Tutorial: A Christmas Card Keeper!

Hello everyone, Zoe here! Today, I'm going to share my very first tutorial with you all. As it's the start of the year, most of us are tidying away the Christmas decorations and cards. As crafter's we all (I assume) receive gorgeous handcrafted cards from our crafty friends and, if you are like me, I can't bear to hide them away in a box what alone get rid of them. So I've made a Christmas card keeper that can be filed into Project Life or into a journal or folder. 

In order to make this you need two paper bags and some papers and embellishments to decorate, along with some ribbon. I chose to use papers and embellishments from the fabulous 'Angelberry' collection.

I started by preparing my two paper bags - 

I cut off the handles and glued the bases together.

As the two bags are going to lie like pages (like a bag album) I spent time making sure I could fold the bags backwards and forwards once the glue had dried.

Burnishing each fold/line.

Once happy I set about decorating my base. As I used two bags there are obviously two pouches to hold cards and four sides to cover so I printed off enough papers and embellishments to cover all the areas.

The bag bases create the spine so I also decorated the part that's inside. I may stick one of my bigger cards to this spine, creating another "page" if you like. It's important when covering the bags that you don't glue the openings together as this is where you keep your cards!!

Here you can see a small card popped inside the bag. My idea was to create a project to keep those special cards and I feel this is a great way to do so. Once each pouch is full you could clip it together or punch a hole and secure it with some extra ribbon. I haven't done this yet as I haven't taken down my cards!

As you can see in the top photo I punched two holes in the spine and tied some ribbon through, I could leave it as a separate album or pop it into a folder or journal. The finished project measures 8 1/2 x 7 inches.

I enjoyed preparing this tutorial for you and hope it provides a little inspiration.

Take care Zo x