Stains Come in Colours Other Than Brown

Hey ho!  Here's a book that I designed for class in May:

We had a lot of fun staining the Prima Resist canvas covers with Distress Stains in class - I especially like the Bundled Sage colour when its diluted with water.  It's a little hard to see on the front cover, but you can see the nice minty green better here on the back cover:

And because so much time was spent staining the canvas (and fussy cutting all those darned roses), the pages are not sewn to the spine, but tied instead - hence the 'nest' of strings on the back.

A super big thank you and hello to all the lovely ladies who attended this class - especially those of you who were attending scrapbooking class for the first time - you did an AWESOME job!  I had fun! Hope you all did too!

Catch you later!  Some G45 goodness coming up real soon! A Tutorial no less! (finally!)

Vintage Summer Basics

Hey ho! Happy Sunday!

There's lovely lovely paper out at majadesign:

Vintage Summer Basics

(Actually it's been out for a while, but I only just got around to playing with it.

 And here's what I made:

 

Pretty paper for pretty girls. :)

Black makes it Better

The papers I'm using for June's layout class are full of pastel colours.  But I really like how they look with a shot of black here and there. It's true....black goes with everything!

There'll be 4 layouts in the class (super productive!) and we'll be doing stamping and bits of painting.

 The dates and timeslots should be out real soon, so you can book your slot for this and other classes.  See you in June!

Bible Verse Box

Hey ho!  It's Graphic45 time again!  Here's what I made with the Olde Curiosity Shoppe collection (my favourite!) that's featured on the G45 blog today!  (Be sure to check out the gorgeous projects by Clare Charvill and Denise Hahn)

 It's a little box

that opens up

to reveal a little space where you can keep your favourite quotes, or in my case, bible verses.

My favourite part of the box are the sides - they're a little 'mouldy' looking because they're painted with a thin layer of teal paint and then inked.

All supplies are listed on the G45 blog K?

Developing...

A growing love for painting:

An obsession with cup noodles:

Classes for June:

1. Bookbinding class using Amy Tangerine papers and embellishments - we'll be learning the secrets of Secret Belgian binding.... but first I need to find the perfect button to fit on that camera lens...

2.  A box building / mini album class using October Afternoon Sarsaparilla papers and embellishments - with a key in front that turns to show what you are up (I am hard at work right now see?) and a circular album (not shown because it doesn't deserve to see the light of day yet! bwahaha)....but I'm thinking the box will be really cute with handles (which would then make this a handbag building / mini album class)....so I gotta hunt down just the right stuff to finish it off...

 

 3. And some vintage style layouts with lots of stamping which are not fit to be seen yet... so I gotta show you next time.... why do I always seem to do my layouts last? Hmm...

Hope you like what you see. :)  And if you do, please book accordingly....haha.

Scene of a Happy Accident

Here's the last project that I submitted to the Graphic45 Final auditions:

And I had a real blast with this one, because of a fun happy accident and discovery along the way.
Those of you who like Graphic45 will recognise that this is made from their Metal Film Canister with album:

 

I glued an ornate chipboard piece in the centre and then did some messing around with paints and stuff.  The happy accident is how I managed to get the silver metal cover to look like brown mahogany wood.  Apparently black paint + dark red Maya Mist + gold Glimmer mist makes for a nice combination!  And apparently my ugly brush strokes in the black paint end up looking like woodgrain...oh happy accident, how I have missed you! :)

The canister and the album inside were finished off with Graphic45's Kraft Reflections collection.

Supplies:

Graphic45 Kraft Reflections 12x12 Paper Pads 

Graphic45 Metal Film Canister w/Album

Graphic45 Metal Button Staples

Graphic45 Metal Flower Staples

Lettering: Basic Grey

Bling: Mark Richards

Small is Beautiful

Hey ho!

As promised, here's another Graphic45 project to show you!  Its a small little handbound book done with papers from the Graphic45 Le Romantique collection ( I used the 8X8" stack of papers and sliced all the papers in half to get a little 4X4" book)

Its got canvas covers and a 'crackled' picture on the front which I really like. The book is really little but actually took me quite a bit of time to do 'cos of all the stitching and beading on the spine:

 

 I also got it into my head to white wash and emboss gold edges on ALL the pages (once you do one its too late to turn back)....so, this little book was an exercise in perseverance! haha.

Supplies:

Le Romantique 8X8" pattern paper stack

Claudine Hellmuth Studio Sticky Back Canvas (white)

Sticker - 7 gypsies

White acrylic paint and gold embossing powder

My First Graphic45 DT post

I have been dyyyyying to show you this since I sent it in quite some time ago, but I thought I'd wait till it got featured on the G45 blog. (some of you might have been wondering what happened since the DT announcement - like did they revoke her DTship or something? why isn't she posting any G45 projects?....hahaha)

So, right now the lovely ladies at Graphic45 have been featuring the new 2012 design team over the past few days and today its my turn to get featured along with Betto (love his name!).   And now I can show you my favourite among the projects I submitted for the final audition.  (I'll show you the other projects I submitted over the next few posts - wanna try to keep the posts short)

"My Closet Space"

 The 'closet' opens up:

:

to reveal suitcases:

 clothes:

a mirror and other usual closet-y things:

All made mostly from the Graphic45 chipboard tags and papers.  Almost all the little objects have journaling mini books or tags hidden inside them:

 and you can tell I had a super fun time making this - it was like playing dollhouses.

Supplies List (Graphic45):

5x8 Kraftboard Altered Art Box w/Album

Papers - Graphic45 Olde Curiosity Shoppe Collection 

(Olde Curiosity Shoppe, Butterfly Specifics, Race for Time, Bazaar of Wonders, Exquisite Motif, Counting Down)

Chipboard - Olde Curiosity Shoppe Chipboard Die-cuts 1  

Metal Button Staples

Die cut alphabet 2 - I used what was leftover from using the circle alphabets to make the 'grille' on the front window.

Other Supplies:

Bazzill Kraft cardstock

Tim Holtz Idea-ology hanger clips

Tim Holtz Idea-ology curio knobs

Tim Holtz Idea-ology swivel clasps

Prima vintage metal buttons Romantique

Maya Road small round journey tin

Maya Road velvet resin blossoms cream

Ribbons: Maya road / unknown

Mark Richards Bling

October Afternoon Mini Market stickers (black and cream)

Metal charms (glass bottle, lamp, mini camera): unknown

Black acrylic Paint

More Graphi45 goodness coming up in the next post! :)