Mini Album “2Die4” – an idea to store your dies

I haven’t been die-cutting from the beginning of my scrapbooking adventures (back in November 2012), but ever since I’ve been trying my hand at it, my stash of dies seems to keep growing no matter what I do… It didn’t take too long before I was in need of a handy and practical way to store my dies, preferably without having to save all the packaging.

I figured: why not create a mini album with magnetic pages to hold all of them!

So I got to work, stumbling along while experimenting, encountering several impediments and difficulties. I finished the project nevertheless, although the end result is not the most esthetically pleasing of projects.

I’m sharing this with you anyway, for now you can all learn from my mistakes, apply my tips and create your own very practical and no doubt far more pretty storage minis! 🙂

Have fun, and let me know what you think!

A Rose Garden Trio of Birthday Cards

Here’s three different cards created from one paper stack: Rose Garden by First Edition. All three designs are my own; it was great fun to come up with them and create them. The Rose Garden paper is truly lovely, very feminine and romantic. Very suitable for my aunt and my cousin, who have their birthdays in August.

The designs are very stylish, their contruction kept lean and with very little embellishments. It’s my way of allowing the beauty of the paper to speak for itself.

There’ll be a tutorial of the third card in one of my upcoming September projects (Natural History Adventure Ultra Mini Album), where it’ll be a mini album page design. But it works as a card just as well! So stay tuned if you want to learn how to make one… 😉

Anyway, here’s the video – hope you feel inspired by these cards 🙂

Please like & subscribe! 🙂

 

New Micro Album design: The Briefcase

This is a cute, unique design, which I’m very proud of! It’s a different kind of micro album, which I designed as sort of a briefcase. Also: very fun to create!

Paper is Bohemian Bazaar by Graphic 45, a great paper that I’ve used before – on one of my mini albums and also on a cute gatefold card. I’ve used the last of the scraps that I had left over of these projects to create this micro album. What a great way to use up all of your paper 🙂

 

Click for my other micro albums!

 

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A cute little all occasions photo booklet

This little booklet is a cute alternative for a card: you can add little tags to write a personal message, and even add some photos or other nice pictures. So, Happy Birthday, or Happy Any Other Occasion! 🙂 It’s also a great alternative for using your scraps – next to, for instance, making scrap mats or other kinds of scrap decorations.

Of course you can make your own little booklet quite easily, feel free to come and get some inspiration from my tutorial for mini booklets if you’ve never made one yourself.

Anyway, here’s the video – P.S.: don’t forget to hit the like button underneath it! 😉

DCWV - Serenity 4

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Tutorial: How to make a double circle paper closure

Lately I’ve gotten some requests to do more tutorials, which was very encouraging and which inspired me to share this design with you all.

For an interactive element in my Little Miss mini album I designed a special paper closure, that I’m calling Double Circle Closure. In this video I’m using design paper from DCWV’s Immortal Love stack, which would also make it a great Valentine’s Day card or interactive element in your Valentine’s Day mini album – just a tip…;-).

It may take a bit of practice, especially since I’m eyeballing the whole thing so I can’t give you any measurements, but I hope you’ll get the idea. I apologize in advance for the lighting, since I filmed at night and didn’t have a so-called “daylight lamp” or any other kind of photo lamp. Anyway, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, simply use the comment section below. I usually answer within 24 hours.

By the way, feel free to use my design on any of your projects. Whenever you decide to share these on your blog, Youtube, Facebook or any other website or medium, please do mention my name (Katja), the name of my blog (Creator’s Image Studio) and please share the link to this blog. Thank you!

Note on video quality: Most of my videos are 720p; the rest is 540p. If you’re not able to get 720p or 540p  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.

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Super-sized birthday card

Having done several mini and micro cards & booklets, I figured it was time to go in another direction and create a super-sized card! 🙂 It’s a Happy Birthday card, created with DCWV’s Serenity paper and measuring 17×25 cm (approx. 7×10 inches). It has three pockets, which hold two photo mats plus an “actual” birthday card – from a local store. Of course I used my scrap mat technique as well, on the front pocket.

Enjoy the video!

Have you ever created a super-sized card or other project? Please tell me all about it in the comment section below! 🙂

Don’t forget to like & subscribe, so you won’t miss future projects 😉

DCWV - Serenity 4

Cute birthday booklet

Although at the moment designing and creating mini albums, cards and altered objects are my main focus when it comes to paper crafting, I really like the occasional mini (or even micro) booklet as well. This one for instance, with its 1 5/8 x 2 1/4 inches (4,3×5,7 cm) is the tiniest I’ve created yet. And it still has pockets & tags! 🙂

I used Madeline design paper by Prima Marketing, the same as with my Madeline cinch mini. This would also make it a great companion piece to this mini, for instance as an alternative birthday card.

So please enjoy the two-minute video!

 

By the way, in the video I refer to my Bohemian Bazaar mini booklet – which you van check out in more detail in my blogpost on the Bohemian Bazaar mini album.

Want to create your own micro booklet? Then check out my tutorial on this blog!

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How to create a scrap mat – a tutorial

Here’s a little tutorial on how I make so-called ‘scrap mats’. This is what I call the photo mats that I create from leftover scraps of design paper.

You see the thing is, I just like to use up as much of my design paper as I can – I guess it’s a combination of enjoying as much of a particular paper stack as possible on the one hand, and frugality on the other. I mean, you’d be surprised how much photo mat real-estate the right combination of scraps generates! (What can I say, I’m just weird that way 😉 )

Meanwhile, the results have been quite cool, imho. So check it out and find out how to create these mats yourself!

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“Every day is Father’s Day” card

So what if it’s not Father’s Day anytime soon! I just wanted to give my dad a special card, just to let him know I love and appreciate him, and I was going to do it right now. 🙂

My father loves his nature, flowers and animals, so I took a sheet of cream-colored A4 paper, added a couple of pieces of the perfectly fitting Flora and Fauna design paper and got to work! Oh, and also, I harvested some of the pears and apples growing in my garden so as to make a cute autumn harvest basket for my dad. Needless to say, he loved it!

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Flora and Fauna gatefold keepsake album deluxe

When my mother saw the Butterflies & Stars keepsake album I had recently designed for a friend, she immediately commissioned one herself, as a present for her cousin. There are some differences between the two albums though. For instance, this Flora and Fauna album is somewhat larger than its predecessor; the designs of both its base pages and its cover pieces are different as well.

All in all it took 21 sheets of A4 cardstock for the construction of the pages and tags and about 23 sheets of double-sided design paper (12×12 inches). For the cover I took two 12×12 inch pieces of cardboard, created five unique pieces and arranged them just so.

Two pieces of linen bookcloth strengthen the folds of both spines. The magnets I used for the closure are by Basic Grey, they’re absolutely the strongest crafting magnets I could find!

My mother’s cousin is a dear 80-year-old who loves her garden and everything in it, so my mother wanted somewhat of a “garden theme with little birds and bees and butterflies”.

Fortunately K&Company’s gorgeous Flora and Fauna design paper was already eagerly awaiting me in my stash, begging me to be used – and the very pale lavender color of the cardstock turned out to be the perfect combination. I also used some of the matching embellishments and design elements that go along with this paper – which I’ll show you in de video.

Anyway, long story short, the keepsake album turned out rather beautifully and I’m more than happy with it myself. If you’d like to create an album like this yourself, check out the tutorial for my Springtime Dreams Keepsake Album, for it has the same basic page design!

Now, on to the video, and the pictures below!

 

Baby shower gift idea: altered mini drawer chest

I was very happy to do one of my altered drawer boxes again, my second one actually, because they’re cute, look lovely and are easily made. I bought it in one of our craft stores (in the Netherlands); it’s made of plain wood and its size is 8x8x3 inches (20x20x7,5 cm).

This time I used Romantic Nursery design paper to alter it into a baby shower gift, so it’s completely different from my first one. It still amazes me how much a simple change in color and style can lead to a difference of day and night for the same object! A difference I find utterly enjoyable by the way, for this way one object can please many different people and can be made to fit a multitude of occasions – and moreover, it inspires creativity!

 

So here’s the video, including a little “how to” information, enjoy!

Have you ever altered a box or some other object? How did you do it?

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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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