the video and don’t forget the pictures below it, which you can also check out on my Pinterest page. 🙂

In a couple of weeks I’m going to show you what die you need and how to use it, so stay tuned!

 

Three tips on creating layered card layouts

Lately I’ve been practising my layering, on two calendars which are still a work in progress, but mainly on some birthday cards. I already did a video tutorial on one way you could layer a card, back in August 2014.

This week I’m sharing some extra tips with you, illustrated by three of my latest birthday cards. The paper line I’ve used for all three of them is Lucille, a paper line by Basic Grey which some of you may recognize from my Life’s a Picnic mini album (tutorial available!), of which I had some paper left over, enough to create these cards – though I had to make use of all three of the techniques I’m sharing with your below, otherwise I wouldn’t have had enough paper after all.

Tip 1 – Use scrap mats – even when die-cutting


Above: Birthday stamp by Kaisercraft

I’m guessing I’ve mentioned my scrap mats (check out my free video tutorial by clicking this link) in almost every one of my projects by now – what can I say, I’m a sucker for squeezing out the absolute maximum of paper real estate out of my paper collections 🙂

So in the pictures you can see that the second layer on this card (counting from the bottum up) is in fact a scrap mat, decorated with punched corners. An extra tip however, is that you can die cut shapes from your scrap mats as well! Check out the second to last layer (counting from the bottom up), i.e. the layer directly below the stamped sentiment label: that is a scrap mat label!

Another use for this, next to creating labels and tags, is die cutting flowers and other decorative shapes. I used this technique in the Life’s a picnic mini album, here’s an example: in the picture below you can see that every layer of the flower consists of two different pieces of design paper.

 

Tip 2 – Use the paper pad’s cover

Many design paper pads have covers that have at least some imagery, patterns or shapes that are very useable for fussy cutting. So even if you have hardly any design paper left, you can still embellish your project with help from the paper pad’s cover.

The Lucille 6×6″ paper pad cover has a floral image that I fussy cut and used as a decorative element on my card.

 

 

Tip 3 – Use dimension

If you have die cut two labels in incrementing sizes (my largest label in this third card had been die cut from a scrap mat by the way – see Tip 1), you could of course simply layer them flatly on top of eachother. You can add some interest however by using some double-sided foam tape to adhere the smaller label to the larger.

Adding some glitter glue along the top layer’s edges is always a good idea as well!

 

I’m finding this dimension thing very exciting by the way, and I’m always trying to add some of it to my layered cards & layouts. Like in the Time to Flourish calendar below:

Leave some tips for me!

These were my tips, for now! If my layering adventures lead to any other need-to-know tidbits of knowledge on layering, I’ll let you know! 🙂

Also, if you have any layering tips for me, please let me know and leave a comment – or tweet me!

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Rose of Encouragement – An Interactive Wallet Card

If you want to try your hand at this interactive wallet card yourself, please check out the tutorial I wrote for you, which you can find in my Etsy shop.

NEWS flash: this tutorial is now also available in Dutch – email me if you’re interested! Plus, several card kits to make this particular card are now available as well! 🙂


Recently Jessica, a young lady from the USA whom I had never met before, contacted me via Youtube, proposing a project swap. I loved this idea, as well as the great spontaneity she showed with this initiative, and we agreed to a friendly card challenge. I set the theme, she added some parameters. So here’s the homework we gave ourselves:

Create an interactive, not too bulky wallet-type card around the theme Encouragement. The projects would have to be true to our individual styles and personalities. Extra criterium was to try and make the message to the other person as personal as we could – without us actually knowing eachother… So we’d have to find our inner Encourager, as it were. 🙂

So, in the video below you can check out what I came up with! This wallet card measures 5.75 x 5.75″ (14.5 x 14.5 cm) and is of my own design. It has pockets, tags, layered layouts and several interactive closures. It’s perfect for more than one sentiment and personalized message, it can function as a gift card holder and it will come in very handy as a vehicle for a group gift – when there are several personal messages by different people and/or gift cards needing to be tucked away into one awesome card 🙂

I used Kaisercraft’s Lady Rose collection, which is stunningly beautiful, feminine and timelessly on trend. Plus, it has some great and encouraging sentiment labels which fit this challenge perfectly!

And here’s the video of the card Jessica created for me! So thank you again Jessica, for your lovely card and your great initiative – an encouragement in and of itself! And for those of you who’d like to see what Jessica’s up to, check out her website, which you can find at AT2 Design.

 

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Last-minute Christmas Card #2 (tutorial)

In my previous post I talked about the sometimes urgent need for some extra Christmas cards – preferably handmade, but having very little time to actually create them. I showed you a way to make a quick & easy Christmas card, which will take you less than an hour to create – not counting the drying time for any Stickled areas you might add.

And I promised you a second very quick Christmas card which will need even less supplies, namely just one double-sided sheet of 12×12″ design paper!
I’ve used a sheet of Kaisercraft’s wonderful Turtle Dove collection for this card.

So check it out, there’s some how to instructions in the video as well.

By the way, if you’re in the mood for some serious card making – though maybe not for Christmas anymore 😉 – check out my Christmas cards of this and last year. There’s 2014 and 2013 – maybe not as quick to make as this one, but they may still inspire…

Last-minute Christmas Card #1 (tutorial)

I don’t know about you, but usually I come up short on Christmas cards, whether I buy them or handcraft them. There’s always people who come to mind when the 25th of December comes closer and closer, and sometimes I send out my last cards after Christmas, just in time for New Year…

So I’m going to share two ideas for those times you find yourself in need of one or more extra Christmas cards – and quickly! The first one is a blog-only photo tutorial – which you are reading right now 🙂

You’ll find the second card idea in the next blog post, and it’s a video tutorial.

Quick Christmas Card Tutorial – Enjoy!

Supply list: cardstock, design paper, cut-a-apart sheet or ATC card, ribbon, Stickles, double-sided tape, dimensional tape, Christmas stamp or rub-on.

Paper collections used: Kaisercraft – Turtle Dove, Kaisercraft – Just Believe (cut-a-apart sheet)

1. Mat your card. Adhere two short pieces of ribbon, for decorative purposes, as shown.

2. Take a cutapart (or cut something like it) and decorate to your liking. E.g. I stamped a sentiment and went around the edge of the pattern with glitter glue.

3. Attach the cutapart to the front of the card (covering the loose ends of the ribbons).

4. Fussy cut some elements.

5. Attach the first element to your card.

6. Apply dimensional tape to your second element.

7. Adhere the second element to your card.

8. Add some glitter glue accents to your elements.

Done!

Next: Last-Minute Christmas Card #2 – even less supplies needed!

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