Part of the fun of creating mini albums is to design and create a myriad of nooks & crannies for your album to tuck all kinds of niceness into. You could use those spots for tags, photo mats, folded cards for journalling, etc. etc. To add to your inspiration for these kinds of bonus projects for your mini albums, I’m sharing a fun little micro wallet with you today.
You could of course also use it as an alternative card – just put it into an envelop and send it on its merry way 🙂
For this particular booklet I took my inspiration from one of Kathy Orta’s designs, so if you’d like to create one yourself you can check out her tutorial.
Anyway, here’s my version – with papers by Colors Unlimited.
As you may have noticed by now if you’ve been following this blog, I really like to design and create what I call micro projects, small but fully functional paper craft products, perfect for your handbag or as a small but very personal gift. And great to use up those gorgeous scraps in your stash you can’t get yourself to throw away… 🙂
This week I’d like to share a new micro design: a Micro Pocket Book! I really like how this has turned out, and by now I’ve already created two! They are 3½ x 2¾” (9 x 7 cm), sport a magnet closure with a ribbon pull, three little pages + some extra room for photos/journalling, and a nice little pocket to tuck away tiny treasures. It was great fun to create them, especially because a simple change in design paper resulted in a second pocket book with an entirely different look and feel from the first.
Papers used were Bo Bunny’s Country Gardenfor the one and some sheets by Fabscraps for the other.
It’s springtime! 🙂 Although it’s still pretty cold where I live here in the Netherlands, you can already feel a certain ‘softness’ in the air as days are lengthening and nature is preparing to wake up. I don’t know about you, but I’m totally game for spring!
And this year we’ll have a fairly early Easter. Normally I don’t send out any Easter cards (it’s simply not a Dutch tradition) but this year I felt like letting at least a couple of people know that I’m thinking about them and wish them some great times with the upcoming holiday.
I found this lovely sheet of paper by We R Memory Keepers, from their Cotton Tail collection, and it immediately took my thoughts to all the wonderful things that make up springtime and Easter.
So in the spirit of spring, I decided to design something new. I challenged myself to use only one piece of 12×12 inch cardstock for the construction of this card! Of course you will need some extra materials, but not a lot and the main items on that list are 1 extra sheet of cardstock for tags (A4 will suffice), and 1 sheet of 12×12 inch design paper. That’s about it! This design will enable you to create an elaborate and interactive card that is still quite affordable in terms of the supplies you need – awesome right?! 🙂
Also, this card is 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 a group of people are giving one gift together.
And last but not least, you could also use it as a mini album page insert!
Good news: I’m making this design available to you all in my Etsy shop – and like the card itself this tutorial is also very affordable, so check it out!
And here’s the show & tell video, enjoy and let me know what you think!
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.
We’re pretty used to sending eachother birthday cards, but this time the theme is Thank You! 🙂
In my case, to thank my singing teacher for a year of great lessons – but you can of course come up with many things to be grateful for, and actually sharing that with someone! In that sense it would also be a great little wallet to add to your Thanksgiving present that you’ve bought (or created!) for your Thanksgiving Dinner Hosts!
I’ve done a tutorial a couple of blog posts ago, in case you want to create one yourself – it’s really very easy! 🙂
So, what are you grateful for? Leave a reply in the comment section! 🙂
Here’s a quick tutorial for creating a fun little birthday wallet.
I keep coming back to this design because it looks great, it’s easy to make and takes only one sheet of 12×12 inch double-sided scrapbookpaper. So I thought I’d share this with you and show you how to make it! 🙂
If you want some more inspiration, click the links below for my other versions.
Dutch language version available as well this time (without the 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.
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! 🙂
Here’s another Mom’s Home Original – that is, I created and filmed this project at my mom’s 🙂 Therefore the paper is by Colours Unlimited again, since that little paper pad is the only one my mom has.
This paper wallet is definitely multi-functional: you can either use it as an elaborate birthday card, as I have in this video, or you can designate it to be a bonus project for one of your mini albums – for you could very easily use this as a mini album page insert! Cool…
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! 😉
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!
Recently I found myself in the unfortunate position of having to ponder the question whether or not it’s okay to craft a sympathy card. Would it be considered an annoyance, an act of inconsiderateness, or would it be received as the small, unique expression of well-meant sympathy it was intended to be? I decided to take the risk and go for the latter, and did my utmost to make it tasteful, warm and heartfelt. And I’m glad I did, for it was well-received!
The design is a familiar one that I have used a couple of times before, as you can see here and here. But I chose it anyway because it’s just the perfect little wallet for photos or small notes that a person who has just lost a loved one might want to keep inside the card, to carry with them easily.
I always use double-sided design paper for this type of mini wallet, so that both the inside and outside of the pockets aren’t simply white but show matching colors and patterns. This particular 12×12 inch sheet is called “Sunset”, by Creamotion.
Front: I deliberately wrote “With sympathy” by hand instead of typing or printing it, because I wanted to ensure a very personal feel. The card is held closed by a belly band, kept clean and simple. The “With sympathy” part is actually a flip tag, tucked into the front corner pocket. On the inside of the tag I wrote my personal message. The mini wallet holds six black cards, to hold photos, notes or to write down some cherished dates and memories. I created tabs for two of them, using the black pearlescent sheet of the Gemstones paper pad. Flip open the paper wallet and two more pockets appear, holding one notecard each. And finally, the backside of this little wallet, mirroring its front.
Have you ever created a sympathy card? What design and color theme did you choose?
