Guest Design Team work for Sketches!

I was recently asked by Sandie Vincent, the Guest Designer Co-ordinator at 'Sketches! (by Tamara)' to do a Guest Designer spot at their site......I really enjoyed creating this layout using sketch #42. I don't often use sketches in creating my layouts but I have learned that this is a huge time saver to have a page all mapped out for you. A wonderful friend sent me the beautiful 'Bittersweet' collection by BasicGrey as a gift, so this gave me the opportunity to play with some gorgeous product and put together an almost effortless page! Here's my take on their sketch #42. Do yourself a favour and go check out this wonderful site, there are loads of lovely sketches to choose from, with beautiful example layouts done by the Sketches Design Team. http://sketchesbytamara.blogspot.com/

~Gabrielle xx

January Kits for My Creative Scrapbook are SOOO YUMMY!!!

I was so thrilled to be working with the January kits for My Creative Scrapbook!! The main kit is such a beautiful collection of shimmery, glittery heavy stock paper's (the Laundry collection from My Minds Eye) and the goodies added to these kits are just amazing! Layered shimmer blooms, smokey colour crystals by Prima, beautiful chipboard accents, lovely co-ordinating rub-on's, awesome swirly frame overlays by Hambly and more!....you have to see these to believe them! Here are a couple of layouts I made using the main kit.....
To make this page I drew a partial circle to the side of my photo and then machine stitched a diamond pattern into the paper. I then used some of the irridescent sequins that are attached to the green ribbon that comes with the kit and attached them with some soft blue seed beads. I used some gold dimensional paint and Stickles (colour~Waterfall) to make the 'diamond' border. I also added some dots of the blue Stickles (glitter glue) to the sheer white bloom, then hand-cut the pink centre bloom from one of the papers in the kit and attached with pop-dots. I added the little 'birdie' rub-on in the kit and extended the branch to the edge of the page with a brown pen and drew on a few leaves, and filled these with green Stickles. Here are some close up photo's.....



Here is another page I made using the January Main kit......


The pink 'lacey' background paper on this page is actually just some pink cardstock on which I lightly stamped a floral design with white ink (stamp is one of the Prima stamps that comes with the Build a Frame collection) I then lightly inked the edges with a darker pink ink to add a little depth to the design. I used a scissor edge to lightly score the edges of the polka-dot paper and then tore a section out of the bottom half and put another patterned paper peeking out of the part I tore off. I then added some corset stitching across the whole tear. To make the bloom I seperated the top sheer layer from the Petaloo bloom and added a hand-cut pink bloom underneath (simply cut from pink cardstock) to give the bloom a pink shimmer. Here are some close-up pics....


The January Creative Kit for My Creative Scrapbook is a beautiful collection of vibrant colorful papers with lovely co-ordinating rub-ons and chipboard stickers, this kit is filled with fun goodies.....Here is a page I made with this kit....
I hand-cut a lot of the green petals from the We R Memory Keepers "white-out" collection papers, added some green Stickles to the edges and used them for the centre bloom and for the fan design beside the photo. I used some gold dimensional pain and some aqua Stickles to create the 'vine' design to the right of the photo. The branch pattern to the left of the photo was cut from a paper in the kit and attached with pop dots. This page was quick and fast to put together. Here's some close up pic's......



And if that isn't enough, check out the Gorgeous Add-on kit for this month. It features the new collection from Webster's Pages called 'Hello Beautiful'.....this kit is packed with lovely papers and yummy embellies, loads of pearly embossed blooms plus larger fabric blooms in a variety of colours! An awesome CD case filled with co-ordinating journaling cards, pretty Prima crystal flourishes, lovely rub-ons and the cutest green 'vine' ribbon, pretty lace and a glowing strand of pearls. Here are some layouts I made with this kit......
The small white blooms have this lovely pearl finish and there are loads in this kit! I simply inked the tips with some Colorbox Garnet ink, then I gently curled up the petals between my thumb and forefinger to give the blooms some dimension. I attached them with 2 sided-sticky tape to the vine ribbon and used some fuscia colour dimensional paint for the centres. Again, the background burgundy paper is simply cardstock to which I added some white stamping as I described above. Here are some close up photos.....




Another Page I made with this kit I used a favourite photo of my parents when they first came to Canada from Germany. I love the way the papers in this kit work with vintage photos.....




Thanks for having a peek!
~Gabrielle xx

Yippee!!! I was asked to be on the Zva Creative Design Team!!!!

I was just so thrilled when a few weeks ago I got an email from Zva Creative asking if I'd consider being on their design team.......would I??!!! For sure!! They make such beautiful crystal flourishes, pretty blooms and cute brads!! A week or so later I got a big box in the mail filled with gorgeous goodies to design with! I've had some opportunity to work with their products in the past but WOW!! they've brought some new lines out that are just to die for!!

As soon as I had a free minute (with the kiddies off school and Steve with some vacation time, we've been doing a lot of running).....I just had to get a little scrapping in. Here are a couple of layouts I just made for the Winter CHA for the Zva Creative booth.....

Here are some close-up pictures of the Zva Products I used. The blue/green crystal flourishes, the crystal title, the rhinstone brads, the blue and brown blooms(except for the larger brown one), even the pop-dots are all Zva products. I added some small bronze rhinestones from their crystal strips package to the Queen Anns Lace rub-on to give it some extra texture and glimmer.....





This is the second layout I made for them. I used 3 types of blooms in this one, the heavy silk blooms, small felt blooms and the purple paper rosette blooms (wrapped around the circle frame), plus some wonderful gold colour crystal flourishes and some Satin covered brads that have a really pretty sheen in real life! The crystal title letters (Magic) are also by Zva.....






I can't wait to do some more pages!! Kiddies are back to school on Monday so I'll have lots of time to play! Check out the Zva Creative website for to see some of the beautiful products they offer!.... http://zvacreative.com/

~ Gabrielle xx