Gift idea: Mini Album Card!

Special occasions require special cards, and with this interactive wallet card you can go many directions. To give you some examples, my first card of this design had an Encouragement theme, the second version commemorated the first year since my father’s passing.

This week I’m sharing a third way you can use this card: as a mini album card, to send (or give in person) someone some pictures of dearly remembered moments you shared with them! Which is perfect for someone who really already has everything they ever wanted – I mean do you really need to give them more ‘stuff’? I’m convinced that memories in the form of pictures – nicely done up – will always be much appreciated, and also add that extra personal touch to your gifts.
This design offers room for 6-8 pictures and of course a personal message.

So, hope to have inspired you, let me know what you think in the comments! 🙂

 

 

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How to Gift an E-book as a Paper Craft Project

Have you ever tried gifting an e-book to someone? If so then you know there’s not much fun to be had. You either give the person money or a gift card to buy it himself, or perhaps you email them a gift code. Or if you’re really making an effort, you find an online e-book vendor which allows you to buy a specific e-book for someone else. Which requires you to register at said vendor, which you may find very annoying.

Your purchase will then result in an email of the vendor to the recipient, or maybe a voucher will be mailed to you so you can email or print it. Pfff. Like I said, not much fun to be had. No gift wrapping, no happy anticipation before unwrapping the surprise gift, no happy squeals when the present is finally revealed. Welcome to the Digital Age.

Though we cannot change the digital nature of the e-book, we can make it more fun to gift an e-book to someone! The only thing you have to buy is a (physical) gift card that will allow the recipient to buy e-books. You’ll probably be able to buy those in several brick & mortar shops – so no registration required, no annoying emails received.

And then you’ll craft a very festive Mini File Folio like the one I’m sharing with you today, in which you’ll put your gift card and a nicely printed title & summary of the e-book(s) you have in mind for your recipient. And voila, there’s your Very Presentable present.

As an added bonus you’ll probable be able to gift them two e-books for the price of one physical book!

To whom are you going to gift an e-book this way? 🙂

 

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Rose of Encouragement – An Interactive Wallet Card

If you want to try your hand at this interactive wallet card yourself, please check out the tutorial I wrote for you, which you can find in my Etsy shop.

NEWS flash: this tutorial is now also available in Dutch – email me if you’re interested! Plus, several card kits to make this particular card are now available as well! 🙂


Recently Jessica, a young lady from the USA whom I had never met before, contacted me via Youtube, proposing a project swap. I loved this idea, as well as the great spontaneity she showed with this initiative, and we agreed to a friendly card challenge. I set the theme, she added some parameters. So here’s the homework we gave ourselves:

Create an interactive, not too bulky wallet-type card around the theme Encouragement. The projects would have to be true to our individual styles and personalities. Extra criterium was to try and make the message to the other person as personal as we could – without us actually knowing eachother… So we’d have to find our inner Encourager, as it were. 🙂

So, in the video below you can check out what I came up with! This wallet card measures 5.75 x 5.75″ (14.5 x 14.5 cm) and is of my own design. It has pockets, tags, layered layouts and several interactive closures. It’s perfect for more than one sentiment and personalized message, it can function as a gift card holder and it will come in very handy as a vehicle for a group gift – when there are several personal messages by different people and/or gift cards needing to be tucked away into one awesome card 🙂

I used Kaisercraft’s Lady Rose collection, which is stunningly beautiful, feminine and timelessly on trend. Plus, it has some great and encouraging sentiment labels which fit this challenge perfectly!

And here’s the video of the card Jessica created for me! So thank you again Jessica, for your lovely card and your great initiative – an encouragement in and of itself! And for those of you who’d like to see what Jessica’s up to, check out her website, which you can find at AT2 Design.

 

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Wedding gift wallet (part 2 – with 15 tags + a little envelope tutorial)

A couple of days ago I uploaded part 1 of this gift wallet for groups of people who give one gift together.

Now, here’s part 2! With not only all 15 personalized tags for this wallet, but also with the special money envelope I created, and some instructions for making it.

Have fun – and then of course like & subscribe! 🙂

 

Happily Ever After – a wedding gift wallet (part 1)

This gift wallet is perfect for people who give one gift together as a group, like when you’re giving money or some luxury coupons with your entire family, or like in my case with a group of colleagues.
You can add lots of unique tags for each person to write a personal message to the happy couple, which is not just fun for them but will also be a great keepsake.

DCWV’s Once Upon a Time design paper is of course very usable for weddings, for this stack actually has a Happily Ever After sheet, how perfect is that!

Oh, and there is a part 2 to this post by the way, which you find in my next – with not only all 15 personalized tags for this wallet, but I’m also showing you the special money envelope I created, with some instructions for making it! 🙂

And….. don’t forget: please like & subscribe! 🙂

 

Poetry birthday card “Mariposa”

A birthday card of my own design, using the gor-ge-ous Mariposa design paper stack by DCWV – the paper I also used in my recent Keepsake mini album.

There are two poems in the card, one of the front, one inside a flip tag. Both are printed of course, as is the tag containing the birthday wishes.

By the way, I tend to view designing a card the same way I approach creating page layouts for my mini albums, and this card is no exception. I guess it’s my personal style 😉
Take a look, and see what I mean 🙂

What kind of particular personal style do you have when it comes to creating your cards?

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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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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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Birthday mini pocket gift card

Another one of my “August projects” :-), this is actually an alternative rendering of one of my first mini card designs. I used the Sweet Threads paper pad by Basic Grey again because it’s simply too lovely not to use regularly.

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

 

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Mini Pocket Fold-out card

The ancestry mini album of one my previous blog posts was commissioned as a birthday gift for my aunt. So I decided that the birthday card I would send to her, would be a companion piece to go with that album. I chose Kathy Orta’s design for what she’s called a mini pocket page and added my own styling – and of course some printed tags (for what I would I do without at least a couple of those!).

This fold-out card is created with only one piece of cardstock!

Anyway, very pleased with the result – this Ancestry paper is so gorgeous btw, I love it!

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

Happy scrapping, until next time!

 

How to create a mini wallet birthday card (for a guy)

There’s of course many different ways to create a mini wallet. Here’s one that I designed and created myself, and I’d like to show you how I did it – since it’s so simple it would be a shame not to share! (and it will only take about 5 minutes of your precious time!)

I used Graphic 45’s design paper stack A Proper Gentleman to decorate, since it is perfect for creating a birthday card (or any kind of card) for a guy.

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

 

Klik hier als je het filmpje hieronder niet kunt zien.

Dutch translation:
Leuk kadokaarthoudertje, prima als verjaardagskaart te gebruiken. Ik was al een tijdje op zoek naar papier dat voor een man geschikt zou zijn (geen bloemetjes, vlindertjes en felgekleurde sierpatroontjes) en was dan ook blij met de ontdekking van dit papier van Graphic 45: A Proper Gentleman. Ideaal om naar een man te sturen!

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Two quick photo wallets with K&Company’s “Charlotte” paper

The photo wallet I showed you in one of my previous blogposts takes only about 1-2 hours to create and you only need one sheet of 12×12 inch design paper and one sheet of cardstock. All in all, it’s pretty easy to make, which makes it an ideal project whenever you’re in a hurry.

Since both my mother and myself were in need of a “quick card”, I therefore turned to this particular model of photo wallet, for which I found the basic design on Youtube, by a lady calling herself stampingholly, who posted it in 2008 (!).

I used design paper by K&Company called Classic K – Charlotte, which is a beautiful, vintage romance design stack in greens, pinks and blues.

The little photo wallet holds 6 tags which can either be used as photo mats or as journaling spots. Which means you can actually carry 6-12 pictures in it! Who’d a thunk 😉
Anyway, here’s both mini wallets!

Mini wallet #1

Next to the six cards that come with this mini wallet, I added a seventh tag in the small extra front pocket.  I had printed my birthday wishes onto the tag, then I embellished it with a nice green “blingy” flower and covered it in a thin layer of pink glitter glue – which I did after I had printed it of course ;-).

When you remove the card from the main front pocket, the pattern paper underneath becomes visible; as you can see I chose the “closure ribbon” in the same shade of light blue as this pattern.

The mini wallet shows two cute little hot pink tabs, which I fussy cut myself and then embellished with some pink stickle glue.

Each tab is attached to a card, which is meant for journaling or as a photo mat. Each card has its own pocket btw (so there are six pockets for six cards).

When you open the mini wallet, you gain access to yet another two cards.

And last but not least, the back of the mini wallet is the mirror image of its front.

Mini wallet #2

The second mini wallet was constructed in exactly the same way, except with a different sheet of pattern paper from the Charlotte stack – and different colors of both photo mats and tabs to match.

I punched a little half circle out of each inner page, so as to create a way to grab hold of the cards inside the pockets.

Like I said, this mini wallet is pretty easy to make. If you’d like to give it a try yourself, just go to Youtube and search for stampingholly’s photo wallet video from 2008.

Until next time, stay creative! 🙂

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