Graphic 45 Design Team 2014 Audition

Hello World,

Today will be a huge post with lots of photos. I hope you'll bare with me and remember feedback is much appreciated, so leave a little comment at the end of the post.

This post is my audition for the Graphic 45 design team. I love this brand, the ideology behind it and simply its gorgeous designs. I hope that I did them justice. 

My first project is my graphic peacock. From the moment I saw the paper with all the peacock feathers I knew I wanted to do a peacock layout. But then during a shopping trip to a garden center with my best friend, thanks again Ruth, I found this super cute peacock in papier maché and it just clicked, I had to do a graphic 45 peacock.
So after a lot of fussy cutting, inking and some painting and a lot of patience this little fellow came to be, I'm calling him Leon.

 

The second project is a little sweet sentiment Easter box. The Easter box is to be used as a creative way to present Easter eggs as a gift or to use for the Easter season. 
It is made out of wood, the sides are solid wood and the middle part consists of one wood veneer piece that goes around the whole box.
It is so nice but also a bit tricky to work with wood veneer.  The veneer can't take heat or liquid very well. With a lot of care and attention to the material it is possible to use distress stain.
The paper collection that I used is the sweet sentiment paper collection by graphic 45. It is a collection that is having a lot of nice detailed images where you can do a lot of fussy cutting. I really enjoyed it.

For my third project I was still very Easter inspired and mad e big Easter card. It is about 15 by 22 cm (6 by 8.5 inch). I was finishing up my Easter box when the idea sprung on me and I let the creative flow guide me to this cute not so little card.

My fourth project is a couture canvas.  And because I wanted an original twist I cut open the canvas to accentuate the image that is being uncovered.  The image in this space is completely built up in 3D giving it all the depth it deserves. A while back I saw Arlene from the current graphic 45 design team make little banners from the branding that is on top of the des paper,  I found this so cleaver and wicked cool that I wanted to do this sometime as well. In this design I found the opportunity to fit in the little graphic 45 banner. Thanks for the tip Arlene.
As it is quite a big canvas (45x45cm – ± 17,75x17,75 inch) I kept the outsides of the cut open area simply to pull the focus to the center image.

A key-cabinet made my 5th project.
I used one of my older collections, old curiosity shop, that is a bit steampunky as I have a serious weak spot for Steampunk. The cabinet itself is wood. I gave it some color with distress stain because then you can still see the wood pattern. And to make it a bit more distressed I used crackle paint and some vintage photo stain, the stain I used on lightly on the whole cabinet to give it a bit more interest.
The inside was kept simple so that it is a usable key cabinet.

As sixth project I had to put up one of my favorite projects I ever made. It is a Steampunk Spells tea box. I made this project last October for my Halloween get together and loved it ever since. It is wooden box colored with distress stain. And embellished with Steampunk Spells paper cutouts, some chipboard, stickers, … some images were cool to use but didn’t really pop-out, to help this I used some distress ink to give a bit of color to give the needed dimension.

These were my projects, I hope you enjoyed viewing them. Let me know what you think.
I’ll get back to you soon so that I can tell you a bit more about me and this projects in the Next round of the Graphic 45 Design Team selection, if I make it that is, wish me luck.

Thank you to the whole Graphic 45 Team to make this journey a lot more interesting, and for opening this design team call. 

Thank you for reading my blog and enjoy a crafty weekend.

Caroline