Shopping my stash & making last-minute Christmas cards

Happy Holiday season everyone!

Let’s create some easy-to-make Christmas cards together: shop your stash (I did! 😃) and make good use of the tips, tricks & tutorials I’m sharing with you in the below videos! Let me know what you think in the comments.

Have a very merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Let beautiful images in your paper speak for themselves, you don’t have to add anything (or maybe just a little glitter glue, if you cannot help yourself 😇)
Decorating only the fronts of your cards is a great time saver!
Transparent texture paste is a great way to elegantly embellish patterned papers
Keep beautiful packaging and use it to create lovely cards, quick & easy!
Vertical tri-folds, or deconstructed envelope cards like this one, are perfect to keep large patterns intact

You can watch my free video tutorial for my deconstructed envelope card here:

Hope you found these tips & tutorials helpful, either for your Christmas cards or for any other occasion!

Perfume Card Series: How to Fasten Your Perfume on the Inside

In my previous post I shared the idea of fastening a perfume booklet to the front of a card. This allowed for the rest of the card to be a standard folded card, since the bulky part was on its outside.

But what if you want to add your perfume to the inside of your card?

One way of doing that would be to create a belly band on the inside.

However, this only works if your perfume sample comes with its own booklet (see picture below), for then you can tuck the edges of the booklet behind the belly band. If it didn’t come with a booklet, then we’ll need a different design – so keep an eye on this series of blog posts! Simply click the tag Perfume cards and you’ll get all relevant posts on my blog at any given time.

But first things first: your card will need a gusset, otherways it would not close around the vile. Depending on the girth of your perfume sample, create a gusset that is wide enough. For most samples a gusset of 3/8 to 1/2 inch (1-1.2 cm) will probably suffice.

If you use only one sheet of double-sided design paper that already has 6 double-sided 4×6″ cards as a pattern, you’ll be able to create two VERY quick & easy cards! 🙂

1 sheet of A4 cardstock + 1 sheet of 12×12″ double-sided design paper is all you need for these two cards!
This gorgeous paper collection is Desire by Stamperia. The sheet is called ‘6 cards’ (SBB891).

I decorated a little bit but not too much, for I only wanted to enhance this stunning paper here and there and not get in its way.

Added some flowers where it would actually integrate with the design pattern
Strategically added a small bunch of roses and two pieces of chipboard; in this case, less was indeed more.

The end result was lovely. I simply tucked the perfume booklets behind the belly band, which automatically kept them closed.

Don’t underestimate the importance of details: I colour-coordinated my perfume samples with my design papers, and this definitely enhanced the card design! 🙂

Have fun crafting! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment with this post!

Nifty Multi-pocket 1-sheet Card

Happy New Year everyone!

And let’s start 2023 with a lovely vintage 1-sheet card, its browns & grayish blues so suitable for autumn and winter, and yet its pink roses remind us that Spring is coming (well, eventually it will).

There are many ways to fold beautiful cards with only one sheet of paper. You could also use cardstock and mat it (which would technically make it a 2-sheets card) but much easier is using a double-sided sheet of design paper.

I designed this particular card type myself, it takes a bit of folding, one cut with a paper trimmer and a little bit of glue, and it will turn into this very nice multi-faceted card with two pockets and a little doorlet on the front to tuck some extra niceties behind.

If you want to know the nitty-gritty of how to make this, there’s an excellent PDF tutorial in my Etsy shop, it’s Tutorial #9. (It’s very affordable btw).

I’ve made several of these over the years, and here’s my latest, using the beautiful vintage Time is an Illusion paper collection by Stamperia.

Opening the front flap and finding a nice removable bookmark on the inside
Checking out the center pocket, which holds a lovely tag, which I decorated with some stamps and a die cut image of a cup of tea
On the back of that same tag, I attached an actual bag of tea for my friend
Back pocket
The back pocket contains a booklet
The inside of the booklet offers room to write a message on the left, and a nice stamped sentiment on the right

Papercrafting with rice paper: Can it be done?

Brands often put their best and most beautiful pattern designs on rice paper, instead of their regular design paper, it seems. Rice papers are usually used to alter hard surfaces, like boxes, furniture and the like.

So, can we papercrafters work with the ultra thin rice papers instead of regular-weighted design papers? In the Craft With Me video below I create two mini album inserts – but you can also use them as cards.

I use the most gorgeous sheet of rice papers, from the Clockwise collection by Stamperia.

So enjoy the video and craft along with me 🙂

Six Easy Card Ideas

In very busy times like these I don’t find much time to craft, let alone many hours continuously. Nevertheless, a girl still needs her cards to send to her friends & extended family! So, here’s six card ideas, all of which are very easy to make and which take up relatively little of your precious time.

Enjoy the video, and don’t forget to like this post and/or leave a comment! 😃

Vintage Trifold Card

When your double-sided paper is beautiful on both sides and you cannot decide which one to mat on a card, it’s time to create a card without cardstock! This way, you can showcase both sides of your gorgeous design paper sheet.

For me it was a sheet from the Time is an Illusion collection by Stamperia. That design paper collection is truly a work of art!

Cut a 12″ inch strip of your sheet, at the height you want your card to be. Fold in two places to create a trifold – make sure one panel overlaps the other.

Use a strip of paper or a tag to create a closure. Watch the video on my latest steampunk mini album, which actually features this card and in which I go over the closure technique in more detail.

Decorate the front of your card.

Add a journalling spot on the inside. You don’t have to add anything else since your paper is already lovely in and of itself!

Add a decorative element on the back. I chose a cutapart with a sentiment. Done!

Have you made any cards without cardstock? Tell me about it in the comments, I’d love to hear about it!

Stamperia Steampunk Mini Album (Huge!)

I’ve worked many moons on this project, but I’m very proud to (finally!) present: my latest mini album!

This is a hefty girl, with 10 multi interactive page assemblies plus interactive inside covers. I needed four(!) 12×12” + one 8×8” design paper collections, OMG.

There’s a tutorial available in my Etsy shop, in case you’d like to make it yourself.

So this is a real stash eater, for all of you out there who’ve been hoarding collecting their design papers for quite some time…🤡

All of the gorgeous papers I worked with were by Stamperia. I used the following collections: Lady Vagabond, Sir Vagabond (8×8″), Time is an Illusion (2 packs), and Clockwise.

Anyway, here are the video and some pictures, feel free to leave a comment or ask any questions!

Stamperia Vintage Birthday Card

Today I’m sharing a birthday card with Stamperia’s lovely vintage Time is an Illusion collection. There’ll be some more cards the coming days, for I – finally! – finished the new mini album (mini tome, rather 😅) using four of Stamperia’s vintage collections. And as per usual I’m using the leftovers to create all kinds of nice cards and booklets.

This one is in fact a pretty simple card to make: you only have to decorate the front, and you only need three pieces of design paper to layer. Decorate any way you like. Done.

For instance, I used some dimensional tape between the layers of design paper to achieve a 3D effect. I also put some Tim Holtz Distress Grit Paste through a flourished stencil, and colored it with Distress Embossing Glaze – which also adds some nice shine & gloss.

Do you like Stamperia papers? What is your favorite collection?

Quick Birthday Tag – Vintage Style!

Tip: You don’t always need to create a full-blown birthday card, a nice tag will go a long way too – especially when added to a gift to carry your birthday wishes.

Here’s an easy little gift tag and the steps to create it. I designed it to go with some birthday flowers for a friend.

  1. I chose a cutapart from Stamperia’s Time is an Illusion collection;
  2. Layered a second cutapart on top;
  3. stamped some butterflies;
  4. added a ribbon on top;
  5. added a Tim Holtz quote chip, after using some Distress Mica Sprays to grunge it up a bit.

Easy peasy! 😃

Materials used

Mailable Vintage Tea Booklet

Stamperia have come out with some gorgeous vintage and steampunk paper collections. I’ve been working with four of those collections for my latest mini album, which I’ll be showcasing here soon.😃

In the meantime I’ll be showing you some smaller projects I’ve been working on with said papers.

Take this cutie. Since I love to send a friend some tea – kind of a hug-in-a-mug – I created this lovely little Tea Booklet. For its front, back & spine I made use of a pre-imaged paper sheet Stamperia provided in their Lady Vagabond collection.

I matted the inside of the booklet with some beautiful patterns and decorated with some fussy-cut elements.

Added some Glossy Accents by Ranger for a shiny highlight

My spine was 5/8″ (1.5 cm) wide to accomodate a bag of fresh tea. You can make the spine as wide or as narrow as you need. The narrower the spine, the easier it fits into a normal envelope. However, if like me you’d like to send out some tea, you’ll need a little width.

Have you ever created a tea card? I’d love to know you ideas!

What do you make with oddly themed design papers??

I have great admiration for design paper companies and their graphic designers: having to come up with unique, lovely and most of all sellable designs several times a year seems like a sheer insurmountable challenge to me. So I can understand that every once in a while some design paper collection comes out on the market that in itself looks great – stunning even – but has a slightly odd theme.

This week I’m sharing what you could do with such fairly non-practical themes; like the pastry-themed Sweety collection by Stamperia.

Lovely colors and beautiful graphic designs – they look so good I want to eat them all!

Other than making me seriously crave some chocolate & cherry pie topped off with some pistachio mint ice cream (yummie!) I’m not sure what to do with this collection, except admire its visual gorgeousness. Yes, I know, the theme is great for birthdays and other parties, but then I would prefer a 6×6″ size for cards and Stamperia doesn’t do those. Now take the 12×12 inch sheets: these elaborate graphic designs look more like a picture you would frame and hang from your wall, than cut it up (how?!) to make it into, say, a mini album or, even more difficult, a card.

A seriously uncuttable 12×12″ sheet

So, here’s what I do whenever I encounter a collection I love but cannot for the life of me think of a project intended for some actual, practical use: I buy only the cutapart sheet, and design one card around it, preferably while using up the entire sheet.

The Stamperia cutapart sheets are always great, plus, they come with beautiful journalling spots on the back. Perfect.

So, here’s a short video tutorial on how to design a card around your specific cutaparts. If your cutapart sheet has differently sized cutaparts, then here’s a tutorial around a second design.

Enjoy the video, feel free to craft along! 🙂

1-sheet Project: Altered Pencil Organizer

It’s been a while since I showed you an altered box, so here we are 🙂

This time it’s a wooden pencil box I found in an art supply store, in which you could of course keep all kinds of memorabilia, ephemera, or paper scraps as well.

I altered it with a double-sided sheet from Stamperia’s Rose collection, and I always find it amazing that I often only need 1 sheet to alter an entire box! For other examples I can refer you to my Romantic Drawers box and to my cute little Christmas treasure chest, the latter of which I altered with 1 sheet of only 8×8 inches.

If you’ve never altered a box before and don’t know where to start, I’ve done several free video tutorials. You could start here and here.

Meanwhile, if you need some inspiration first, watch today’s video! 🙂