Just a quick note to let you know I just did an interview with Alura, you can read it here!
Alura create tools for Etsy sellers to start, run and grow their shop and they have a series where they feature successful Etsy sellers. They wanted to hear more about my story and what has worked for me. Well, as I said in the interview, considering my relatively small numbers I’m hardly the one to tell anyone how to run a magnificently successfulI Etsy shop 😅 but I still think my story might offer some encouragement for sellers just starting out.
I tried to make it a fun read and I would be thrilled if you all would take a few minutes of your day to read the interview, and perhaps share it with someone who is considering opening an Etsy shop themselves. They might find, hopefully, some inspiration.
Today I’d like to reflect with gratitude on one of my earlier designs, that became quite popular from the start – and to this day there are crafters who manage to find it while spelunking in the deep cave that are my older YT videos. Some of them have even purchased the tutorial (it’s the Number 3 in my shop), others simply enjoy the video – which I will embed below. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
It’s a Folio Album which I’ve dubbed Neverending Memories. If you’d like to see it filled with pictures, here’s a photo (also, there’s a second video embedded at the end of this post, sharing more details):
Whence this trip to Memory Lane? Well, recently a very kind lady from the USA found it in her heart to let me know she had just finished crafting this folio album, based on my tutorial. And she just wanted to let me know she enjoyed the process, the tutorial and the end result. Needless to say her sweet message brought a smile to my face and filled my heart with gratitude! 🙂
She had also sent me some pictures and was kind enough to give me permission to post them here.
So here’s her end result, using the Born to Travel paperpad by Recollections. She did a wonderful job and I think her folio album looks wonderful and on trend, and perfectly fitting for the coming Spring season!
Creator’s Image Studio’s Neverending Memories Folio Album, by Lynn M. from the U.S.A.
Please send her some love in the comments below and/or on the Tutorials ProjectsPage – and while you’re there, please check out the awesome projects of the other crafters too!!
Thank you again to each and every one of you who have been supporting me over the years, by watching my videos, visiting this blog, purchasing my tutorials and sharing the creative love!
So I finally made it to the end of this new mini album design project I set out to do several weeks ago. If you want to skip straight to the video, scroll down to the end of this post.
I’ve felt significantly less creative energy since the lockdown(s) started, so I’m having trouble crunching out new album designs every month, like I used to. But, I got this one done, and it’s definitely NEW!
I designed what I’m calling a faux paperbag mini album, and because it also sports four fold-out and/or popping elements, I added ‘pop-up’ to the title as well. But there are more themes than it just being faux paperbag and having pop-ups. It is also rich in belly bands, plus it offers several micro envelopes. So if I wanted to be precise about it, my design would be called a Faux Paperbag Pop-up Belly Band and Micro Envelope Mini Album. Phew, that would be a mouthful…
If you’re wondering why the “faux”, well, I didn’t use actual paperbags. Instead, I created my own, while still employing the techniques that are typical for a paperbag mini, like the binding style, as well as the many flaps and the way they are styled.
If I managed to charm you into wanting to create one yourself, then head on over to my shop. There are lots of customers who left reviews, so I recommend rummaging through those if you want to check what other crafters think before you make a purchase.
The papers I used were from AliExpress this time, so I guess you could also consider this another AliExpress product test. I have to say I loved this Paper Designer or perhaps Enogreeting pad (I’m still not sure what the brand is actually called), with its beautiful graphic designs in vintage colors. Moreover, it measured 18×18 cm (7×7″), which I believe is quite unique in the papercraft community.
I suspect it may be a dupe for an older Kaisercraft collection, but if it is, I’m not aware of it. If you do recognize it, please leave a comment below!
I also did some mixed media techniques this time. Not only on the napkin fold element in the back of the album, but also on the spine, for which I altered a piece of pitch black book muslin and turned it into a nice muted slate gray pattern on an antique bronze base.
As for the cute little pop-up I added to one of the page layouts, I used a pop-up die for that. And I did a video tutorialon how to use it, a couple of blog posts ago.
I also did a video tutorial for the Twist & Pop element in the album, you can find that here.
And last but not least, the video tutorial for the Napkin Fold element at the end of the album, is only one click awaytoo.
So, finally, here’s the end of my blabbing along endlessly. On to the video! 🙂
No tutorial for this one yet, let me know if you’d be interested in one
This week I’m sharing a reprisal of my Folio Album III design, originally called Mimosa. It was commissioned by Nora, the German lady for whom I also created the Remember Mebox pocket album. Nora loves many things, among which cats, hot air balloons, old books and the color purple. For this new, elaborately decorated version of my Folio Album III therefore, I used Bo Bunny’s gorgeous 2016 collection Beautiful Dreamer, with themes of hot air balloons, bicycles, birds, books and old clocks, in nostalgic warm purples, greens and golden browns.
This folio album has a very flexible spine, sports many photo flaps and mini wallets and will hold about 65-70 pictures. Its main feature however is that you can entirely separate the book from its cover! 🙂
Check out my (written) tutorial if you want to create one yourself. It has very clear instructions and is illustrated by 255 pictures of the step-by-step process for all of you visual learners. It also comes with an bonus materials list for this Beautiful Dreamer version!
Enjoy the video of my project share and feel free to leave a comment or question below!
As this beautiful summer is slowly preparing itself for the transition into autumn, I’m sharing what will be the last of my series of four video tutorials on basic papercrafting techniques. Today’s topic is matting: how to determine your measurements, taking into account the width of the margins you would like all around. Of course I’m incorporating both centimeters and inches into my explanation, to cater to all of you 🙂 .
In the video I’m also referring to an earlier tutorial of mine, concerning the matting of a wooden box (outside and inside), which I of course also shared on this blog, with that specific video tutorial embedded.
Hopefully all of this is helpful for you – if you still have any questions, let me know by leaving a comment! If you know anyone else who might find this useful, please share this on your social media. And please like & subscribe to never miss any of my posts again 🙂
Fortunately I had enough paper pieces left over from last week’s 12-page mini album to create two lovely cards. The colors of the Domestic Goddess collection (7 Dots Studio) are truly amazing, lush and colorful. It reminds me of tropical sunsets on some faraway island, or the warm-blooded colors of Love 🙂
So for these cards I played around with these colors, layering them with deep-colored flowers (card 1) or highlighting the softness hidden in there as well (card 2).
I also tried some new sentiments, which I found on Pinterest and printed on the design paper in a font of my own.
Enjoy the video, and let me know if you have any questions!
Good news for anyone who’d like to create one of my projects but would like a kit to go along with the tutorial – and lives across the Atlantic:
As of May 2017 kits are available for some of my projects at Photographs and Memories, a lovely online store based in Kansas, USA. You can go to the store and search for “Katja” using the search field, or – much easier ? – click the logo below, and you will find all of my projects for which kits are available. Each kit comes includingmy elaborate and detailed tutorial for that project, at no additional cost!
If you wish to purchase the tutorial only, please go to my Creator’s Image Studio online shop. I offer many different methods of payment, including Paypal, creditcard and iDeal.
The first two kits based on my projects are my Memories Fold-out Folio Album and my Holiday Dreams Gatefold Album. These kits offer, among other things, the same paper collections as my original projects 🙂
Dutch:
Woon je in Nederland en wil je ook een kit voor een van mijn projecten, neem dan contact met me op op creatorsimage at icloud.com (spaties verwijderen en ‘at’ vervangen door @), want dat loopt natuurlijk niet via Amerika 😉 .
Creating mini albums can be quite a lot of work, demanding precision, dedication and, above all, time. Which is why I decided to go the other way this time, and set out to create what I wanted to be the easiest mini albums ever made, while still deserving of the name mini album. I wanted to be able to finish them within 2-3 hours, while not needing a lot of materials and tools. Also, they needed to be able to hold a reasonable amount of pictures.
Today I’m sharing the results of my experiment – which were a success for these mini albums are in fact so simple that no tutorial is required! The only things you need are the materials and some tools:
double-sided design paper
very light-weight chipboard (or heavy cardstock)
paper trimmer
wire binding tool like the Cinch or the Bind-It-All.
The largest of the albums will hold up to 68 pictures, the smaller one about 25.
Just watch the video and you’ll immediately know what to do to make these 🙂 Have fun!
For these final months of the year (boy, how time flies!) I created some cards using the Time to Flourish collection by Graphic 45. This collection is the perfect seasonal collection, with a special focus on all things floral.
I already created some cards earlier in the year, there was May, including Mother’s Day, and fairly recently I showed you two versions of August birthday cards.
This time it’s the fall, and even one Christmas card.
So enjoy the video and pictures, and please like & subscribe!
Recently I went through my design paper supply (which has grown to quite the little stash) and stumbled upon Basic Grey’s Lucille paper pad. Lucille is a romantic paper with vintage fashion overtones, colorful but a little toned down and very sophisticated. A fabulous design paper, and I decided I instantly had to use it to create a mini album! 🙂
This 6 x 6.5″ pocketstyle mini album has 14 interactive layout pages, including the insides of both covers. The covers are chipboard with a reinforced binding for durability. The pages are constructed from multiple layers of heavy-weight cardstock and patterned papers. Features include large pull-out photo mats, special closures (like magnetic, or swing tabs), lots of flaps and pockets holding journaling tags and photo mats and much more! Details abound throughout this album such as punched borders, micro booklets, flowers, brads, specialty die-cuts, ribbon and trim, and specialty cut-aparts. There are 5 large pull-out photo mats and several flaps and tags inside with room for approx. 45-50 small and regular-sized photos.
And: I wrote a tutorial for those of you who’d like to make one yourselves – my first for a mini album! 🙂 You can check it out in my Etsy shop.
Check out my baby version and Christmas version of this pocketstyle album design – their page design is not exactly the same, but they give you a pretty good idea of how different styles and colors would look. If you’d like to see a version with photos inside, check out my Ancestry mini album!
Anyway, enjoy the complete show & tell video, and have a great week!
I haven’t been die-cutting from the beginning of my scrapbooking adventures (back in November 2012), but ever since I’ve been trying my hand at it, my stash of dies seems to keep growing no matter what I do… It didn’t take too long before I was in need of a handy and practical way to store my dies, preferably without having to save all the packaging.
I figured: why not create a mini album with magnetic pages to hold all of them!
So I got to work, stumbling along while experimenting, encountering several impediments and difficulties. I finished the project nevertheless, although the end result is not the most esthetically pleasing of projects.
I’m sharing this with you anyway, for now you can all learn from my mistakes, apply my tips and create your own very practical and no doubt far more pretty storage minis! 🙂
Inspired by one of the many creative people on Youtube, I took it upon me to create a very special kind of keepsake album: the boxed mini album. The cover of this new category of minis will turn it into a box every time you close the album! Cool.
Not having bought the tutorial, the only design clues I had were the show & tell video by the lady that inspired this album. So naturally there will be several differences between her and my design. Plus, I added some deliberate changes as well: the way the cover opens, the use of book muslin. Well, just watch the video and you’ll see what I mean 😉
Oh, and I did some photo editing as well, for I adapted the first and the last photos’ backgrounds to better fit the design paper – so there’s a little bonus idea. 🙂
