Two Shutter-cards Done-Up Differently: Masculine & Feminine

You can know a design theoretically, but there’s nothing like actually seeing it in your hands, with design paper and decorations! Especially if you make different versions, with different colors, themes, occasions and recipients.

So this week I’m sharing the pretty well-known shutter-card design, done in two different ways: one is masculine, the other feminine.

Enjoy! And if you want a third variation, check out my Christmas version!

Tutorial: Two Mailable Minis (and a photo card)

Sometimes you want to mail someone more than just a card, especially if they’re far away and you still want to give them something special. Well, meet my Mailable Mini! This is a great way to send an elaborate all occasions card-slash-mini-album.

The two examples I’m sharing with you today are a birthday version and a commemorative version. One for a man, the other for a woman (my aunt) but filled with pictures of a man (my late uncle). So for both I used the masculine themed Barbershoppe collection by Kaisercraft. For my aunt, I used more feminine embellishments plus a rose paper on the back, for the man, I left it at clean and straight as possible, with of course a little bit of technique – in the form of a magnetized closure.

If you want to make one yourself but don’t know how, there’s a tutorial in the second half of the video. I’m also gladly referring you to my free video tutorial on matting, so 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.

Folders & Pockets Mini Album: Go, See, Explore

This week I’m sharing the wonder of repeating a previous design with different decorative papers. What a huge difference! And it’s really the very same album design. The original album was my Zoo Adventure folders & pockets mini album, created with an ever colorful Graphic 45 collection called Safari Adventure. This new iteration is a travel version with masculine overtones, using Echo Park’s Go, See, Explore collection. I created it at the request of Scrapworld / Scrapwereld, who also sponsored the materials.

Hope to have inspired you to play around with different design paper collections for you’ll get completely different albums from your one album design! 🙂

Check out the album tutorial available in my shop. Plus, below you’ll find embedded the free video tutorial on the sewed booklets.

 

 

 

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Soccer-themed Birthday Card

What birthday card to make for that soccer-loving friend or relative? How about a soccer-themed card, decorated with a custom-printed birthday wish, a Johan Cruijff tag and a wooden letter ‘K’ for his first name. With Stickles, of course.

This time the video contains a super short overview. More details in the pictures below 🙂

 

The 14 rules of Johan Cruijff

 

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Man About Town – a New ‘Sturdio’ Album

A short while ago I designed a new kind of folio album, with accordion style page sets and very sturdy cover parts – hence the new name I coined: a sturdio album 🙂

At the time I was in the Zone designing & creating, so I wasn’t able to write a tutorial. But I promised you I would, and now I have! So here is the second iteration of my sturdio album design, created with Graphic 45’s A Proper Gentleman collection. It’s a little bit larger, but it has the same page design as the original. You can find the tutorial in my Etsy shop.

This one was especially created for my dearest friend Christa, who wanted to have a very special album to keep her favorite pictures of her beloved husband.

So, without further ado, here’s Man About Town, a sturdio album.

 

 

Free Tutorial: Vellum Card in Black & White

Today I’m happy to share a tutorial with you all, of a sophisticated birthday card designed for a man. It’ll be great fun to make for all of you who, like me, don’t like to use any fluff when creating something for a guy. I always like to keep it clean and stylishly simple, and this time I’ve created the cleanest and simplest one yet of all of my projects for guys. 🙂

You can watch the show & tell video to see every detail of the card, so enjoy and have fun creating!

Tutorial

Let me know if you’d like me to do a (free) tutorial for this elegant card! (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.

If you have any questions, just let me know!

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Tri-shutter Birthday Card for a Golf Player

A so-called tri-shutter card is easy to make and almost always generates amazed and admiring responses. You can create them at different sizes and shapes (i.e. rectangular or square), simply by playing around with both the horizontal and vertical measurements of your cardstock.

I created different Christmas versions in the past, with the square (when folded closed) Holly Jolly cards and the smaller, rectangular Caramel Christmas versions.

Today I’m sharing a third variation: a birthday card for a golf player, using a Proper Gentleman paper by Graphic 45.

I fussy-cut an actual golf player from the paper and glued it to the left front panel, making sure the glof club was sticking out.

I also die-cut and embossed the first letter of the name of the guy to whom I was going to send it. I lightly went over it with some distress ink, to highlight the embossed parts.

I always use a light color for the central panel, to be able to write or stamp a message. In this case: Congratulations in Dutch.

When creating a card or other project for a guy, I always keep the embellishments at a minimum. No fuss for a man! 🙂

Sometimes it’s difficult to establish whether the male recipient of your card genuinely likes it for its own merits – for though he may truly appreciate and enjoy the gesture, he might still feel neutral at best about the esthetics of your work. Nevertheless, in this case I think the colleague who received this particular card actually deemed it quite likeable 🙂

So, hope you feel inspired for your first new cards in 2016. As I said this design is very easy to make. If you’d like to try it but don’t know how, check out my free video tutorial!

Next week’s video: Boxing Days – A chipboard storage or gift box to create yourself!

 

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Personalized Treasure Chest for a Man

Little boxes and chests are great gifts for guys, for you can alter them any way you like to give them a masculine look & feel. Some time ago I altered a little chest with the Craftsman paper collection by Prima Marketing. Today I’m showing you the same basic chest – looking completely different!

This time I used Cold Country papers by 7 Dots Studio, a gorgeous collection in cool gray, black and violet tones. I stamped a sentiment onto the top tag and adhered a photo of our team to the other side – for this was a Goodbye & Thank You gift for our (now former) boss. I also diecut his initials and stamped them with tiny ‘Bedankt’ sentiments – which is Dutch for Thank you.

Like with the Craftsman edition, I also included a refrigerator magnet – neatly kept in place by the magnetized right side of the box. This time it said Thank You So Much.

The ‘real’ present was a group gift: as a group we added a gift card, which fit neatly into this mini chest.

Enjoy the video, thank you for liking & subscribing! You can also follow me on Pinterest.