Perfume Card Series: How to Fasten Your Perfume on the Inside

In my previous post I shared the idea of fastening a perfume booklet to the front of a card. This allowed for the rest of the card to be a standard folded card, since the bulky part was on its outside.

But what if you want to add your perfume to the inside of your card?

One way of doing that would be to create a belly band on the inside.

However, this only works if your perfume sample comes with its own booklet (see picture below), for then you can tuck the edges of the booklet behind the belly band. If it didn’t come with a booklet, then we’ll need a different design – so keep an eye on this series of blog posts! Simply click the tag Perfume cards and you’ll get all relevant posts on my blog at any given time.

But first things first: your card will need a gusset, otherways it would not close around the vile. Depending on the girth of your perfume sample, create a gusset that is wide enough. For most samples a gusset of 3/8 to 1/2 inch (1-1.2 cm) will probably suffice.

If you use only one sheet of double-sided design paper that already has 6 double-sided 4×6″ cards as a pattern, you’ll be able to create two VERY quick & easy cards! 🙂

1 sheet of A4 cardstock + 1 sheet of 12×12″ double-sided design paper is all you need for these two cards!
This gorgeous paper collection is Desire by Stamperia. The sheet is called ‘6 cards’ (SBB891).

I decorated a little bit but not too much, for I only wanted to enhance this stunning paper here and there and not get in its way.

Added some flowers where it would actually integrate with the design pattern
Strategically added a small bunch of roses and two pieces of chipboard; in this case, less was indeed more.

The end result was lovely. I simply tucked the perfume booklets behind the belly band, which automatically kept them closed.

Don’t underestimate the importance of details: I colour-coordinated my perfume samples with my design papers, and this definitely enhanced the card design! 🙂

Have fun crafting! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment with this post!

3 Tips to Squeeze Out Projects With Dwindling Design Papers

Every time I finish a craft project, I have design papers left over. Doesn’t matter whether it was a large mini album, or just a card; always there are sheets of loveliness I have to decide on what to do with them. Will I have to throw them out, of can I come up with yet another idea?

Fortunately as crafters we can always create something else with these extra papers, sometimes ending up with more than one bonus project.

A few weeks ago I created quite an elaborate desconstructed envelope card from 3 sheets of design paper + a cutapart sheet. But even after such a large card, I managed to squeeze out three extra cards from the paper pieces I had leftover!

So, hopefully I can inspire you with these ideas, to do the same and make use of every inch of paper real estate you can manage 🙂

Enjoy the video, happy crafting!

Cottage Rose Deconstructed Envelope Card

Sometimes I only buy 2 or 3 sheets from a design paper collection, mostly when I like the idea of it, but not the entire collection. This was the case with Kaisercraft’s Cottage Rose collection, which had lovely soft colors and some great graphic designs, but which overall I found too generic and boring to buy in its entirety.

So, I chose the sheets I liked the most, and used them all up in one go.

I turned them into four cards, one of which I’m sharing with you this week: a deconstructed envelope card. Also great for Valentine’s Day, btw 🙂

If you’d like to make one yourself, you can check out my free video tutorial!

Valentine’s Times Two

Nothing says “I like you” more than a Valentine’s card. You can send them to your beloved, your friend or even that secret crush you’ve got your eyes on 🙂

So this week I’m sharing two Mon Amour Valentine’s cards, one regular sized and one XXL for that extra special dearest one.

Enjoy!

Deconstructed Envelope Card – Part 3

I’m still having fun designing what I call Deconstructed Envelope Cards – by which I mean fold-out cards that when closed, resemble envelopes. In previous posts I already shared a square one and a rectangular one.

This week I’m playing around with flaps of different sizes to create a whole new effect. I sized them to exactly fit some Graphic 45 cutaparts, which brings me to another tip: you only have to buy 3 sheets of double-sided paper to get a lot of bang for your buck, as long as one of them is a cutapart sheet!

Paper collections used:
* Graphic 45’s Mon Amour
* Graphic 45’s Midnight Masquerade

Enjoy!

Mailable Photo Stand with Dapper

Leftover pieces of chipboard are ideal to create all kinds of nice trinkets and keepsakes. Like, for example, a mailable photo stand. I created this one for my mom, with some nice memories of my dad. So I again used Tim Holtz’s masculine-themed Dapper collection, printed and cropped four pictures and decorated to my heart’s desire.

As for the paper, I used 10 ATC cards, so this project is also perfect for your leftover Project Life cards or journalling cards!

Enjoy the video!

Let me know if you’d like me to do a (free) tutorial for this little photo stand! (even years after this post is fine with me, just drop me line or leave a comment – I’m always in for new blog and/or video ideas 🙂 )

More detailed tutorials on a growing number of projects are available in my Etsy shop.

Cosmic Valentine’s Day Card

So I sent my mom a Valentinescard because my dad, her great love, not only passed away five years ago, but would also have had his birthday today, Febr. 14th. He loved the beauty of the stars and the galaxy, his garden and all things technical. All of which I incorporated on the card.

With special thanks to by_marina_gridasova who gifted me the paper!

In the Pocket: a Tag Briefcase Mini Album

While Autumn has arrived and stretching its legs with some really cold temperatures here in the Netherlands, I thought I’d design and share a little Four Season’s mini album. I used Graphic 45’s calendar collection Time to Flourish, which of course automatically offers seasonal colors and themes.

The cover design makes it a cute little suit case with a magnetized closure and a ribbon grip, that will stand on its own. Each of the ten pages are pockets, holding a tag that has been decorated on both sides but still leaves room for wallet-sized pictures.

All in all a very cute little gift – think Thanksgiving, Christmas, simply Summer or basically any seasonal holiday 🙂

Like to make one yourself? Go ahead and purchase my tutorial, offering lots and lots of clear pictures, guiding you through the creative process step by step. And for people who have worked with several of my album tutorials: this time I’ve used a different binding system, so not the hidden hinge binding, but the stack the deck binding. If you don’t know how that would work, check out my tutorial.

Enjoy the video and let me know in the comments what you think!

BewarenBewaren

30th Wedding Anniversary Explosion Box

A short while ago a lady asked me to create an explosion box to suprise her husband for their 30th wedding anniversary. She had seen my Still in Love explosion box, and hoped I could create a similar one, but of course customized to her specific likes and wishes.

Since I still had enough of DCWV’s Natural stack, I set out to create another one of my explosion boxes. It has two layers with an altered miniature treasure chest hidden inside. The lady sent me some thoughts and feelings about her beloved husband, and some pictures of her family and their dog, all of which I incorporated as creatively as I could.

I was very happy to hear that the lady and her beloved loved it and are continually adding little personal memorabilia to it!

Like to create an explosion box yourself? Check out my tutorial, explaining the process of creating a three-layer explosion box in 80 pages and 190 pictures!

So, here’s the end result, enjoy!

 

The first two tags of these three were made with some tag die sets by Crealies:

 

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1-sheet Valentine’s Project: Romantic Drawers

When it comes to design paper, I’m a bit of Collector. By which I mean that collecting specific older collections that are no longer manufactured, particularly scratches my collecting itch. It’s the Hunt you see, scouring the most obscure local scrapbook stores, the forgotten corners of the internet, and the hidden treasures of people who are destashing all of a sudden. And then the thrill when I find that one last sticker sheet, belonging with an ancient collection in my stash!
Of course I do regularly buy some of the latest collections, but even those I tend to leave alone for quite some time. Not consciously, but usually it’s only when they are somewhat older and no longer in print, the urge to create something with them hits me.

The Secret Admirer collection by Kaisercraft is one such treasure. It’s a Valentine’s Day collection from 2012, and I designed my Cross-haired Memories Folio Album with it, which I showed you a while ago. Of course I had some papers left over, so in this and the next post I’m sharing the projects I created with them.

Today it’s a 1-sheet project, with a particularly gorgeous 12×12″ Secret Admirer sheet. I found this mini drawer box in one of our dollar bins, and after painting it, I used the Mystical sheet to mat. Added some labels and flowers, and there it was, a beautiful, romantic set of drawers. Love it!

As a bonus projects, I used the tiny scraps I had left from my previous project to decorate a chipboard box, turning it into a great stamp little storage!

Enjoy!

 

 

To My Sweetheart – A Romantic Mini Album

Hello my sweet readers!

Although most people in the Netherlands don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d post a romantically themed mini album today anyway. 😉 ♥
This album was commissioned by a young man in Singapore who wanted to surprise his girlfriend. He wanted it to be romantic – with pinks, flowers and some love-themed ephemera, etc.

So I chose Kaisercraft’s Oh So Lovely paper collection, which is perfect for precisely such a mini album! It has florals, pinks, wood patterns and some great sentiments!

The album is a pocketstyle mini with 5×5″ (12,5 x 12,5 cm) pages.  It sports ten interactive page layouts, including the inside covers, and four large photo mats. I decorated it with the O So Lovely Collectables die-cuts, the ATC cards of the collection (called Captured Moments – Pretty Little Things) and some decorative elements from other brands on the front cover and throughout the album.

For the page designs I mainly followed my Life’s a Picnic mini album tutorial – which by the way has 14 interactive pages so you’ll get 4 extra page designs if you purchase the tutorial!

So enjoy the video, and don’t forget to check out the close-ups below of the two Oh So Lovely cards I created with the same paper collection! 🙂

For those of you who celebrate it, have fun preparing for Valentine’s Day 🙂

 

 

Two Oh So Lovely cards: