Technique Tutorial: Getting Started on Some Early Spring Cards

I guess I’m over Winter. For when I started thinking about making these two cards, my mind immediately jumped to some yellows, florals, birds, bees and easter bunnies.

So, I’m inviting you to get started with me on some (very) early Easter or Spring cards, get some inspiration from my video or follow along with me to create these exact card designs.

The papers I used were by Craft and You Designs, from their Spring Garden collection.

Have fun crafting and I’d love to know: did you make these along with me, or at least feel inspired to get creating some spring projects of your own? Let me know in the comments down below!

Nifty Multi-pocket 1-sheet Card

Happy New Year everyone!

And let’s start 2023 with a lovely vintage 1-sheet card, its browns & grayish blues so suitable for autumn and winter, and yet its pink roses remind us that Spring is coming (well, eventually it will).

There are many ways to fold beautiful cards with only one sheet of paper. You could also use cardstock and mat it (which would technically make it a 2-sheets card) but much easier is using a double-sided sheet of design paper.

I designed this particular card type myself, it takes a bit of folding, one cut with a paper trimmer and a little bit of glue, and it will turn into this very nice multi-faceted card with two pockets and a little doorlet on the front to tuck some extra niceties behind.

If you want to know the nitty-gritty of how to make this, there’s an excellent PDF tutorial in my Etsy shop, it’s Tutorial #9. (It’s very affordable btw).

I’ve made several of these over the years, and here’s my latest, using the beautiful vintage Time is an Illusion paper collection by Stamperia.

Opening the front flap and finding a nice removable bookmark on the inside
Checking out the center pocket, which holds a lovely tag, which I decorated with some stamps and a die cut image of a cup of tea
On the back of that same tag, I attached an actual bag of tea for my friend
Back pocket
The back pocket contains a booklet
The inside of the booklet offers room to write a message on the left, and a nice stamped sentiment on the right

Learn how to design your own card

Crafting a paper project is one thing, but feeling confident about actually designing it, that’s quite another. You cannot teach creativity, but what I can do is taking you along in my thought process while I design a special kind of card.

Using a sheet of Mintay’s Next Trip collection, I’m designing a card with a spine, meant to hold a hand-made tea bag filled with delicious tea.

Mintay Papers – Next Trip – MT-NEX-03

You can watch me come up with measurements – while I explain all kinds of different design options – where to cut and fold, and how to get the most out of your one sheet of design paper. You will also see me design an actual belly bridge, vs. the more common belly band :-), one which is able to accomodate quite a bulky tea bag.

In the video I’m also using a tea bag die, but you can of course also cut and fold your own little tea bag. If you don’t know how to do that, there’s a complete instruction on how to replicate this particular one, including measurements, in my Tea Bag Micro Album tutorial.

Hope this is helpful to you, let me know in the comments!

PS: I’m not creating as many projects as I used to, it’s just a phase I’m guessing. This past 1.5 year has beaten my creativity down somewhat. I’ll still be here though, and on Youtube. Just not every single week. Sorry! 😔

To my Dutch followers: if you want to see what I’ve been up to lately, check out my second YT channel, which is entirely in Dutch, and my second IG account (English) 🙂

4th of July project: 1-sheet Multipocket Card

One of my new favorite brands is Mintay Papers, and even though I only bought one sheet of their beautiful red-white-blue Berrylicious collection, I think I managed to squeeze the absolute most out of it! 🙂

I created a multi-pocketed interactive 1-sheet card – Tutorial #9 in my shop – and this time I used cardstock as a base and matted with the double-sided Berrylicious sheet (instead of design paper only/no cardstock).

The color theme of this paper collection makes it ideal to celebrate national holidays – (if those are your national colors) – without having to work with actual flag-themed papers. Like this week, if you’re an American and celebrate the 4th of July. Or when you’re in the Netherlands like me, and celebrate Liberation Day (5th of May).

Mintay Papers, Berrylicious, MT-BER-01

Or you can totally ignore any national theme and simply enjoy the bright, fun colors and homely images and patterns, and send it to your mom for Mother’s Day – which is what I did 😊

Enjoy the video – and if applicable: Happy 4th of July! 🎉

Another Mailable Mini – But Different

I guess I’m into some mailable minis… So here’s a different design altogether! You only need 1 sheet of cardstock and some design paper. The flatter you keep your decorations, the easier it will fit into an envelope and off through the mail.

In this video I’m showing you an example of such a 1-sheet album, and I’m also taking you with me through my decorating process.

Btw, you can turn this project into a mini album page for my Double-Stacked Too mini album design. There’s a video class series for that entire album available here.

Hope to have inspired you to create a fun & quick project!

How to Make a Pattern-Border Christmas Card

Now that Christmas is only three weeks away (can you even believe how time flies?!) I thought I’d share a nice Christmas card tutorial with you all. This time it’s a card of which one of its border follows the shape of your paper pattern.

I’ll teach you how to set it up, how to back it up with cardstock, and also how to mat it on the inside. And I’ll show it all to you in under 9 minutes! – though it will probably take you a couple of hours to actually create it 🙂

And the great thing is, you don’t even have to use Christmas papers, look at how gorgeous this wintery Unicorn paper by Stamperia is! 🙂

Enjoy this free video tutorial, and feel free to send me the links to yours!

 


Christmas Card Tip: Using Only One Sheet of Design Paper!

So, it’s that time of the year again 🙂 You can never be too early creating your Christmas Cards. The coming weeks, like every year, I’ll sharing lots of Christmas card tips with you, helping you along to get yourself unstuck and go create your own! It really doesn’t have to be difficult, nor expensive! To prove this, I’m kicking of this C-card season with several easy-to-create lowbudget Christmas cards that I decorated with only 1 sheet of design paper! And of course a few extra embellishments, but you can even do without those if you want to – or perhaps have to because of budget reasons.

So go ahead and check out the video, and then go ahead and Create!

 

 

Unicorn Card & Summer Announcement

In this week’s video I’m sharing a nice quickscrap project: a unicorn card, created without cardstock, using the wonderful Unicorn sheet from the Wonderland collection by Stamperia.

Also, a summer announcement: this summer I’n doing a four-part series called Scrap With Me, with four basic papercrafting technique tutorials, starting next week! 🙂

Enjoy your summer!

 

 

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Tips & Variations for Napkin Fold Cards

Napkin fold cards or origami fold cards are always the perfect creative card if you don’t have a lot of time. You can make this within the hour, which adds it to my quick scrap category 🙂

I’ve done several of them in the past, for inspiration you can check out all of those posts in a row.

This week I’m sharing three tips with you for this type of card, variations you may not have tried yourself yet and which I hope will inspire you. So check out the video for those tips. Below that you’ll find my free video tutorial for napkin fold cards, which I hope will come in handy 😉

 

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Tea-riffic Micro Album!

(Nederlandse tekst + video hieronder!)

I’m very happy and honored to be a Guest Designer for Crealies this month! 🎉

For my first guest designer project I designed a completely new variation on my own micro album designs, and I’m calling it a Tea Bag Micro Album! This title says it all, for it literally is that: a micro album (3 x “) with tea bags for pages. Which of course makes it a great and original gift, plus it’s stinking cute because it’s so very small! 💛

It was very fun to make and super affordable for it only takes one sheet of 12×12” design paper for the bulk of what you need! Sweetness 👍🏼😃

Products used / Gebruikte producten:

  • Crealies tea bag holder die set CLSolo02
  • Crealies text die CLTS108
  • Crealies Tiny Text stamp set CLTZM05
  • Crealies Duo Dies CLDD33
  • Crealies Duo Dies CLDD37
  • Crealies Duo Dies CLDD37A
  • Crealies Inside or Out die set CLIO07
  • Crealies Set of 3 die set CLSet50
  • Design paper: Tea Time collection by Craft & You
  • Small piece of cardstock

You can find all dies and the stamp set at Crealies’s (internationally oriented) website.

Enjoy the video and pictures below, and don’t forget to check out my tutorial, which is suitable for anyone, regardless of whether you are a beginner or an advanced paper crafter.

See you next week, and let me know what you think by leaving a comment and sharing this post on all of your social media!

 

Filled up with tea bags! / Gevuld met theezakjes!

Ik ben blij en vereerd dat ik deze maand een van de guest designers ben voor Crealies. 🎉

Voor mijn eerste guest designer project heb ik iets nieuws ontworpen, d.w.z. een nieuwe variatie op mijn eigen microalbum ontwerpen, en ik noem het een Theezakjes Microalbum!

Die titel zegt in principe alles, want dat is precies wat het is: een piepklein albumpje (7.5 x 7 cm) met theezakjes als bladzijden. Die Crealies-theezakjes stelen echt de show vind ik, door de prachtige details, die het geheel een authentiek gevoel meegeven. 💛

Dit microalbum is natuurlijk een hartstikke leuk en origineel kadootje, en het is superschattig doordat het zo klein is! Het was erg leuk om te ontwerpen en te maken en het is nog betaalbaar ook omdat je feitelijk maar 1 vel dubbelzijdig designpapier nodig hebt van 30.5 x 30.5 cm. 👍🏼😃

Geniet van het filmpje en de foto’s, en kijk gerust in mijn webshop voor de rijk geïllustreerde werkinstructie (tutorial) voor dit kleine albumpje. En je vindt de gebruikte Crealies-producten in het lijstje hierboven. Je kunt ze uiteraard allemaal krijgen bij www.crealies.nl.

Laat het me weten als je dit een leuk projectidee vindt door een comment achter te laten, en natuurlijk door deze post te delen op al je social media!

 

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Spring-colored Chocolate Bar Envelope (and some tea)

One of the great craft ideas floating around on the internet is what I would call a chocolate bar envelope. I think lots of people have made these by now, but only after I had the pleasure of receiving one myself, was my attention drawn to it.

I waited for the right occasion to create one myself and when the moment came, tadaa! 🎉 There it was, my very own version.

I sent it to my friend Christa, so it would be waiting for her when she got home from a short vacation. I mean, nothing says Welcome Home like chocolate & tea don’t you think? 🙂

Have you ever sent someone food or snacks? 🙂 Let me know in the comments!

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Tea Gift: Swing Bag Card

Tea bags are – in my experience – a fun gift to send with a Welcome Home card. This week I’m sharing my idea to send two, by way of what I’ve since dubbed a swing bag card: a double card with a swinging bag hanging from its ‘nook’ fold 🙂

The very sturdy double-sided design paper I used was perfect to use as is, with no cardstock at all. The sheet is called Rooster Row and it’s from 49 and Market’s latest collection, Cottage Life.

I also created a little stand to prevent the card from being pulled down by the weight of the suspended tea pouch.

All in all a pretty simple card, yet with an original design element. Let me know what you think in the comment section below! And of course, like & share! ??

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