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

12 Tags of 2014: January & February Tags

Hello World,

Today I come to you with my first 12 Tags of ... of this year.

This weekend I finally had time to catch up and make the tags.

So here they are. As usual I try to work with the items I have and I substitute the items I don't have. I always did it this way. 

Firstly the January Tag.

And then we still have the February Tag:

Thank you for reading my blog and let me know what you think of my work.

Have a great time.

Caroline

Happy Valentine

Hello World,

Finally I get around to blogging. I have had quite a bit of a hectic period, I crafted quite a bit, but didn't find the time to put it on here, so it will follow soon.

I could however not let all off you be without wishing you all a Happy Valentines Day.

And for this occasion I want to share my projects that I made for this month as hobby farm design team member. The theme is love.

My love canvas turned out fantastic, I had a lot fun creating it, I wanted to make it soft yet sparkly and bright, and that look and feel is exactly what you see when you look at the canvas.

 The next project was a big valentines card, because there must be a lot off place to write a love not, don't you thing? 

And because often the packaging of gift cards is extremely ugly, I made a pocket on the inside of the card, with a tag where you can fit in the gift card, so that a gift card can be easily given together with the card without falling out, or being obvious, and without ugly packaging.

And finally I had some leftovers from the white and pink paper, so I made little candy bags. 

They are so cute, I love them. And what a great way to use those leftovers.

The projects are being exposed at Hobby Farm (in Eeklo - Belgium) at the moment
so you can see them live if you want.

That's all for tonight folks.

Have a great weekend and thank you for reading my blog.

Caroline

 

New Years wishing Card.

Hello world,

I wanted to do a New Years card with graphic 45 papers using the "The Twelve Days of  Christmas" paper collection without getting a Christmas look and feel.

So I  got to it and used mostly the gorgeous backsides of my 8 by 8 paperpad and I like the end result very much.

I also used my Dymo labelmaker to add some original text and some flowers and a few Basic Grey Half pearls.

Let me know what you think of it.

I entered this card in the Simon Says Stamp monday challenge - anything goes

Thank you for reading my blog.

12 Tags of 2013 - December

Hello World,

I still owed you the December 2013 Tag So here it is.

An overview of the whole collection and the new tag, is for next week.

Have a great weekend.

12 Tags of 2013 - November

Hello World,

My catch up on blogging is going steady, I'm giving you my next tag in the 12 tags of 2013 series, the one for November.

It is the one where Tim gets us nostalgic to our school days and the use of blackboards. Can you remember all those times you had to go outside to get the chalk dust out of the blackboard wipers by beating them together...

Well here is my version. I hope you like it.

Thank you for reading and see you tomorrow for the December tag.

Happy New Year & 12 Tags of 2013 - October

Hello guys,

I have been a little busy this past time so my blog didn't get the attention it deserves, but I rather play with my inks and paints than blog when I have to choose between those 2, but hey I'm back and with good new year resolutions to update as much as possible.

I still didn't show all my tags from the 12 tags of 2013. So that will be posted this week, along with the start of the 12 tags of 2014. Yes, I'm going to do them as well this year.

Here is my october tag for the 12 tags of 2013.

And I really can choose my moments, it is proven again. Today is the first time I crafted this year. And what did I manage to do... I broke one of my cutting plates for my cuttlebug. Luckely I already have some new ones, if it is really curved the plate you know sooner or later it will pop, well today it did.

Thank you for reading my blog today.