Colorful Art Gift Box


A nice way to give someone a gift card of their favorite shop, is to hide it inside a gift box. And of course we crafters take the opportunity to alter said gift box!

Take this one for instance, it’s a cardboard box – perfect for altering. I chose DCWV’s The Colorful Life design paper, which basically consists of prints of very colorful paintings by Donna Estabrooks.

This paper is beautiful enough not to need any further embellishments, so I only did the lid – just a little 🙂 . Of course I inked around all the edges for a beautiful finish, using Tim Holtz’s Black Soot distress ink.

Well, check out the video, and then try one yourself – not only will it make a great gift for someone, it’s also very easy and fairly quick to create!

 

Note on video quality: Most of my videos are 720p; the rest is 540p. If you don’t get one of these resolutions while viewing the video on this blog but instead have to make due with some rather unsharp videos, you should be able to adjust video quality by clicking the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the video player, and selecting your preferred quality. If you don’t have the gear icon, then click the Youtube sign, also in the bottom right corner of the video player. This will take you directly to Youtube, where you’ll be able to change the video quality with the gear icon after all. Hope this helps.

Large pockets & tags card + bookmark – “Mediterranean”

Ah, those beautiful last days of summer… In the Netherlands summer has been short but sweet, with the early September sun trying its best to still give us a little warmth. So before we have to say goodbye to summer definitively, we can take one more look at it and celebrate its vibrant colours with this cheery birthday card!

It’s turned out rather large (A5), has a strong blue (think Mediterranean Sea) for its base and sports several tags and pockets. And, as a special bonus feature, there’s a bookmark too! An actual one, not a digital one – just adding that for the young people reading this and wondering what a paper bookmark might be… 😉

Here’s a little photo shoot I did. The design paper I used is by some nameless Dutch brand, it has no title of its own but I’m calling it Mediterranean. Because it looks……. Mediterranean – but then again, you’d already figured that one out yourself, had you not? 🙂

Front – setting the Mediterranean tone with a sunny flip pocket:

Inside the flip pocket is – of course – a tag. I will personalize it by printing some birthday wishes onto it and who knows, I may even do some stamping!

Inside – Summer landscape on the left, sea-themed pocket on the right, with a dolphin tag hanging from a gold-colored brad and a blue ribbon along the border of the pocket. The pocket holds a bookmark, with a quote from a well-known Dutch literary writer. The quote reads something like: “Good literature has the ability to make us see through another person’s eyes.”

Back – Two matching side-loading pockets with identical dolphin tags/photo mats. On the other side of the tags is room for journaling, or for writing some personal messages to the recipient.

What colors do you associate with summer? And with what craft project are you saying goodbye to this year’s summer season? 

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Pocket Page mini album + Mini booklet – Bohemian Bazaar

Bohemian Bazaar is one of Graphic 45’s new collections of this summer. The colours are bright and primary, the atmosphere of the collection is… well, I guess you could say Bohemian. Although I was immediately drawn to it and didn’t hesitate to buy it, I suddenly had some doubts once I held it in my hands: was this really as beautiful as I had imagined it?

A love-hate affair was brewing and during the worst of it I had even offered it up for sale on some online marketplace. Lucky for me, there weren’t any interested buyers at the time; lucky, for a couple of weeks later I suddenly liked it again (did I mention it was love-hate?). So, I decided to immediately make good of this positive moment in my hesitant relationship with this paper, and whipped-up another pocket page mini album. Its construction is basically the same as my Little Miss mini.
I keep being amazed at how much a simple change in design paper matters, for this one looks completely different from the Little Miss mini album!

And the great thing is: I absolutely love how this little mini has turned out! Who’da thunk…
In fact, I find it so gorgeous that I can’t even imagine not having liked the paper for even one day. 🙂
Oh, and I threw in a little mini booklet as well, to go along with it as a companion piece, like say, for a birthday card or something. I mean, I couldn’t just throw away all those scraps could I? – Ah, those gorgeous little pieces of paper…. Did I tell you how much I love this paper?

Anyway, click here if you can’t see the video below.

 

How about you? With which project, material or tool do you have a love-hate affair?

Summer tag card “Mediterranean”

One of my very first scrapping projects was actually a tag card for my friend. I had found its design on the internet, created by a lady called Elsa, with Justafew Designs (you can check out her Youtube channel here). The tag card is quite easy to make and you can personalize it with photos or beautiful pictures.

My first tag card

I don’t know about you all, but here in the Netherlands we’ve had an unexpectedly hot summer the last couple of weeks. So to inspire your summer craft projects, here’s an alternative version of that first little tag card of mine – mediterranean style!

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

 

Klik hier als je het filmpje hieronder niet kunt zien.

Are you working on any summer-themed craft projects? By all means, let me know and share your thoughts/ideas! 🙂

Until next time, stay creative!

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Candles to match your Easter / spring ornaments

So I decoupaged some Easter eggs a couple of days ago. Saturday, the day before Easter, I decided I definitely needed some candles to go with them. So, here they are!

I used the same napkin technique, only this time with different glue of course, in order to be able to light them safely. It’s a special candle podge, which will prevent your napkins from catching fire – instead, they’ll neatly melt along with your candle. Perfect.

So, here’s the three decoupaged candles, and my springtime living room to match! 🙂

Dutch translation:

Drie geservette kaarsen in Paas-/lentethema zorgen voor extra kleur en gezelligheid! Let op: om kaarsen te servetten moet je wel speciale lijm gebruiken om ongelukken te voorkomen (zie foto hierboven).

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Season’s greetings – with decoupaged Easter ornaments

Usually I don’t decorate my Easter eggs – assuming there are any Easter eggs in my house at all, which isn’t necessarily the case each year, I simply buy them in the color I want. This year however, when I bought myself some eggy Easter branch ornaments after all, I decided to decorate the few white ones.

I used yellow and two shades of pink, since at the moment gold, yellow and pink (of the vintage kind, like Tim Holtz’s Tattered Rose distress ink that you can see in my explosion card post) are the colors I’d already decorated my living room with.

There were four white Easter eggs in the stash that I bought, in three different sizes. I decorated them by applying the napkin technique and adding some gold stickles, and here’s the results!

By the way, I found some mirror-imaged stickers with a cute spring theme – and I decided couldn’t not use them: how often do we find mirror-imaged stickers right? So, I stuck them onto a piece of card board with a small piece of thread to create a loop. Then I added a little gold stickle on a few spots. And lo and behold: Yet Another Easter Ornament to hang from my “tree” (which is actually a lamp, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed from the picture above).

Dutch translation:

Tot nu toe versierde ik nooit paaseieren – als ik Ăźberhaupt al paaseieren in huis had. Dit jaar vond ik echter een paar mooie, makkelijk op te hangen paaseieren, van het een kwam het ander en ineens hing mijn multifunctionele staande lamp vol. Deze lamp staat er normaalgesproken bij als een soort populier, met de takken helemaal omhoog, en doet verder alleen dienst als kerstboom (takken helemaal uitgevouwen). Vanaf dit voorjaar heeft ie een nieuwe functie: de Paasboom, met de takken ergens halverwege populier en kerstboom!

Er zaten een paar witte eitjes tussen de gekleurde en ik besloot om die dan toch maar te gaan versieren. Ze waren van kunststof en verven werd me te ingewikkeld (moet je eerst weer gaan primen en zo). Daarom koos ik voor de servettechniek. Omdat de rest van mijn woonkameraccessoires ook geel, goud en oud-roze zijn heb ik servetten in geel en twee tinten roze gebruikt. En vervolgens afgewerkt met gouden glitterlijm.

Hierboven het resultaat!

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