Scrapping Fairytale Colors with Maja Design!

I have to admit, when I first received my package of beautiful Maja Design papers one of the first collections to capture my attention where these gorgeous papers from the Ska vi ta en Fika collection! I love the color purple but I tend to only like to scrap this color in the more muted shades like dusty plums and this collection has the exact shades I love! And combine it with gentle earth tones and I'm in heaven! Then after hearing the story behind the papers, well, it just made scrapping with them so much more enjoyable! (You can find the story in Jenny Grotherus's post from a couple weeks back on the Maja blog)

As always the hardest part about working with these beautiful papers is making that first cut!! I always feel like purples/plums and greens make me think of fairytales and in keeping with this idea I wanted the page to have a playful lush look to it. One of the central designs of the page is the heart embellishments I made to decorate it.

I cut out 3 hearts from the patterned papers and inked the edges with some plum chalk ink and highlighted them with a dash of drybrushing with white acrylic paint. Then to make the hearts really stand out from the background I did some random doodling around the edges with a fine point brown pen (Martha Stewart Sepia writing pen).

 

I finished off the page by adding some floral accents (Recollections and Dusty Attic) and some of my favourite chipboard pieces from Dusty Attic (Mini Arch Windows, Vine Scroll, Dusty Attic Blossoms: Dusty In Bloom Evening Blush, Dusty Attic Crackle Medium) The Cameo is from Websters Pages (Perfect Accents). Tucking in bits and pieces of lace is just one of those things that just work so well with these lovely vintage papers. Here is a supply list of the Maja Design papers I use on this page.

Supplies:

  Ska vi ta en Fika (Soders Hojder-bs, Chaite, Chaite-bs, Blommor pa Blordet, Favoriter-bs)

If you haven't dug into these papers yet, you are in for a treat!  Maja Design is adding to their list of International retailers and if you want to have them brought in to you locally, be sure to let your local scrap store know of your interest in them, Jenny and Maria would be happy to send them a full catalogue!

Before I sign off for today I just wanted to share a beautiful little sneaky peek of the NEW Spring collection that Maja Design is bringing out in February!! I can't wait!!

Happy Scrapping!! xo

Webster's Pages 'New Beginnings' & NEW Charms!

Here's a photo I recently scrapped with some of the new sweet papers in the Websters Pages 'New Beginnings' collection. I was so atracted to the soft blues and warm yellows in this one. Meagan is such a hat girl, she's always loved wearing them from babyhood to now. I embellished this page with some new and older Websters pages embellishments from the new Metal Charms to an old favourite of mine, the Bloomers. Here are some close-up pic's of the page....

I wanted to show a fun way to attach some of the new charms. I just love the new Key Charm (above)...When I was scrolling through Pinterest on my phone a little while back I saw someone had attached a key to one of their projects in a similar way. I unfortunately couldn't find the pin again when I got onto my computer so I can't give credit to the person I saw using this 'X' design, sorry about that. To attach the key I punched 4 eyelets into the background paper and then ran twine through the loop of the key to hold it into place. I did also use some heavy duty Tombo two sided adhesive on the back of the key as well to hold it in place (just as an extra measure).

This close-up shows some of the layering of embellishments in a little more detail. I used some of the new Dusty Attic Corrugated Card and a little snippit of a Dusty Attic Vine Border.  I also used my favourite butter yellow Bloomers from Websters pages and a portion of one of their gathered blooms called Princess Petals.  The small white/blue blooms are from Dusty Attic.

And finally here is a close-up of more Websters Pages embellies I used on the page. The crochetted circle is part of a set from the 'In Love' collection and the cameo is one of the Perfect Accents from the Palm Beach collection (I thought the nautical design would work well with the colors in the page).  The yellow butterfly is cut from a contact sheet I made up of this butterfly in many sizes (If you missed it you can find the contact sheet that I shared with my readers a while back in the right side column of my blog under 'Yellow Butterfly Contact Sheet' <~~~ Or you can click this link). Thanks again for stopping by my blog today! Hope you all have a fun scrappy weekend!

 

Another Layout in Australian Scrapbook Ideas Magazine!!

First off I want to say a big thank you for all the wonderful comments I get here on my blog.  I mentioned on a previous post that I had lost photos that I accidently deleted from my camera!  I had no idea these could be recovered so I really appreciate the helpful tips from you kind ladies!! xo 

I mentioned about a week ago that one of my layouts made the cover of Australian Scrapbook Ideas Magazine and that I also had a couple more layouts pubbed in the magazine as well. I'm here today to share another page that you'll find in the magazine! I used some of my favourite Websters Pages paper collections (Park Drive) and embellishments for this page as well as a whole bunch of my favourite Dusty Attic chipboard pieces (Peacock Feather, Scroll #1) as well!  The page was about a pair of shoe's I bought a little while back and thought they were just the cutest things ever!!  Until I actually tried to really walk in them (I mean more than the usual few steps in the store)....oh, my word!!!  I can walk in high heals no problem but these take the cake!  Hardest shoes to walk in ever!! LOL!  What Was I Thinking!??  Here are a few close ups of the page....

 

 

As I mentioned before, this is such a wonderful magazine! It literally gives you every little step in creating the pages it shows in the magazine. They also will give you step by step techniques for special effects on a page. You can find the full step by step for this page in their magazine. For more info on this magazine/subscriptions you can check out this link Australian Scrapbook Idea's Magazine.  The January Issue is on the stands right now! :)  Thanks so much for stopping by today!! xo 

Some Fun with Bo Bunny's Pinspiration Challenge

Each month Bo Bunny has the design team members pick an inspiring photo from Pinterest and create a layout inspired by the photo! This month it was my turn to pick! and being the Pinterest junkie that I am, it was not easy to choose!! But I ended up picking the soft feminine photo above, mainly because I knew that Bo Bunny has their new beautiful collection called Isabella coming out! So many pretty pinks and greys in this collection! So here is the layout I came up with for this challenge...

I was so happy with this layout as I was looking at it in the light within my house while I was scrapping! But oddly, pink is one of those colours that can change with outside (natural light!), some of the pinks turned out cool and some warm! But it's okay, most of the time with l/o will be viewed indoors :)

I wanted to immitate the soft look of the ruffles in the photo onto the page so I created some paper ruffles using the patterned paper I cut a bunch of strips and lightly moistened the paper and gathered one edge to create the ruffle.  I used regular Arleen's glue to attach it to the page.  I also used a bunch of NEW Bo Bunny goodies newly released at the CHA, New bling flourishes, Paper Lace doilies!  Here are the products I used on the page:

 

Patterned Paper: Isabella (Savvy, Carissima, Becoming)
Cardstock: Tutu Dot
6x6 Paper Pad: Natural Necessities (Black & White Dot)
Layered Stickers: Isabella
Combo Stickers: Isabella
Brads: Isabella
Trinkets: Isabella
Jewels: Isabella
Noteworthy: Isabella (Butterflies)
Stamps: Prairie Chic
Jewel Flourishes: Frosting Jewels
Paper Doilies: Small
Lace: Blush

I should also mention that I couldn't make up my mind between 2 photos to use for the Pinspiration challenge so we ended up going with two of them!  To see the photos and play along in the challenge as well as see more samples by our amazing design team, click this link Bo Bunny Blog. 

Websters Pages Beautiful 'New Beginnings!"

Have you seen the new release at this past CHA for Websters Pages called "New Beginnings"? It's such a beautiful fresh looking collection! I love the mini-print bloom papers and all the fresh Spring colors!

The photo I scrapped is an older one of my youngest daughter dancing around the backyard (in her nightie no less) with a home-made ribbon on a pencil!  She was so free spirited, no care for who's watching....oh to be 7 again! lol!   I was going to share how I made the twine circle frame with some photos but I accidently erased the pic's from my camera before I had a chance to move them over to my computer! (Along with loads of recent pic's of the kids and their friends that I'd meant to move to the computer!...so frustrating!) But I can give a brief explanation.  I layed out my circle cut photo under a piece of plastic wrap (this helps in gaging how big to make the twine circle).  I then took some kitchen twine and wrapped it a few times in a circle framing my photo and leaving enough twine to tie a bow.  I then took a small paper cup and poured a little bit of Gesso into it.  I took the cut piece of twine and dunked it in the Gesso and then layed it on the plastic wrap over the photo so that it nicely framed the pic, tying a bow in the two ends.  Leave to dry.  When it's dry it will become rigid and easy to glue to your layout!



I used a few Dusty Attic Chipboard pieces as well to accent this page (Sweetpea Border, Mini Scrolls #2)...I decided to keep the Sweetpea border natural because I liked the soft brown with the pinks....I also used some of their new paint collections as well! Thanks so much for stopping by again, I so appreciate your visiting with me! xo

Blooms, and Crystals and Doilies! Oh My!!

Check out the brand NEW Bo Bunny collection called Prairie Chic!! I just am crazy about this beautiful gently distressed paper collection with sweet florals and hints of denim! For my layout above I used a really cute paper in the collection that has kind of a distressed brocade design.  I kept it fairly simple because I wanted to showcase the beautiful new bling and blooms from Bo Bunny!  I just gave the center of the background paper some white wash with some off white/vanilla acrylic paint.  I then tore some edges and had the blue denim paper in the collection peeking out behind it.  Here are a few close up peeks of the page....



I just love the color coordinated blooms Bo Bunny put out at the Summer CHA and now they've added to their embellishment lines with gorgeous NEW Jewel Flourishes!  They even have cute names like 'Chocolate Jewels' (I used them on this page).  And another new embellishment they've added to their inventory is adorable paper lace doilies, that come in large, medium and small!  I used the small ones to peek out of the edges of my paper tears.

I wanted to add some fresh polka dots to the layout (I love brocade with polka dots!) and I thought some polka-dot washi tape would be cool for the page, but I didn't have any.....so I went to my Bo Bunny 6x6 Double Dot paper pad and found this black and white dot paper and just cut it out to look like tape (see above).  

 

Bo bunny makes it so easy to put a nicely coordinated page together with their one stop shopping.  I love that you can pick a paper collection and have the coordinating blooms, the bling, the buttons, brads, stickers, stamps, and chipboard all at your finger tips!  If you haven't seen all of the gorgeous new Bo Bunny collections & embellishments yet that came out this past weekend at the Winter CHA you can find them at the Bo Bunny Website HERE!  And keep on coming back to my blog because I've got loads of layouts to share with you made with these new collections!

Supplies:
Patterned Paper: Prairie Chic (Prairie Chic Dot-bs, Stone Washed Denim-both sides)
Cardstock: 6x6 paper pad (Natural Necessities)
Stickers: Prairie Chic Combo Stickers
Layered Chipboard: Prairie Chic
Buttons: Prairie Chic
Brads: Prairie Chic
Noteworthy: Praire Chic
Stamps: Prairie Chic
Flowers: Zinnia's (Blush, Natural Earth), Bouquet (Buttercup, Blush, Natural Earth)
Jewel Flourishes: Chocolate Jewels
Paper Doilies: BB 4" small doilies

Chipboard: Dusty Attic (Berries and Branches)

Autumn Splendor with Maja's "Walking In the Forest" Collection!

A little while back my nephew Jared sent me a bunch of photos of my sweet great-nieces Jade and Kiera, among the photos was this adorable pic of the two of them playing in some fall leaves.  As soon as I saw the gorgeous collection "Walking in the Forest" from Maja Designs, I knew I'd found the exact papers I'd been looking for to scrap this photo! 

I love the deep rich and warm colors in this collection, accented with the pretty cornflower blue.  Have you ever taken a paper collection pack and fanned out the papers and thought, 'ohhh, I just want to scrap them all together'?  That's how I felt about this page.  The papers all look so pretty lined up beside one another.  Well, I obviously couldn't scrap with all of them so I finally had to narrow them down to a few of my favourites (no easy task! ha!).  Because my background paper had the hints of blue in it, I thought it would be cool to rip little sections out of it and have the dark blue denim color paper peeking out from behind it.  I didn't want to cut up a whole sheet of 12x12 paper for this so I simply took the blue paper from the 6x6 paper pack and snipped off some of the edges and tucked them behind the rips.  Here are a few close-up details of the page... 





There is a cute little sheet in the 6x6 paper pad that has these adorable little stamp designs with birds and butterflies on it, cutting these out is a quick and easy way to add an embellishment to your page.



The soft denim color of the blue paper put me in mind of fabric so I couldn't resist doing this zipper peek at the top of the page. I often cut the zippers out of old pairs of jeans for my scrap pages but in this case I used a fun new chipboard piece from Dusty Attic to create the zipper opening.

I wanted to stay in keeping with the autumn/forest look of the page so I embellished with with more of my favourite Dusty Attic goodies, the NEW 'Flower Buds' as well as the 'Grass Clusters #1' and I chose a floral/viney frame by Dusty Attic called 'Filigree Frames'.  I also wanted to use natural accents like bird feathers, twine and burlap to decorate the page with.  The big fabric bloom above is one of the beautiful blooms from Bo Bunny from the Buttercup Dahlia pack. The lock and key is another cute little mini from Dusty Attic. 

Supplies:

Patterned Paper: Maja Designs, Walk In the Forest (Autumn in the Air, Flannel Shirt, Fresh Air, Fresh Air backside, Jeans), Plus Walk In the Forest 6x6 paper pad (Die Cut Sheet)

Chipboard: Dusty Attic Designs (Flower Bud, Grass Clusters #1, Filigree Frame, Mini Keys & Locks, Zippers)

Flowers: Bo Bunny, Prima

Nest/eggs: Recollections

 

I hope you enjoyed my little stroll through the Autumn Forest!  For those of you who have been asking about Maja products, here's a little secret!  Starting in February Maja designs will be providing some of their beautiful collection packs as give aways on their design team members blogs!  I will try and keep you up to date as to who is giving away which collection as the posts come out!  And don't forget to mark the Maja Blog as a favourite place to visit, they have daily inspiration there from their design team members and guests! You won't be disappointed! :)

A Quick Correction.....

Hi everyone!

I have to make a quick correction....I had posted a few hours ago that I had an article published in the February/March Issue of Scrap365 Magazine on my Signature Style....there was a bit of a mix up!  My article will be in the April/May Issue of the Magazine which goes on sale on March 15th.  So if you were specially getting this issue to find my work, sorry about that!  But I'm sure the Feb/March Issue will be amazing, it always is! :)

Gabi xo

Loading on the Texture with Dusty Goodies!

Hi everyone! For this layout I wanted to use a bunch of the newest goodies I got from Dusty Attic.  Did you know they now also have amazing paint and mixed media products?  As well as corrugated card and leaves and blossoms of all sorts?   For this layout that I scrapped of my youngest daughter Meagan eating ice-cream (in her usual messy way!)

 

 I used a whole bunch of Dusty Attic chippies (the NEW 'Flower Buds', 'Wrought Iron Fence', 'Birds Nests', 'Grass Cluster #1' and the 'Typwriter Font - ABC') and I painted them with lots of the new gorgeous shades of acrylic paint from DA (Bisque, Pesto, Navajo White, Hot Chocolate, Mountain Meadow) as well as using bits of the NEW Corrugated Card and Dusty Blossom's Leaves to accent the page.  Here are the products I used.... 

 

I painted the 'Flower Buds' with the Hot Chocolate acrylic paint and then just roughly dabbed some Navajo White paint on them to give them a distressed look.  For the grasses, I gave them each a coat of white Gesso first then painted them with 'Bisque' and dry brushed some Mountain Meadow at the tips and bottom.  The 'Wrought Iron Fence' I again painted with the Hot Chocolate and hit it with a bit of Tim Holtz Antique Bronze Distress Stickles.  The alpha's were painted with the DA Pesto paint, dabbed with a little of the Bisque paint.  I added some Stardust Stickles and coated them with Tim Holtz Glossy Accents.   Here are some close-up views of my page... 

 

Another fun thing I did with the paints is that I took the Hot Chocolate acrylic paint added some water (about 1 part paint to 3 parts water) put it in a Dusty Attic Spritz Bottle (Yep, they make them too!) and used it as a spritz for the background design of my paper.....it worked really well, no clogging!).  And a final step I did was dry brushing some Navajo White paint over different areas of the page once I glued it all together (over the corrugated cardboard, the blooms, the chippies and cheesecloth and burlap), this gives the page a more over-all distressed look. The patterned paper I used is from the Maja 'Vintage Summer Basics' collection (1935 BAS-511, 1915 BAS-523).

I have one more little project to share with you all today and that is the ATC (Artist Trading Card) I made for the Dusty Attic January ATC challenge.  This month the theme is 'Butterflies & Fairies'.  I went with the butterflies for mine.  Dusty Attic just put out these cute butterfly chippies called 'Flutterbies #3' so I used a couple of these with on of the NEW 'Mini Arch Windows', they just fit perfectly for an ATC!

 I hope you enjoyed seeing my latest Dusty Attic projects as much as I enjoyed making them! 

I'm a Cover Girl on Australian Scrapbook Ideas Magazine!!

A few months back Sue Smyth, one of the lovely editors over at Australian Scrapbook Idea's Magazine asked me if I would do a series of layouts for a feature article they have in their magazine called 'Master Class'.  If you are not familiar with this magazine you've got to check it out!! What I really love about it is that they not only show some really beautiful work in their magazine, they do clear step by steps for each and every page they show in the magazine!  Along with a very detailed list on every item on the page, they have the people that contribute to the magazine give a concise step by step on each page!  So if you are a beginner or a seasoned scrapper you will find the magazine packed with inspiration and helpful tips!

Above is one of the pages I had sent in for this article.  I used some of my favorite Websters Pages papers from the 'In Love' collection as well as their stamps, blooms (Princess Petals), Alphabet stickers and Gem strips.  And of course, given that it's an Aussie Magazine, I had to liberally use my Dusty Attic chippies as well! (Skelleton Clock Frames, flourish).  Just a quick note:  I get many questions on where to find Dusty Attic products.  You can find a list of retailers that sell Dusty Attic online at the right column of my blog, and you can also find more retailers at the Dusty Attic Ning site.  Here are a few close-up pic's of the page....

 

A little over a week ago I got another big surprise from them!  I was told that I got the cover of the magazine with this layout!  While I admit I have been pubbed a number of times it isn't that often that I get the cover!  The photo I scrapped is of my sweet nephew and his new bride (a beautiful photo taken by a good family friend and excellent professional photographer Gord Wenzel, Impressions Photographic Studio).  Here is a picture of the January issue...

 

The issue hits the news stands on Friday January 11th! If you would like to subscribe you can find the information here at this link Practical Publishing And for any of you fortunate girls that will be attending CHA this coming weekend in Anahiem, California, Australian Scrapbook Ideas will be there with their own booth and will be giving out copies of this issue to the attendies!  They will also be showing many of the layouts shown in their magazine in their booth including 3 of the layouts I sent them!  I Sooooo wish I was going!  Be sure to pop in to see them and send my love to them if you do! :)

 

I apologize in advance that I've had to put on my word verification for the comments on this blog, I've had a huge amount of spam comments on my blog lately and so, as much as I hate to put you all through the comment verification process I feel I need to do this for a time until the spammers disappear.  Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today and taking the time to leave your kind comments!  They mean a lot to me! xo



Making Paper Ruffles with Maja Designs!!

I'm so very excited to share with you a project today that I made with one of my favourite Maja collections "Vintage Summer Basics". I'm just crazy about the softly distressed designs and muted tones in this collection, and the sweet mini-florals put me in mind of a little girls ruffle dress! So I thought I would play with paper ruffles to decorate this layout that I made of my little great-niece Kiera.

To make the ruffles I chose 3 of the Vintage Summer patterned papers in shades starting from light to medium to dark and cut 2 x 12" strips of each (the strips were about 1.25" thick). I then glued together each of the pairs of strips to make 3 x 24" strips.
  TIP: I like to tear the two edges that I'm gluing together rather than attaching two cut edges, it helps give a more seamless look.

I then took each of the strips and lightly spritzed them with water and then began taking one edge and gathering them with my fingers. Be careful not to gather too deeply into the ruffle, you want the other edge to have a nice curvey edge. I then let the gathered paper dry thoroughly. Then I took some good strong two-sided sticky tape, opened out my ruffle again so it's flat and ran the sticky tape along the backside of the pleated edge. Now bring the ruffle back together, the tape will hold the ruffle together and will also create the adhesive to attach your ruffle to the page. Layer your ruffles from light to dark for a pretty effect. Here are a few close-up pic's of my page...

Supplies:

Patterned Paper: Maja, Vintage Summer Basics (1908-bs, 1911, 1920, 1922-bs), Chipboard: Dusty Attic Designs (NEW deVine Frame Set, and NEW Flutterbies #3), Flowers: Jolee Boutique, Prima, Dusty Attic and Recollections (nest/eggs). Other: lace trim, kitchen twine, pearl strand all off the roll from local fabric store, adhesive: Tombo 2 sided sticky tape strip.

A few people have asked me what that tattered sting stuff is that I use around my floral clusters.  It's a roll of yarn I bought at our Michaels craft shop, from the yarn area. I've posted a picture below so that you can see what it looks like.  A roll of this stuff goes a long long way and with a 40% off coupon, I think the whole roll cost me only like $3.00

 

I hope you give paper ruffles a try! The Maja papers are of such a high quality, thick and strong so they can take plenty of paper manipulating. The ruffle technique works beautifully on cards as well!