Curiosity in Progress....

Curiosities , oddities and vintage uniqueness. This policy style envelope mini is one of my latest projects in the making. I thought I would post a couple of shots of the cover. 

Olde Curiosity Shoppe is a cool collection of wonderful images 

that lend them selves to a collage effect. 

My cover is very busy with so much to see.

I have incorporated many images from the collection and chip board elements. 

I love to fussy cut and this collection gave lots of opportunities. I have 

also heat embossed, inked, used metal work and layering ( an effect I will always include ). Here are some close up views of some of the elements I have included.

The spine was formed by leaving the page construction exposed and inking the edges 

and then supported with the hinge compoment from Tim Holtz hard ware 

findings die which I over heat embossed to create an aged effect. 

I then placed a piece of ball chain and hung various 

charms from it for some texture.

I hope you can come back to see the next phase of my olde curiosity shoppe album 

and see what lies inside this project . Please leave a comment if you wish and thanks for looking at my curiosity in the making.

Happy Scrapping

Andrew

A Window to a Secret Garden

The third project for my final round submission I used the beautiful secret garden collection. I was attracted to this because one,  it was graphic 45, and lets face it I am addicted to there wonderful papers and two, it contained flowers my other embellishment addiction.

The project I created is a picture window mini album. It was a great theme to utilize this collection. This picture is the view from the front and the window allows the album to be seen inside.

The box is made from chip board and lined internally and externally using 12 x 12 papers. The window, which is my favorite part forms the lid of the box and is shaped from chip board and acetate and embellished using french vanilla bazzill card stock.

The mini album has a clean simple construction. I made it this way so the layouts and cover had more visual impact and made the collection stand out . It has wonderful colors which can be appreciated on a neutral back ground. The cover I tried to make a carnival of flowers around the central image from the collection so it was easily seen through the window.

The layouts in this album are 5 x 7 in size and are constructed vertically. They could also be used on the front of cards as well. There are so many colors combinations that can be used from secret garden. As you will see there is a soft color palette and this collection could be utilized to preserve so many memories. Please have a look at the following pictures that demonstrate the way I have used secret garden in this mini album.

This collection was fun to use and gave a wonderful result to my finished project. I would love to create something else in the future with these lovely papers. I hope you enjoyed my take on secret garden. Please come back and check out more of my projects in the future . Again I would love to here your comments.

Happy scrapping

Andrew

Little Darlings Album

Well as promised I am blogging again to show you my 8 x 8 album using the graphic 45 Little Darlings collection another of my final round design team projects. Graphic 45 have released many vintage paper collections that are both inspiring and stylish and wonderful, but little darlings is my all time favorite. Although French country did come close to taking the number one spot.

This album was fully constructed using chip board. grunge board, manilla folders, sticky back canvas, and score tape. The construction is not to complicated but the end result was very easy to embellish.

The album cover has a great visual impact and I love so many of the images that are great for fussy cutting. Plus I used one of my signature embellishments - mulberry paper roses.

There are a a couple of pocket layouts that have photo mounts with space to add more dimension. This also allowed the album to hold more and give some variation. I wanted this album though to be a layout style album for the most part.

The remainder of the pages are 8 x 8 layouts and these hold some of my favorites. I created six dedicated layouts to the six youngest of my children. I love the way these turned out, but it was so easy with such a beautiful collection to inspire me. The next few photos are of the layouts that combine multiple colors from the collection. These color schemes coordinate so well together.

The final two layouts are what I call mono chromatic layouts, they have only one main color and a brown tone for distressing and accenting. Both these layout are of two of my sons and they demonstrate the ability for this collection to be non gender specific. I love both of these and I have preference for the green layout. There is so much layering and I love the distressed look.

Little darlings was a perfect collection to create a keepsake of my own little treasures and I hope it can be some thing will give you inspiration to display your special kids or grand kids photos. Please say hello in the comments section and let me know what you think. Looking forward to sharing future designs and projects with everyone.

Happy scrapping

Andrew

Graphic 45 Design Team 2013 audition Final Round

Well the time is ever approaching for the reveal of the Graphic 45 design team. But before that date arrives we had to submit a link via email to a you tube video showcasing three projects that represented our design style and features that we like to use.

I have chosen my Little Darlings 8 x8 album, Secret Garden picture window mini album and French Country barn.

I have already done a blog post of my barn project so have look and leave a comment if you wish. I will post about my secret garden and little darlings projects soon.

Below is my video so please watch and see the creations I have submitted. Leave a comment, I love to get your feedback.

I cant wait to see who the talented designers will be and wish all the top 30 best wishes for there submission. Please follow my blog if you have not already so I can share my love of paper craft with you. I hope you can come back and visit again.

Happy scrapping

Andrew 

French Country Barn Reveal

It has been a few days since I have blogged so I thought I would reveal one of the projects I gave a sneak peek of in my last post . It was also used as one of my three choices for my final graphic 45 design team submission.

French country is a classic french provincial style themed paper and graphic 45 have done a fabulous job in the design and creation of this collection. I have used this wonderful collection to create a three part project I have called my French Country Barn.

I love the wonderful images that have enabled me to embellish the the four sides of this project and the colors are so in keeping with theme of my creation. The other two sides are adorned as follows.

Here are some closer images of the four sides so you can see how I have used some of the elements from the collection

Part two of this project comes in the from of a paper bag mini album. I had a wonderful time using the paper and other collection elements to create the album. The page units are formed from the bags and the covers are chip board with a sticky back canvas and cardstock spine. I also created pockets on the pages to accommodate multiple photo mounts and journalling tags. So this album has plenty of space to remember the chosen life moments that will fill its pages soon.

Part three of this project is the altered box. I kept this component more simplistic due the place it holds within the entire project. The box I used is a 5 x 5 graphic 45 box and they are very versatile and I would recommend using them in your creations. The following pictures will give a good representation of how I embellished the box.

The final aspect of this project is to demonstrate how the components fit together to create a single barn unit and the finished french country barn project. The paper bag album is stored with in the top section by removing the roof.

The bottom section is located by removing the centre unit and exposing the base tray component . So the barn it self comes apart in to three pieces the location of the altered box is as follows.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the many aspects of my French Country Barn and hope it will give you inspiration into the wonderful and varied ways that you can use this great graphic 45 collection. Please leave a comment if you wish and come back to see the the reveal of my secret garden project.

Happy scrapping

Andrew

Sneak peek...

French Country and Secret Garden are the two most recent collections released by graphic 45 this year. I love them both and each have there own unique qualities that allow for lots of creative opportunity. I am here to share a couple of sneak peeks of the projects I have created using these two collections.

Secret garden has a wonderful theme and very feminine color range I love the floral components, but I am partial to flowers as embellishments as you may have noticed from the projects in my other posts.  I hope you like this glimpse of one of my up and coming projects.

When I first saw the previews of these wonderful collections I was more partial to secret garden. But when I had them at home with me, french country became my favorite very quickly. It has a wonderful depth of color and the classic vintage design of graphic 45 is superb. The country images are lovely and it has so much design scope. I have been having a great time using this collection and hope you can get the opportunity to use it as well. Here is my sneak peek photo.

I hope you will return and visit to the project in completion and I can get some inspiration from my scrap creations. Please go to the graphic 45 blog for more inspiring ideas.

Happy scrapping

Andrew

The Best News....

Well it is 11:55pm, 4th of April here in Queensland Australia and I am here to celebrate with you all my Graphic 45 round one design team success. I have made it, I am in the top 30 finalist group and I am happy, excited and many other words I cant think of at the moment. I have been over to all of the blogs from the top thirty and there are some fabulous artists out there and I wish to send a big congratulations to all of the successful applicants.

I have had many visitors to my blog since the announcement and thank everyone for coming and seeing my creations I hope they will inspire you to create some thing wonderful for yourself. I look for ward to sharing more of my creations and hope you follow my journey.

Your encouraging comments are a confidence booster and I appreciate all of them so thank you. So stay tuned along with me and we well see who the final 15 will be.

Happy scrapping

Andrew