Girls "secrets purse".

All little girls love somewhere to keep their secrets and messages from friends, so here's a step-by-step to make a little purse to keep them safe. Similar to the men's wallet, only easier and prettier!

Ok, firstly cut a piece of card 8 x 5 inches.



Next, pick two pieces of patterned paper. Here i have used the "Wings" patterned paper from the Angelique Collection by Prima.



Now cover both sides of your piece of card, remembering that one side will be the inside of the purse, and the other the outside. Place your covered card in front of you, inside looking up at you..

Mark your purse folds with your scoring tool at the measurements shown, for a larger image, please click on the picture.

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I find this a good time to give the front some decoration. All i have done here is used some lace, eyelets, distressed an inked the edges, added some fibres, a bloom with a fabric rose, and finally the word "Secrets". As you can see, i have used a simple Velcro dot for the closure.

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Flip it over, and you are ready to do the inside. I've added a little lace again here already.....

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Now you need somewhere to hide those secrets. We are going to make a simple pocket, but you can use a pre-made envelope if you wish, maybe even a pretty little organza bag or similar?

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For this pocket, cut yourself a strip of card 8 inches long. The top inch is for the pocket lid, and you can see that i have added some flaps at the side of the bottom 3 1/2 inches. The dotted lines are score lines which will be folded...

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Cut some patterned paper the same shape, and cover the card. Score the fold lines..

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Fold this pocket over in half, gluing the tabs inside to make the pocket. I have used a border punch on the flap, and some fibres and a ribbon and brad closure to pretty it up.

Add some more decoration if you wish. My eldest loves music, so i made a simple LO involving a handmade miniature wooden recorder, and a scroll of music. Instead of this, you could think about having a few journalling pages there, or a notebook to write the secrets on.

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Just be careful of making the inside too bulky or it will not close. If you do envisage a bulky load inside, just slightly increase the distance between the the fold scorelines..

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That's it finished! One purse fit for a princesses secrets. :)

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Thanks for looking, i hope this has been useful and i look forward to seeing what you do with it.

Calv.

Nestabilities and Frames

Nestablities make the most super frames to highlight an image.

I made this card for a love theme challenge.
The image is stamped on white card in red ink and then cut out and mounted on a Nestie label embossed with the D'vine Swirls folder. Next, I stamped the image again in black stazon on acetate and cut a second label. Using two inks gives a great effect, but you do have to take care matching the two images.

Now you need a frame. If you have not done this before, you will find instructions here.

To finish the card all that is needed is to attached all layers, add your roses, ribbon and gems and you have a very stylish embellishment.

I wanted to make the embellishment the main feature, so to the Charcoal Glimmer cardstock I just added score lines to frame the frame!
I think this say "LOVE", don't you?

You can see more of my crafting and tutorials over on Ikki's Cuttlebug Cupboard. I'd love have you visit!

Mens gift wallet tutorial.

We see many lovely gifts for women, and the blogs are awash with crafty makes full of blooms and ribbons, but rarely anything for men.

I have had many requests to share how I made the men’s paper wallet a while ago, so here is a tutorial to help you make one yourself. They would make an ideal gift for a guy, and you can put whatever you want in them.

For this tutorial I used thin card, as it will be covered both sides with paper. Glues used were a strong stick glue (Tombo), and UHU for the extra strength needed in parts. All measurements are in inches. For a closer view of the details and written measurements, please click the imake for a larger view.

Ok then, firstly cut a piece of thin card 8 ½ x 5 ½ .



Then choose two pieces of patterned paper and cut both of these the same size. These will be your inside and outside of the wallet.



Glue your paper to either side of the card, then lay your covered card in front of you with the inside of the wallet facing upwards.



Next you need to make the score lines so the wallet can fold. Mark the measurents shown on the photo below, then score down the wallet at these points.



Now fold your wallet inwards from both ends, making sure you fold all four score lines. Don’t worry if the folds tear slightly on the outside when you fold them….



This can happen if the paper or card is quite thick. However I actually like it when this happens as you can ink it and use it as a distressed look.

Now flip it over so the front of the wallet is facing you. If you want, now could be a good time to decorate the front. Here I’ve just inked the edges, used a few stamps, added a few eyelets here and there and finished it off with a popper closure.



So that’s the outside cover done. Now for the inside, for the purposes of this tutorial I will call it the “inlay”.

Take another piece of paper and cut it 7 7/8 long x 4 ¼ wide as shown in the picture below. Add a tab ½ in wide either side and at the bottom of the paper.



Turn your wallet back over again so the inside is facing upwards. Now glue the tabs and stick the inlay onto the inside of the wallet. Remember you will have only the sides and bottom glued down. The top is open so you can put money in it.

Tip: be aware of where you insert closures when you decorate the outside of the wallet, you’ll see here I stuck a popper button right where I wanted the inlay to go, hence the cut-out part around the closure.

Once you’ve stuck the inlay in, go over the previously scored fold lines so they now include the inlay…..like so…..



Next you need to cut 2 strips of paper ¾ in wide, and as long as the inlay. Then cut 5 strips of paper ¾ wide and as wide as the inlay…..like so…..

These strips will make up the frame for the pouches for the wallet. Turn them over face down and arrange them into a frame as in the picture. Starting from the left, I have marked the measurements at where I stuck my bars on the frame. They should not line up with the wallet folds.



Now we need to make the pouches. All we do for this is glue a piece of paper, slightly smaller than the frame, at each part of the frame. As you look at the paper I have just glued, note that I have only glued along the top, bottom and left side edge. I can’t explain that any better so heres a pic…

Now for the second piece of paper that fits across the next part of the frame….this time glue only along the top, bottom and right side edges of the paper.

Turn your frame over, and now you see the inside of the wallet…..and theres why you didn’t glue all those edges just now…..you can stick things in it now! Please note that how you arrange your “frame” and pockets is up to you. Some of these pockets here are more for effect, but still work to a degree.



Now theres one frame that’s empty at the moment isn’t there….this is where you cover it with plastic. I cut up some plastic packaging for this. Just do the same as you did before with the pieces of paper, glue and fit it inside the last part pf the frame. As you look at the picture below, you’ll see I have glue 3 sides, top, right and bottom. This allows you to insert business cards, photos etc.



Now then….time to stick the pocket frame directly onto the inlay. However before you do this, I did a Calvism and took the pics the wrong way around, so just rotate the frame so the plastic business card end is at the left side….then stick the frame straight onto the inlay, remembering to only glue the frames bottom and sides….like so…..



Now for a few finishing touches, here I have drawn false stitching on with a white pen. Do this on the outside of the wallet too.



Now fold it closed and this will fold the insides nicely....

Check the top opens ok….



Lets see if the closure works…..you can use whatever you like for a closure, Velcro, buttons and ribbons, eyelets and ribbons…..anything….



So there you go…..one mens wallet! Not the quickest or easiest tutorial, and I’m sure there are others out there that are easier….but I am just showing people how I did mine. Hopefully it will inspire you to change it or do something different with it.



Hope you found this usefull....thanks for looking.

Calv.