Mini Album with Only 10 Sheets of Design Paper

With the current year nearing its close – and what a bizarre year that has been – I’m considering some new ideas for my blog and Youtube channel. Counting the fact that we haven’t been able to go out shopping and hunting for new craft collections on the one hand, and given the fact that many of us may have lost (part of) our incomes, I figured next year might be a No Buy Year for me, as far as craft supplies are concerned. Or, to be more realistic, at least a Buy Less Year.

Shopping my stash would be a great way to go about that, being that by now my stash probably rivals the inventories of many a small “Craft Shoppe” (sorry, not sorry).

So to give that a try before dedicating an entire year to it, I shopped my stash for my latest mini album. What I found was an almost forgotten treasure: The Sweetest Thing – Lavender collection by My Mind’s Eye. I only had ten design paper sheets, a couple of brads and a journalling card, but I decided to make do and use them all. I also borrowed a chipboard piece from a different collection and threw in an bunch of flowers and some feathers for good measure.

And here’s what I created: a sweet little two-page album in landscape mode! Tutorial available for all of you stash-shoppers with probably many a ten-sheet paper collection 🙂

And should you find mostly 12-sheet collections in your own stashes, that’s no problem at all: either add an extra album page, or simply add more photo mats/tags/booklets.

Enjoy! And please leave a comment: will you be shopping your stash more the coming weeks/months?

Three All Occasions Folios

As I promised you last week, I have now made the tutorials available for the three photo folios I shared with you in my previous blog posts. Two of them were part of a pre-made collection folio – you can check out last week’s video to refresh your memory. And the third and smallest one went with my Box Pocket Mini Album, which you can find in last year’s Christmas album post.

I’ve actually listed a tutorial set in my shop, for your convenience. It contains two tutorials plus a cutting guide with some different measurements & extra instructions – so three downloadable files, one for each of the folios in the picture above!

Please let me know if you like these kinds of projects, for like you, I too am always looking for some inspiration 🙂

 

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Christmas cards: What to do with your stickers

So, I’ve got a lot of stickers – through no fault of my own mind you 🙂 They’re usually added complimentary to a paper collection or some such. Or they come so incredibly cheap that I simply cannot help myself 😳

I find that although I like the idea of them, I don’t use very many of them. I mean, what do you do with those flat sticky things that in most cases turn out not to be even that adhesive in the long run.

Since I had an especially large number of stickers to go with my All is Bright paper collection (by My Mind’s Eye), I decided they should be used up – or at least 75% of them anyway.

So, here are some ideas for those of you who, like me, don’t know what to do with their darned stickers. 🙂

 

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All is Bright: A Box Pocket (Christmas) Mini Album

As my first Christmas mini has been completely loaded with family Christmas pictures since last year’s holiday season, it was time to create a new one – yea! 🙂

I rummaged through my (by now fairly impressive) stash and came back out with the beautiful vintage-yet-fresh All is Bright papers, a 2012 collection by My Mind’s Eye. With its 18 x 25 cm (7 1/8 x 9 7/8″) it’s larger than its Tis the Season predecessor. It sports nine interactive page layouts, plus what I’m calling a box pocket on the inside front cover.

I created one of these box pockets before, in my large Girly Girl’s Precious mini (see picture below), but this time I incorporated it in a tutorial! It’s already waiting for you in my Etsy shop 🙂

Since the box pocket can hold all kinds of nice things, like a stack of photo mats, cards, a mini folio or even an entire hardcover notebook, I have not included my mini folio in the album tutorial. Instead it’s part of its own – very affordable – tutorial set, including a bonus cutting guide for a larger version!

Check out the video if you’d like to see all the fun & interactive page designs, and sing along with the Christmas tune: “Aaaaall is calm, all is bright….”

I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

 


Loose Change – A Twelve Pocket Folio

Sometimes people send me some photographs, maybe a picture of me and them during a party or a family event, or just a photo update of their little baby. And sometimes they use these pictures as cards – writing a personal message to me on the back. This doesn’t happen super often, but enough to make me want to store these pictures neatly together. Also, I’d like to preserve any notes or personal messages on the backs of these photos.

So I came up with a quick and easy design for a folio: thin, light-weight and without any photo mats since I wasn’t going to glue anything down. I just needed pockets that would fit 10 x 15 cm (4×6″) pictures, and I chose to create twelve – a number that would fairly easily fit onto two pages, keeping the folio super thin. Also, twelve is perfect if you wanted to do something like a year in review or baby’s first year, or some such.

I’m calling this design Loose Change, for it’s intended specifically for pictures you do not want to glue down, and want to change regularly.
This design of course enables you to preserve any hand-written notes on the backs!

In case you’d like to create one yourself, there’s a tutorial waiting for you in my Etsy shop.

Thanks for watching and please feel free to leave a comment below! You can also help support this blog by clicking the Like button 🙂


Four Gentleman’s Cards & A Lady’s

Sometimes I challenge myself to get as many projects out of 1 or 2 sheets of paper as I can (while still liking them). Recently I took two 12×12 inch sheets of the Best of Paisleys stack by My Mind’s Eye and some coordinating cardstock, and got to work.

I managed to create five birthday cards with the materials and I still have some leftovers, so I was quite pleased with that harvest.

I tried some new designs, including two “fashion-themed” cards, for which I found some tutorials on Youtube. So, hoping to inspire you, here’s the video!


A stack of tri-shutter Christmas cards!

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!


Two birthday photo wallets (and hosting my first workshop)

Recently I used the design of the Uptown Flair birthday photo wallet to teach my first scrapping workshop! I received three ladies into my home to show them the first steps of scrapbooking techniques. It was super fun having to actually lay the table, only this time using cutting mat, craft knife, bone folder and ruler for plates & cutlery 🙂

The ladies had great fun creating their own photo wallets, and once the creative juices started flowing each of them came up with some pretty great ways to embellish their cards!

Each photo wallet was created using two olive green envelopes & cards, plus an extra piece of lime green card stock. We matted with Basic Grey’s lovely Sweet Threads design paper, using the 6×6 inch pad. Although none of the photo wallets were completely finished, they were done by about 90%, so here’s the results after a little over four hours of scrapping fun:

And here’s some extra shots of my own photo wallet, which I’ll send to my aunt for her birthday in June. I finished it a couple of days after the workshop. I put some flower seeds in its middle pocket, by way of “sending a bunch of flowers” – with a wink 😉

On the inner right page I will put a nice photo portret of my aunt. The two small pink tags (Beautiful and Feminine) will be put on top of it, by way of “positive commentary” on how I think about my aunt.

Now, I can’t leave you guys without a video can I ;-), so here’s the video (English and Dutch versions) of the photo wallet that I used as a model during the workshop, to show the ladies what we were going to create, how it was going to look, how it could be used, etc. Enjoy your paper crafting!

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

 

Klik hier als je onderstaande video niet kunt zien.


Fiddlesticks tag booklet

Having finished the Fiddlesticks explosion box (a very special kind of all occasion card, check out my blog post with demo video), I had lots of leftover scraps that were demanding to be used. So you might have guessed I designed a cute little booklet with pockets and tags and went to town with it!

Check it out 🙂

Click here if there’s no video below.

Klik hier als je de Nederlandstalige video hieronder niet kunt zien.

 

By the way, I’ve recently created a coin envelope to match! Check out how to make one for yourself!

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Explosion box with “Fiddlesticks” design paper

I really love this western-like jeans, lace & wood design paper by My Mind’s Eye. This 6×6 inch (15×15 cm) paper shows fascinating combinations of colors, fabrics and textures and also comes with two sheets of tags. Check out my paper walkthrough to see what I mean; I loved working with it!

This is my first explosion box. The most difficult challenge was probably “how not to use the entire paper pad in one explosion box” – but I managed 😉

An explosion box is a lot of work but its rewards are as great: it really makes its recipients happy, their eyes widening with wonder and glee when they lift its lid! :-)The one I made here is probably its most simple form; I’m already contemplating more layers, more pockets, more doors, more… everything! So keep an eye out for my next design! 🙂

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

 

Klik hier als je het filmpje hieronder niet kunt zien.

Een explosiedoosje is veel werk, maar het is ook wel superleuk om aan iemand te geven door de verrassing die het doosje in zich bergt, en die tevoorschijn “springt” als de nieuwsgierige ontvanger het dekseltje optilt 🙂

Ook eentje bestellen? Kijk in mijn Showroom.

Paper walkthrough: “Fiddlesticks” by My Mind’s Eye

Sometimes it’s the little things that can make us happy! 🙂

Take this cute little 6×6 inch (15×15 cm) paper pad here, called Fiddlesticks – the title alone brings to mind (well, to my mind at least) some old western with girls in frocks dancing to the fiddly tunes played by some old cowboys. And the papers themselves make it very clear: these cowboys & gals are wearing jeans!

Or something like that. 😉

Anyway, enjoy another one of my Paper Walkthroughs!

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