The past couple of months I’ve created several tea cards, i.e. cards in which I incorporate a bag of tea. I always enjoy making this type of card, because I love sending a ‘hug in a mug’ over the mail 🙂
I do try to come up with several different ways of sending said bags of tea, and I thought it might be fun for you if I shared my most recent ideas. So, I’ve summed them all up in the video below. The video also includes two short, practical tutorials on my so-called integrated pocket technique.
If you want still more tea card ideas, check out all of my previous tea card posts.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
Broad ribbons can easily be turned into belly bands – or even pockets if you glue the bottom closed. In other words, they are perfect to hold a little tidbit, like a tag, a picture – or of course, if you’re like me, a bag of tea! Below the Instagram post you’ll find my step-by-step proces!
Here’s the double-sided sheet from Graphic 45’s lovely Bird Watcher colllection that I used:
And here’s my process:
Score a piece of 6×12″ cardstock to give it a 3/4″ gussetFold on the score linesMat the gusset (both sides) and the front. If you want to use decorative brads (like I have), fasten them first, before you glue down your matte.For the inside, fold a broad ribbon around your matte, then glue the matte down and decorate.Choose a nice flavour of fresh tea and create a little DIY tea label to write down the flavour. Decorate the front of your card. (And also, matte the back – but I don’t have a separate picture for that 😉 )
And here’s the final result:
What do you think, would you consider using a ribbon as a pocket / belly band?
It has been a while since I posted, for which I offer my apologies. This is partly due to time contraints and the overall ‘busy-ness’ of life, and partly because I’m more active on Instagram nowadays. Also, I don’t create as many projects as I used to. Nevertheless, I do still design and create colorful works of paper and will continue to share the inspiration.
So I thought I’d try a new way of sharing my projects with you, by linking to them from my Instragram. Please follow me there if you can, because at some point in the future Instagram and Youtube will probably become my two main ways of sharing my papercraft design projects.
For now however you can continue coming here, and I’ll embed either my Youtube videos or (if there is no video) my Instagram posts.
If you’re not familiar with Instagram yet: the tiny little dots on the bottom of the picture show that there is more than one picture for you to check out. You can click the little arrow on the right side of the picture to ‘swipe’ to the rest of the pictures.
Below the picture you find the description box, in which I’ll put some information about each project.
This week’s card was created with Together, a 6×6 design paper pad by Mintay. It’s an older design paper collection, but you’ll have to forgive me not buying anything new any time soon, due to my rather large stash 😅
I love the color palette of these papers, the soft corals and aquas, laced with some sage green and beiges, it all comes together perfectly with the dreamy air balloon theme. I used this collection before, when I worked on a little pre-made album, you can check out the video on that here.
As a specific theme for this card I chose tea time, which I incorporated by way of some cute little stamps on the front.
I don’t know why the card looks so crooked in this picture, I guess I held my phone a bit crooked (sorry)
I also stamped a floral element in coral on the front, which you can see peaking out behind the little layout I did on top of it.
I kept the inside extremely simple, matting with a floral design first and then choosing a second piece of design paper that offered some natural room to write. I did decorate, but subtly: I only added some liquid pearl around the edges of the journalling spot.
I also matted the back of course.
Although technically this wasn’t one of my so-called tea cards, which I always design around an actual bag of tea (check out all of my tea card designs here), I did add a tea bag to the envelope when I sent the card to my friend. And created a little custom tea tag to go with it 🙂
I always write what kind of tea it is on a little custom tea tag – in this case: Pina Collada tea! 🙂
All in all I loved to work on this card. The lovely colors and graphic designs of the papers, together with the simplicity of the design, made for a great afternoon of crafting.
So I guess the main tips this week are: choose to work with what brings you joy, and don’t be afraid to keep it simple! (On that note, also check out my previous post, on the K.I.S.S. method and applying it to paper crafting).
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 collectionby Stamperia.
Opening the front flap and finding a nice removable bookmark on the insideChecking out the center pocket, which holds a lovely tag, which I decorated with some stamps and a die cut image of a cup of teaOn the back of that same tag, I attached an actual bag of tea for my friendBack pocketThe back pocket contains a bookletThe inside of the booklet offers room to write a message on the left, and a nice stamped sentiment on the right
A few weeks ago I discovered the beautiful Vintage Artistry Wedgewood collection by 49 and Market. Even though I loved the entire collection, I purchased only a single sheet to make it easier (for me) to immediately use it, and to save some money at the same time.
Now the challenge I gave myself was to create more than one project that all featured this paper. I came up with three cards and they all turned out lovely. Gosh that paper is so stunning.
Detailed walkthrough in the video!
Two kinds of embossing + stencilling and Distress embossing glaze.Showcasing the paper, stamping……and a box pocket (with some tea!)Using even the last bit of paper, stencilling, embossing, colorizing leaves and turning them grungy
In very busy times like these I don’t find much time to craft, let alone many hours continuously. Nevertheless, a girl still needs her cards to send to her friends & extended family! So, here’s six card ideas, all of which are very easy to make and which take up relatively little of your precious time.
Enjoy the video, and don’t forget to like this post and/or leave a comment! 😃
Stamperia have come out with some gorgeous vintage and steampunk paper collections. I’ve been working with four of those collections for my latest mini album, which I’ll be showcasing here soon.😃
In the meantime I’ll be showing you some smaller projects I’ve been working on with said papers.
Take this cutie. Since I love to send a friend some tea – kind of a hug-in-a-mug – I created this lovely little Tea Booklet. For its front, back & spine I made use of a pre-imaged paper sheet Stamperia provided in their Lady Vagabond collection.
I matted the inside of the booklet with some beautiful patterns and decorated with some fussy-cut elements.
Added some Glossy Accents by Ranger for a shiny highlight
My spine was 5/8″ (1.5 cm) wide to accomodate a bag of fresh tea. You can make the spine as wide or as narrow as you need. The narrower the spine, the easier it fits into a normal envelope. However, if like me you’d like to send out some tea, you’ll need a little width.
Have you ever created a tea card? I’d love to know you ideas!
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) 🙂
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!
So I’m back after a 3-month hiatus… Check out my update, and also my latest project, two tri-fold cards with Studiolight’s Celebrate Spring papers – which I’m not just sharing with you but also showing you how to make at the end of this video!
