“Every day is Father’s Day” card

So what if it’s not Father’s Day anytime soon! I just wanted to give my dad a special card, just to let him know I love and appreciate him, and I was going to do it right now. 🙂

My father loves his nature, flowers and animals, so I took a sheet of cream-colored A4 paper, added a couple of pieces of the perfectly fitting Flora and Fauna design paper and got to work! Oh, and also, I harvested some of the pears and apples growing in my garden so as to make a cute autumn harvest basket for my dad. Needless to say, he loved it!

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A full-blown micro album

I’m so excited to share my latest project with you all! As you may have noticed in some of my previous posts, I have a “thing” for creating mini booklets. Not just because they’re cute, but also because it’s a nice way to use leftover scraps of paper. Recently I decided to take it to the next level and I came up with a full-blown micro album! 🙂 By which I mean the perfect miniature version of a mini album I had created previously. And I’m so very pleased with the result!

So here’s my Little Miss micro album. As a bonus, I added a “scene” to the video featuring its big sister, my Little Miss mini album. 🙂

 

What do you do with the sheets and scraps of design paper you have left over?

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Flora and Fauna gatefold keepsake album deluxe

When my mother saw the Butterflies & Stars keepsake album I had recently designed for a friend, she immediately commissioned one herself, as a present for her cousin. There are some differences between the two albums though. For instance, this Flora and Fauna album is somewhat larger than its predecessor; the designs of both its base pages and its cover pieces are different as well.

All in all it took 21 sheets of A4 cardstock for the construction of the pages and tags and about 23 sheets of double-sided design paper (12×12 inches). For the cover I took two 12×12 inch pieces of cardboard, created five unique pieces and arranged them just so.

Two pieces of linen bookcloth strengthen the folds of both spines. The magnets I used for the closure are by Basic Grey, they’re absolutely the strongest crafting magnets I could find!

My mother’s cousin is a dear 80-year-old who loves her garden and everything in it, so my mother wanted somewhat of a “garden theme with little birds and bees and butterflies”.

Fortunately K&Company’s gorgeous Flora and Fauna design paper was already eagerly awaiting me in my stash, begging me to be used – and the very pale lavender color of the cardstock turned out to be the perfect combination. I also used some of the matching embellishments and design elements that go along with this paper – which I’ll show you in de video.

Anyway, long story short, the keepsake album turned out rather beautifully and I’m more than happy with it myself. If you’d like to create an album like this yourself, check out the tutorial for my Springtime Dreams Keepsake Album, for it has the same basic page design!

Now, on to the video, and the pictures below!

 

Baby shower gift idea: altered mini drawer chest

I was very happy to do one of my altered drawer boxes again, my second one actually, because they’re cute, look lovely and are easily made. I bought it in one of our craft stores (in the Netherlands); it’s made of plain wood and its size is 8x8x3 inches (20x20x7,5 cm).

This time I used Romantic Nursery design paper to alter it into a baby shower gift, so it’s completely different from my first one. It still amazes me how much a simple change in color and style can lead to a difference of day and night for the same object! A difference I find utterly enjoyable by the way, for this way one object can please many different people and can be made to fit a multitude of occasions – and moreover, it inspires creativity!

 

So here’s the video, including a little “how to” information, enjoy!

Have you ever altered a box or some other object? How did you do it?

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Poetry birthday card “Mariposa”

A birthday card of my own design, using the gor-ge-ous Mariposa design paper stack by DCWV – the paper I also used in my recent Keepsake mini album.

There are two poems in the card, one of the front, one inside a flip tag. Both are printed of course, as is the tag containing the birthday wishes.

By the way, I tend to view designing a card the same way I approach creating page layouts for my mini albums, and this card is no exception. I guess it’s my personal style 😉
Take a look, and see what I mean 🙂

What kind of particular personal style do you have when it comes to creating your cards?

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Peek-a-boo baby shower card

This dreamy Congrats-On-Your-New-Baby card is 8×8 inch (20×20 cm) and created with DCWV’s Once Upon A Time design paper. As you may have noticed from my other card projects, I like to combine them with actual postcards. In this case, a postcard that I bought at an art museum – which adds to the dreamy atmosphere I was aiming for with this design, imho.

As you may have guessed this special card is entirely of my own design and harkens back to my very first scrapbooking project, a 2013 calendar.

So check out my 3-minute video – which includes a little paper walkthrough of the gorgeous Once Upon A Time 8×8 inch stack!

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Envelope purse made of paper

This envelope of my own design reminded me of a real purse, so I baptized it envelope purse  🙂

I’m still not done with my beautiful Serenity paper and once again it hasn’t let me down! So I’m glad I still have some of it left for small future projects.

Wanna see more Serenity paper projects? Check out my Timeless Memories mini album and my Serenity double pocket tag card!

DCWV - Serenity 4

Commemorative keepsake album “Butterflies & Stars”

My friend commissioned a mini album and she wanted something special, a true keepsake, easy to put between other books (so no dimensional embellishments and extra protection for the pages) and last but not least: incorporate a two-fold theme of butterflies and stars (for personal reasons).

Some commission! 🙂 So, I came up with a new design, taking a little bit of inspiration from both Kathy Orta and a lady calling herself Angelwings14100 on Youtube. Of course I personalized it, creating a unique design by adding my own style, interpretation and of course some original design elements.

Above: One of my original design elements; I created a charm element that incorporated both my usual little Handmade token and the the dual theme of the album, in this case Butterflies & Stars

Here’s the Show & Tell video of my Keepsake album:

And here’s the links to the inspiration videos I mentioned:

Looking forward to you letting me know what you think!

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Birthday mini pocket gift card

Another one of my “August projects” :-), this is actually an alternative rendering of one of my first mini card designs. I used the Sweet Threads paper pad by Basic Grey again because it’s simply too lovely not to use regularly.

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

 

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How to make a micro booklet

The more I’m getting the hang of scrapbooking techniques, the more I’ve noticed that I really like designing and creating mini booklets. The tinier the better! They’re not just fun extras in your mini albums, they also make great alternative birthday cards! 🙂

I’m giving you a little “behind the scenes” action for one of my latest micro booklet birthday cards in the video below (click here if you don’t see it). This one I created for a guy, so there’s an extra bonus “gift idea for a guy” for you 😉

I particularly like how it perfectly fits in one of the drawers of the altered drawer box I showed you in one of my previous posts, turning it into a perfect companion piece to go with it – especially since I used the same Graphic 45 design paper stack!

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How to create a coin envelope (to match your tag booklet)

In one of my previous posts I showed you a cute tag booklet that I designed. In the end I decided I needed an envelope to match, so I created one – and figured I might as well show you how!

There’s no measurements because I eyeballed the whole thing, which sometimes is simply the easiest and quickest way to go 😉

Anyway, let me know what you think or if you have any questions. Enjoy the video! (as always available in both English and Dutch)

Click here if you can’t see the video.

 

Klik hier als je het filmpje niet kunt zien.

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Prima Romance Novel altered treasure chest, pt. 1 – Preview / Work in progress

I’m working on a commissioned altered box at the moment, and I thought it would be fun to share some of the progress.

The person I’m making this for wants to send an altered box to his dear friend in New Zealand (yea, I’m being shipped overseas, woohoo! :-)). He has sent me some short notes he wants to be written on the box and furthermore he’s asked me to do something with a dandelion, or a dandelion theme, as this flower has special meaning to him and his friend.

Here’s what I came up with so far:

  1. I’m going to use the Romance Novel design paper stack, I don’t think there’s a paper out there that’s more fitting! It has everything you could want for a commission like this: it’s gorgeous, it’s romantic AND it has a love letter theme, including vintage postage stamps and the like! How cool is that for a gift that will actually be sent overseas by mail!
  2. I decided I wanted to find a way to create an actual paper dandelion, 3D, life size. Didn’t have a clue how to do it, but I was going to find out and make it work!

So, here’s some pics of the work in progress, enjoy!

The wooden box I’m altering. It’s kind of a mini treasure chest and it’s about 3.5×2.5×2.5 inches (9x6x6 cm). Isn’t it adorable?

First I removed its lock and the hinges on the back. Then I painted it dark brown except its little legs which I painted gold, using simple acryllic paint. I mixed it with a pearl paint to create a pearly shine. Then I sprayed glimmer mist on the whole thing, using Tattered Angel’s Iridescent Gold and Vanilla Breeze. Nothing too fancy, but it does create a very nice, subtle effect. Plus, this box has Golden Feet! 🙂

Here’s the layout for the box. I sprayed each piece of paper with a bit of glimmer mist, using the same two colors I used on the box. Of course I’m going to distress everything as well, for which I’ll be using Tim Holtz’s Black Soot distress ink.


On to the creation of the dandelion. Fortunately the internet was there to teach me how to make one (check out Inna’s Creations, a very creative Israeli lady whose website I stumbled onto. She makes gorgeous paper art!). I started by creating the paper strip on this picture.

Roll up tight!

And spread the little petals. Done – A cute little life-sized paper dandelion! Thank you Inna! 🙂


I’m going to put this inside the box, so that when my friend’s friend opens it, a lovely, bright piece of summer will smile at her 🙂

So, this was part 1 – hope you enjoyed it!

I’ll be showing you the finished product in part 2. Until then, stay creative!