Graphic 45 Design Team 2012 Audition

Can Dreams come true…?

On the top of my Dream list that I wrote in July 2011 is to Design for Graphic 45,  so I’m putting on my big girl panties and going for it.

I am very nervous but I wont know if I can do it until I try.

This is my Audition,  I hope you enjoy…

Please click on images for more detail

Follow Your Dream.

 This is one of my first projects I ever did with Graphic 45,

 The start of a love affair of all things Graphic 45.

I made this Wizard of Oz Altered Book for my Daughters Birthday.

Dream is made up of all the important parts of my life.

Very meaningful and something that I will keep close.

The School Pail was made out of packaging from a christmas gift my belated

father in law gave me.  I kept it for a special project and love the end result.

The paper bag album inside is of Amber-Leigh’s first day of school.

There’s No Place Like Home.  LOTS of fussy cutting,  something I love to do.

I find it very relaxing and love the result that it gives.  ’My Family’

Butterfly Lady.

She is my pride and joy.  I totally love this project and how it turned out.

I spent hours cutting out all the butterfly’s and then adding to bodice.  I

then embossed the whole body and frame.

Create.  One of my first plays with mixed media and random placement.

Three Mini Canvases,  but all joined by theme.  very cute .

A card  made using gesso,  chippies and crackle paint.  She is such a

little cutie pie.

I have included three layouts which I made to show different techniques, I love

lace, layering, gesso, and random bits and bobs and all things with a

vintage flair.

Well I hope you have enjoyed viewing my Graphic 45 Design Team Audition.

I have my fingers, toes and anything else I can cross, crossed!

Thank you so much for taking the time to view.

Best of crafting luck to all the other applicants  xox  Donna

Challenge Time and a blog hop!!!!

Good Evening everyone!  Sorry I have been missing in action,   I have had some technical difficulties but they have been all ironed out!  This month over at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge we are having our normal fortnightly challenges PLUS a blog hop,  so If you have not already been hoping, Start here.  Here is a sneak peek of some of the goodies up for grabs.

You also have extra chances to win if you create for our feb (1st of feb HERE, and this one 15th) challenges.

Now my word is in my last posting,  so go click HERE to collect my word.   Now time for this fornights challenge!

From Anne:

                      February 22nd is Baden Powell Day – Baden Powell was the founder of Boy Scouts, and his sister Agnes was the founder of Girl Guides. Scrap a memory of you in Scouting or Girl Guides (brownies, Sparks, Guides, etc.) or a memory of a group you belonged to when you were a child or teen. You may include a momento or journal a memory of what belonging meant to you.

This was very tricky for me,  I had no idea what to do as I grew up in a very isolated area and we did not have Girl guides or brownies ect.  Our friends all lived miles apart and you had to walk half a day just to get to your closest friends house, or wee settlement.  What I did when I was growing up was swimming at  the  lake, which was just around the corner.  Annoying the be gevies out of my younger siblings or playing music really loud and making up dances to show my family.   Once a month we got a real treat, we would all get dressed up and head to our local communities hall where roller skating was held.   We all loved going and it was lots of fun to catch up with friends out of school.   So this is what I did for my challenge.  Roller Skating.  The other problem I had is that I have very few photos of me growing up,  what we did have got damaged in the Grey Mouth floods.  So I decided to go looking on google for a photo of Roller skates,  I take no credit for the photo I have used.  ( I googled roller skates images and found this one)

Heres What I did

I had lots of fun making the flowers for this,

 And the journalling say “I used to go Roller Skating when I was in my early teens, at the Moana Hall.  It was a great place to get together as we all lived so far apart from each other.  We lived in the rural farming area.  Good TIme “

So grab some photos, some paper and get scrappin,  I can not wait to see what you all do. Happy Scrappin everyone  :-)

Its Time for Some Freaking Hop blogging Fun

Hello all,  Hope you have been having some fun going round collecting your words.  Make sure you check out the blogs while you visit,  and leave a comment so we can come visit you!  

 

Your  Next  word is:

TOGETHER

Write it down, and collect a word at each of our designer’s blogs. After visiting each of the blogs, collecting all 10 clue words (one at each blog and the one here), please send an e-mail to Anne at anne.pennington@xplornet.com in order to be eligible to win our fabulous prize!!  Please put in the subject line of your e-mail “Valentine’s Blog Hop”.

Not only that – participation in each challenge this month will earn you a chance for the prize !!! So for three chances to win – play the blog, the 1st February and the 15th of February challenges!! It’s worth your while.  We have included special papers, embellishments, stamps, glitter, alphas, colour mist, gaffer’s tape, ribbons, flowers and baker’s twine – all chosen with Valentine’s Day in mind!

Okay – now hop along to Sandi’s  blog  to get her clue word, see what she’s been up to lately and to see which designer’s blog you hop along to for your next clue word!

G45 + WOW = DELISH

I’ve spent the last two days cutting out Butterflies off the Graphic 45 paper,  my fingers were getting tired and I was starting to see them in my sleep.  Well all I can say is I AM SO GLAD I DID…..

I found the dress form at a second-hand store and decided that it just had to come home with me.  Covered in dust,  brightly coloured beads and material which I removed.  I prepared the form with gesso and then covered it in old ripped up dress patterns.  Once dried I painted with H2o’s and sealed.  Then the fun began of cutting all those pretty butterflies,  I lost count after the first night which I think was 63.  I spent the next day with sticky fingers as I glued the butterflies to the body and not happy with what it looked like I got out my Suzy West WOW, BAY AREA BLUE embossing powder.  I love how each of these collections have different effects,  as you can see this colour is translucent and you can still see the butterflies and leaves a beautiful shine.  This project was intended for my oldest daughter but I think I might just have to keep it for myself!  That’s all I had to share tonight,  I love how it turned out and hope to make some more off the page projects soon.  Happy Scrappin everyone.  Donna xox

P.S if you have not gone and visited us over at the WOW blog,  go do it now.  New projects go up everyday and the Design Team are pretty darn clever.. hehe, bye!

Feburay Paper Chase Sketch Challenge.

Last month I won the December sketch Challenge over at NZ Paper Chase. NZ Paper Chase blog have awesome sketch challenges and some absolutely fab prizes. If you have not come across NZ Paper Chase click HERE.(You can also find them on Facebook)

Part of winning the December challenge I was asked if I would like to make the sketch up for February.  Exciting!  I had never drawn a sketch out from scratch so I cheated a little  and drew the sketch from a layout that I had just finished of Ruby.  I was playing with my new WOW Embossing Powders for the design team that had just arrived, ( by the way they are the best embossing powders I have ever used and if you want to have a look at what’s going over on the WOW blog, click HERE)(we are on facebook to

This months Challenge is to use this sketch and to put a bit of a twist onto it,  you have to incorporate embossing powders on it!  hehe

Here’s The sketch,  and DONT LAUGH,  I can not draw…

Here is what I did.  I just love this paper range, Sweet Nothings Collection from Kaisercrafts.  It’s so sweet.  I have done a lot of fussy cutting and used distress inks, gesso to add dimension and texture to my page.  I used plain chip board alphs and added Bright white embossing powder (WOW) then added to the flags.  Lastly I added some stitching which I find that my layouts are not complete until I have done so.  So grab your stash and start playing.  I can not wait to see what you all do with the sketch.

Send your entires to Sonya at Duntroongarage@xtra.co.nz You have till the end of February to complete this.  I will add a pic of prize when it is put up on NZ Paper Chase.

I hope you have lots of fun with this,  Happy Scrappin Everyone.    Donna

Couple Of WOW cards to share.

WOW + GESSO = MESSY PLAY!

 Hello all, yesterday was my turn to share a card at the WOW EMBOSSING POWDERS AND STAMP BLOG, IF you have not been over to check it out, you are missing out on some awesome projects. So hurry, go take a look  :-)

Tonight I wanted to share with you all a couple of cards that I made.  I love getting messy and what better way than getting  gesso, glimmer mist and add it with WOW embossing powders and stamps  =  match made in heaven!  I had SO MUCH FUN! Heres what I did

I have used 2 of Suzy West Stamp Sets,  the Grateful Stamp Set and the Butterflies Set.  I love the butterfly set as it has a outline of a butterfly and then 5 inner pattern stamps so you can choose what you want to put in the centre, or leave it as an out line as I have in these 2 cards.

 For the Thank You So Very Much card I made my background by stamping the hollow butterfly with gesso, once the gesso was dried I cut out butterflies to cover what I did not want embossed.  I then stamped over the whole base with one of the stamps from the Grateful stamp set and embossed with WOW Bright White.  I coloured the centres of the butterflies with h2O paints and then highlighted the outlines of the butterflies with a white marker pen.  Added some embellishments and popped some diamanté on to finished it off.

For this card I had lots of fun playing with gesso!  I spread it over my base and then stamped the hollow butterfly into it,  then let it dry over night.  If you have extra bits of card handy you can used the gesso on the stamp to stamp out lines in gesso as in the above card.  Once my background had fully dried I got some glimmer mists out and painted the butterflies,  added glossy accents to high light them.  You could use Clear Embossing Powder for this step but I chose to used glossy accents as I did not know if the gesso would bubble when I heated the embossing powders.  Once everything was dried I matted it and added it to a card.  And there you have it.  LOTS OF MESSY FUN!  Thanks for stopping by, Happy Scrappin Everyone  Donna xox

Gotta LOVE Anne’s Challenges over at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge

Evening all.

Description of challenge:

Just in time for Valentine’s Day next month – your first love – a real boy or girl, try to include a  momento from that time with them, or download an image or something from that era from the internet if you wish. A pop or movie star crush can be substituted for a real live crush if you are too shy to tell us how it really was!!!

Well this months challenge was really hard for me!  You had to Scrap your  first true love!!! (OMG)  I had not scrapped any photos of my ex until now!  It took a while to get my head round it but then I realised that ,  that it was not all bad,  and my two older children would probably really like to know what we were like before they came along.  So I dug out my photos and found one of my favs.  Gotta laugh,  it was us at my first motor bike rally in the early hours of the morning.    The Coast is amazing for rallies, the back drop, the people and of course the all weekend party!

Thanks for coming on over and checking us out,  hope to see you all with your entries at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge.  Happy Srappin everyone!!!

Enough Chatter,  here’s what I did……

Review of 2011 Classes Held at Scrapbooking Paradise

At the end of the last set of classes, I was asked if I would put  photos up of the classes that I taught.  Here are some photos as I don’t have them all on my computer.  A goal this year is to post photos up after the last class in each round.

Hope this is helpful ladies.  If you are interested in taking classes this year at Scrapbook Paradise,  please give Elena a call at Scrapbooking Paradise and get your name down on the email list so we can send you News Letters with class dates.  Elena, Lynne and myself have been working on some amazing new classes this year, lots of fun!  Classes are starting in February which is only around the corner.  PLease if you find a class that you like,  ring up straight away as classes full very quickly.  If you are unable to make a class but really want to try that project ask Elena to see if we can make you a kit.  Right I better get back into it, think the gesso is dry now,  so happy scrappin everyone and I look forward to seeing you all in class soon.  P.s come back here tomorrow to see what I have been up to with Gesso, butterfly’s, glimmer mist and WOW embossing Powders (exciting)  Bye Donna

Back to Basics, 101 Embossing.

Hello, thought I would share the tutorial I made for WOW embossing powders,  if you have not gone and looked at the WOW blog,  go take a look, there is some amazing projects being shared

Hello all!  Donna here all the way from New Zealand.  I’m so excited to be here sharing this post with you.  I hope you have been enjoying all the amazing projects being posted,  their AMAZING!!! Tonight  I am going to  take you back to some basics, and for something a bit different add some distress to our final project.

So lets get started.  Embossing 101, Tips and Trick

I find it a really good idea to start with a clutter free working surface,  make sure its clean  and flat so you get an nice clean image when stamping.  I always use a anti-static pad on any surface that I am going to emboss.   The anti-static pad allows the embossing powder to glide off easily after you have stamped your image and applied your powder.  Lift your project up and lightly tap from the back and the embossing powder should fall off onto you scrap paper.  If you do happen to have a bit of embossing powder left on your paper, get a fine tip dry paint brush and dust away the unwanted powder.  Pop all the left over powder back into your container and pop the lid back on.  I know what your thinking,  but I have spilt so much in the past by being so excited in what I was doing and then forgetting it was there.  Now for the magic, heat your heat gun up and then slowly add heat to the surface you are embossing.  You can  tell when you have applied enough heat as the colour of the embossing powder will go shinny.  There you go,  101 on embossing!  p.s don’t touch until it has cooled off a bit,  nasty on the finger tips,  ouch

Now for my project. 

 I have made a quick tag showing how I have used the Suzy West Flower  back ground stamp with the Opaque Bright White and then added distress Ink,  and a few other bits and bobs  lying round to finish it off.

Once I had embossed my tag with Opaque Bright white, I got my distress tool and distressed around the whole edge of the tag.

Distressing tool are great for giving a real ripped look effect, the harder you apply pressure the more tear you will get

Tag all distressed and ready for ink.

After I had distressed my tag, I got my Distress Inks,  I used Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick and Vintage Photo for this tag.  Always start with your lightest colour and start applying to tag.

Apply ink to the parts of tag that you want that colour.

continue to add the colours you want , then with a dry old clean rag, wipe of excess ink off embossed areas

Finished Tag.

Lastly add some Vintage Photo to the edges and there is your background of tag done.  I have added a photo to my tag and then dressed it up with some ribbon, flowers and a chipboard flower.  If you would like to see a project done with this technique pop over to my blog here.  So there you have it, some basics for embossing and a distress tag.  I hope you have enjoyed , Take care and Happy Scrappin.    xoxDonna

I’ve been having lots of WOW fun….

Hello again, its time for me to share a wee project I have been playing with.  I have been experimenting with WOW embossing powders, stamps and distress inks.  What a match made in heaven!  this is what I have done… For this project I used LOTS of Versa Mark, WOW Embossing powder OPAQUE BRIGHT WHITE, and the stunning WOW FLOWER BACKGROUND stamp.  Inks I used were Distress inks: Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick and Vintage Photo.  I used a number of different rub-ons and ribbon,  and a few sparkles from my stash!     If you are interested in how I made the background to this mini then come and check The WOW blog on  Tuesday 24th for my background Tut,  while you are there check out some of the amazing projects that are getting posted up EVERYDAY.  Take care and happy scrappin everyone