A lady asked me to create four double-layout cards for her, one for each season. She also provided me with four seasonal sentiments to incorporate. What a fun challenge that proved to be! 🙂
I also used four brands by the way, so I really saw all four ? corners of my craft supply room. Here’s the collections I used:
This week I’m sharing a card for a guy – with some extra embellishment tips! I used Graphic 45’s wonderful A Proper Gentleman collection, which I still can’t get enough of 🙂
An altered object can be a great present for Christmas or someone’s birthday. It can be tempting to embellish your project with all kinds of decorations, like flowers, charms, trinkets and the like. However, keeping it simple and elegant is sometimes a more sophisticated choice. Let your beautiful papers speak for themselves, and use your creativity to choose the right combination of paper patterns & colors.
For instance, the gorgeous Enchanted Forest collection by Graphic 45 has such beautiful patterns, I thought it really wouldn’t do to cover them up by anything else 🙂 So I used them to decorate this cute little wooden desk organizer I found in one of our home decor shops. This one was a bit smaller than my previous one, and its black color was the perfect base for the Enchanted Forest collection (and almost any other Graphic 45 paper line for that matter).
Personally I’m very pleased with the result – in fact I think I’ll keep this one for myself after all! 🙂
Using the collection’s signature sheet to decorate the left & right side of the organizer:
My friend asked me to create a memory box, like the ones I showed you earlier only larger. She chose the beautiful, romantically rural French Country collection by Graphic 45 – especially since she loves France.
This handmade storage box is pretty large and can hold lots of memorabilia, or even one or more mini albums!
Its dimensions are 19 x 22 cm (7½ x 8 5/8”) and it is 16 cm (6¼”) high, custom-fitted both to the largest and the widest card of a set of cards she wanted to keep in the box, and to the height of the set of cards when stacked on top of eachother, which was 15 cm (6″).
I followed my own box-making tutorial, but with the new dimensions of course. I also came up with a small technique improvement along the way.
I added both the improved instruction and a bonus cutting guide with the new measurements to the existing tutorial – which means all of you guys who already own this tutorial (which is #17 in my shop) can now redownload it for free to get the improved version, and will also get the new cutting guide for free!
I decorated the box with several cutaparts from the collections and two door pulls. On the lid I also used some flowers, charms and buttons, and a hand-painted wooden letter. All in all these beautiful papers are a perfect summer or fall collection, with gorgeous, full colors.
As you may have noticed I really like to use up every last bit of paper I’m using, both the design paper AND the cardstock. So here’s two cards I created with what little I had left from two previous projects. And I’m pretty convinced that if I hadn’t said anything you wouldn’t have noticed these two pieces of postal happiness are actually created from leftovers – for there’s nothing measly about them at all! 🙂
The first card is made from a single strip of cardstock, folded just so, and with a piece of decorative chipboard-turned-magnetized-closure.
The second card is a napkin-fold card with a gloriously embellished belly band. You can make one yourself quite easily – Yes you can! Just watch my free video tutorial and have at it!
So go ye’ all, beeth the Frugallest of Crafters and enjoyeth thee with thy Scraps! 🙂
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.
Hi guys, I’m very happy to present my latest design: a very sturdio folio album, which I’ve therefore dubbed Sturdio 🙂 .
It consists of three accordion-fold page assemblies, rolled into one neat mini album. This one’s theme is the Four Seasons, since I used Graphic 45’s beautiful floral calendar collection Time to Flourish. I kept the months in their proper order, thereby creating three trimesters for one entire year of pictures.
I was completely in the Zone when I designed and created this, which is why I haven’t been able to write a tutorial. I promise I will write one this year, and thank you for your patience, for it will take me creating a second one of these sturdios.
Anyway, enjoy the video and pictures, and do let me know what you think in the comments section! See you next week! 🙂
I love the full-color spectrum of Graphic 45’s World’s Fair paper collection, which allows me to create the kind of colorful projects I enjoy so much.
Of couse I created a large keepsake album first to take full advantage of the gorgeous papers, and fortunately I had enough paper left over to create several cards. Today I’m sharing the first of these – it’s what I like to call a double layout card, by which I mean that it has a layout on both the front and the inside.
To embellish I made use of cutaparts, flowers, chipboard pieces, the tags & envelopes of the collection, and even a small butterfly.
I’m so happy to be able to share my latest mini album design! It’s an 8½ x 8½” (22 x 22 cm) gatefold keepsake album, which I’ve titled Be Your Creative Self – which sentiment is totally inspired by the paper collection I’ve been working with: World’s Fair, the glorious 2015 collectionby Graphic 45.
This is a luxurious gatefold keepsake album, a square one this time – the others have all been in portrait mode. Its pages are a little bit larger than 8×8″, so that you can work with those great 8×8″ design paper pads.
This Be Your Creative Self album contains twelve interactive page layouts, including the inside covers. It has a magnetized closure and has a very crisp and clean cover, no embellishments at all, to really showcase this magnificent paper line.
It was a heck of a job to get it done, but soooo, so much fun! If you’d like to create this great album yourself, a tutorial is available on Etsy, with over 400 clear pictures of the step-by-step process!
Enjoy the video and pictures below, and let me know what you think in the comment section!
As you may have noticed, one of my favorite design paper brands is Graphic 45. Which is why I’m super excited – and a little nervous! – for this blog post, for it is my first time ever submission for a Graphic 45‘s Design Team Audition! 🙂
I am delighted to be able to share some of my favorite projects – old and new – that showcase my style, including a tutorial via Snapguide, and I hope you’ll all feel inspired by them!
Project 1: ATC Book Box Wall Ornament – with Graphic 45’s Sweet Sentiments
Graphic 45’s ATC Book Box (ivory) offers many, many creative possibilities and it was an absolute joy to work with it!
It inspired me to create a brand new project: an Easter Wall Ornament. It has a removable decorative show piece showcasing many fussy-cut images from the collection’s gorgeous signature sheet.
Without this show piece it is still a very decorative but also practical little box for anything you’d like to store – and keep handy at the same time. Like your keys. Your phone. Your business cards. Or your lipsticks! 🙂
To create it, I (gently) cut the box part from the book cover part, turned it 90 degrees and reattached it. By firmly wrapping the cover part with design paper I made sure it stayed straight, preventing it from folding like a book.
I used a ribbon tied through an eyelet to hang the wall ornament on the wall.
Below are some pictures, and the show & tell video:
To see more of the details, click the picture below for an enlargement:
Fussy-cut tag, adorned with fussy-cut floral (lifted with some dimensional tape):
Detail of the ornament, without the show piece:
Bottom
The chipboard pieces on the front are backed up with design paper, continuing the main pattern on the back:
Hanging from my bed room wall
Show & tell video:
Project 2: New Job Card – with Graphic 45’s Time to Celebrate
As soon as I laid eyes on the Time to Celebrate collection, I fell in love with its vibrant spring colors. I immediately created a card with it for my friend who got a new job. She’s quite the lady, so this paper fit her perfectly! 🙂
I love making cards with Graphic 45 papers and for this one I worked with both the 8×8″ design paper and the 6×6″ patterns & solids pad. I used the Best Wishes chipboard piece of the collection, and added some embellishments from my stash: flowers, ribbon, feathers, and flat-back pearls. I stamped Nieuwe Baan (= Dutch for New Job) to finish it.
I layered the inside of the card with both design paper and cardstock, and added two stamps that I cut from the design paper – one of which I lifted with some dimensional tape. I also added two small butterflies from my stash.
Quick video overview:
Project 3: Double-stacked Mini Album ‘Celebrate Every Day’
I love to design and create new or special kinds of mini albums. For example, I’ve designed three different types of folio albums, I love to design large gatefold-style keepsake albums and I’m also an enthousiastic creator of micro albums. The project I’m entering here is yet another kind of (large) keepsake album, which I designed last August. I’m calling it a double-stacked mini album.
This sophisticated album has six page assemblies, three above, three below – which together offer twelve unique interactive page layouts plus some large photo mats!
The insides of the large front and back covers make up their own interactive pages, twice as large as the regular ones. The album has a magnetized closure and although I sometimes go all out with embellishments on mini album covers, I intentionally kept this one crisp and clean on the outside, to showcase the papers – with the added bonus of it easily fitting into a book case.
Below are some pictures, plus the show & tell video I did last September. I’ve also done a video tutorial for one of the origami page elements in the album, which I’ll also embed below.
Inside front cover:
Bonus Project: Briefcase Micro Album – with Graphic 45’s Bohemian Bazaar
This is one of my first designs with Graphic 45 papers and I’m still proud of it, which is why I’m adding it to this audition, even though it’s from 2014 🙂 .
I designed this cute little micro album to look like sort of a briefcase. It measures only 11 x 9 x 5,5 cm (4¼ x 3½ x 2″) and sports six small pocket pages. Each of those holds a tag or a cutapart from the collection.
I created a ‘suitcase handle’ from cardstock lined with book muslin, which I attached with two brads and two small D-rings. The album is held closed with a magnet closure.
Because I really enjoyed showcasing the gorgeously colorful paper, I only added a few embellishments both inside and outside, keeping it clean and stylish and letting the paper speak for itself.
The album is designed to open vertically, not horizontally, just like an actual briefcase. This enables you to thumb through the pages with both hands, kind of like you would a rolodex or some records or some such (yeah I know, this reference totally dates me… 😉 ).
The intended way of opening and perusing this micro album is vertically:
And here’s the (2014) video show & tell video:
Tutorial: How to Create a Micro Booklet – with Graphic 45’s Time to Celebrate
I really love my micro projects, and for the tutorial part of this audition I’m entering a second micro project, next to the Briefcase Micro Album above (Bonus Project). I designed this cute micro bookletas a fun alternative for a card or gift tag. It holds several tiny tags on which you could write your birthday wishes and/or little personal messages. Thanks to its small size it’s easy to send by mail, to carry in one’s purse, to add to a bunch of flowers, etc. – for it measures only 6.5 x 7 cm (2½ x 2¾”).
As an added bonus, it’s perfect for using up the scraps of your awesome scrapbook design papers! (I don’t know about you but I hate to throw away even the tiniest sliver…)
For this project I chose my beloved Time to Celebrate paper line again – couldn’t help myself, it’s just too gorgeous 🙂 .
Please check out my Snapguide* tutorial for this fun project! It’s embedded below, so simply click the tutorial’s pictures or the arrows underneath to move back and forth through the tutorial – very convenient! 🙂
*: Edit 2021: It seems that Snapguide no longer exists, and without warning they apparently removed their entire tutorials database. So I’m sorry, but the aforementioned tutorial for this little booklet is no longer there. If you’d like to know how to make one though, check out this earlier video tutorial of mine.
Hope this inspired you to create one or more yourself, for it’s really a fun little project!
Short show & tell video:
In conclusion
This has been my entry for the Graphic 45 Design Team Audition 2016!
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post as much as I have creating it!
Thank you to all who follow me on this blog and/or on Youtube or other social media, I really appreciate all of your support.
Now please wish me luck 🙂 – for I’m really hoping and praying I’ll make the cut! I would be so honored with a spot on the ever-awesome G45 Design Team and am really looking forward to a chance of working with this great team of designers and crafters – and of course with Graphic 45’s great products and beautiful vintage paper collections – which are great to work with and always smell so good… 🙂
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.
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!
This December month I’ll post many projects on my blog, to give you some inspiration and ideas for your Christmas projects – and also to help you spend your holiday time creatively. In my previous posts I showed you several December projects, the first of which was a quick Christmas Mini Album, so you can start there if you’d like to see them all. Today: Part 9 of this December Deluge of creative ideas 🙂
Today I’m sharing part 2 of my signature sheet ideas,so the sheets that feature the title of each Graphic 45 collection. In my case, just like in my previous post, from the 8×8″ Nutcracker Sweet Christmas collection.
Signature sheet
This time I hardly cut into it at all, using it in its entirety for an interactive 8×8″ Christmas card. Since this one was for my mother, I also added a present: a handmade voucher for the actual Nutcracker Suite classical ballet piece – for which I was totally inspired by this paper collection! 🙂
So there’s an idea to use your beautiful signature sheets, and you only need:
1 double-sided signature sheet
1 double-sided sheet of design paper from the same collection
some cutaparts
a piece of decorative chipboard
Have fun creating and enjoy your Christmas holiday season!
Using a chipboard piece as a closure: simple but very effective!
This week I’m sharing a card for a guy – with some extra embellishment tips! I used Graphic 45’s wonderful A Proper Gentleman collection, which I still can’t get enough of 🙂
A short while ago I designed a 
Hi guys, I’m very happy to present my latest design: a very sturdio folio album, which I’ve therefore dubbed Sturdio 🙂 .
