This year I sent three Easter cards to friends and family. The first two I already shared in one of my previous posts. This week I’m sharing the third, which is a wallet card, or a tea bag holder card, or whatever other creative descriptive you can come up with 🙂
Also, I shopped my stash again, one of this year’s themes for me personally, in order to actually use up the forgotten-but-beautiful-nonetheless papers in my collection.
It turned out pretty lovely, and of course I filled it up with some fresh tea, as is my way – because I just love to send my friends a Hug-in-a-Mug!
Anyway, here’s the video – ask any questions or leave a remark in the comment section below!
Springtime! And at the moment (for as long as it lasts) I’m loving all of those bright pastels! This year I’m sending out three Easter cards, two of which I’m showing you this week.
I used Mintay’s perfect springtime collection, Better Times. Gosh, those images are like frameable paintings all by themseleves, but I got over those qualms and cut into them anyway 😱
I focussed on designing one large, luxurious card with three sheets of double-sided design paper plus a cutapart sheet. I think I succeeded quite nicely 😊
In the end I still had enough paper left over to create a bonus card, which I’m sharing towards the end of the video.
Wishing you all a very lovely Easter and a happy spring! I’m curious, are you sending any Easter cards this year? Let me know in the comments!
This week I’m sharing another one of my tea card ideas. As you may know by now, I love to send my friends a warm and cosy hug-in-a-mug over the mail, for instance when I know they’re coming home from a long and hard road trip, late at night. Nothing says “Go ahead and elax for some Me time” like a glass filled with nice, hot tea you just got from your friend who’s thinking of you.
I try to come up with different designs every time, especially when sending it out to the same person (like my dear friend Christa 🙋🏻), and this week it is a pocket card. After all, not everything has to be complex and difficult. Just go for it, keep it simple and decorate to your heart’s desire. Pay attention to the details though, like having the color of your tea bag coordinate with your design papers 🙂
Enjoy the video and pics below! And do leave a comment, I really like to hear from you all.
This week I’m sharing my thinking process while decorating an altered box. Some things are planned, but not everything. Most things work out, but not everything – and how to fix those. All in all I was pretty contented with how this little treasure chest turned out, and my friend was thrilled to receive it 🙂
If you want to know how to mat such a box in the first place, then check out one of my previous blog posts – or simply scroll down and find that video at the end of this post.
With its 25 minutes this week’s video is a bit long, and I’m mostly rambling on about what the next decorative element might be and why, plus I’m including several tips along the way. So get into your Chill Out mode, get a great cup of coffee or tea and a little snack, sit back, and most of all: relax and let the tone of my voice wash over you. Who knows, if you watch this in bed you may even fall asleep before the end – in which case: Sweet Dreams! 🙂 💤
As you may have noticed, I like to send tea bags over the mail by way of sending someone sort of a ‘warm hug’. I’ve done several of these cards before, and I try to come up with new designs once in a while.
This week is such a time. I designed a way to tuck your customized tea bag envelope onto the front of your card so that it remains easily removable, yet fixed in place.
The papers used are Shabby Chic 6×6″ pad by Studiolight, and a sheet from the Wonderland collection by Stamperia.
I hope to have inspired you to send someone such a fun hug-in-a-mug yourself after watching this week’s video 🙂
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 2¾“) 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 👍🏼😃
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!
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!
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! ??
A man requested a customized tea box for his beloved, an avid tea lover. He asked me to keep it natural, with browns and greens and no fuss, and when I suggested he watch my K&Company Olive Tree paper walkthrough, he chose four sheets that he loved the best.
So it’s with those four 12×12″ sheets that I altered this 9-partition wooden tea box. I used some die-cuts to create a paper ornament on top, with a Tea is Ready stamp – in Dutch. The result is an elegant, stylish tea box keepsake in warm, neutral kraft colors. I was of course very happy to hear both the man and his lady loved the tea box! 🙂
Have you ever created a kraft-colored project or would you ever consider it?
Now and again I like to vary my craft technique and leave papercrafting for a short while to dabble in decoupaging. I use this technique mainly to alter wooden or porcelain objects, like gift boxes but also candles, coffee mugs and even a lamp!
Usually I paint such an object white or ivory first, so that the napkin’s colors will show clear & bright. With the tea box I’m sharing today however, I started decoupaging without painting it white first. This made for warm wood colors, and also caused the box title Thee (= Dutch for Tea) on the lid to show through nicely.
After adhering the parts of the napkin I wanted to use, I painted the rest of the box around them in a warm forest green and added some glitter accents. Of course I covered the whole thing with boat varnish to protect it from all things Liquid – a prudent measure if you’re anything like Clumsy Me 🙂
By the way, an altered tea boxes makes for a great gift!
Tea boxes are the ideal gifts to give and they are very fun and easy to alter!
For instance, I bought this simple wooden tea box, painted it black inside and out, and decorated with Bo Bonny’s Asian-themed Serenity paper collection & ephemera.
I did that once before, using the same design papers – I guess there’s something about Asian-themed paper on a black background, even more so when it’s all about tea 🙂
My first altered tea box with this paper collection:
I’m a big fan of the Dutch brand Studio Light, which offers, among many things, several lovely 6×6 inch pads which simply consist of different patterns within a certain (combined) color theme. These pads don’t have posh collection names, but are simply numbered 01, 02 and so on. These themeless and therefore relatively neutral pads offer the special opportunity of creating projects with which you could combine almost any embellishment from any collection.
The following four, happily colorful cards I created with Studio Light pad nr. 05, combined with several different embellishments and some cutapart tags and labels from Panduro and Scrapberry’s.
(Nederlandse tekst + video hieronder!)
