Marion Smith Design Team 2013 - A Year In Review

“When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.”

 -Excerpt from Twilight-

And so my year on the Marion Smith Design Team concludes.  It has been my immeasurable pleasure and honour to be amongst those hand picked by Marion to showcase her inaugural collections.

Not only have I loved creating with her paper designs, but it’s been so exciting to see the development of her complimentary products such as the never ending gorgeous Junque Gems, the intricately designed stamps and of course the Bloom Impressions tool.

I am sure Marion will continue to forge her success in this industry,  supported by her fabulous, fit and equally talented husband Garett, and I know that I will continue to enjoy her collections, both past and present. 

So I’d like to leave you with a short slide show of the Marion Smith Designs projects I have enjoyed creating over the last 12 months.  Thanks to you all for your inspiring comments left on the blog and your own support of Marion’s products.  Xxx

Finalist Entry Kaisercraft DT 2014/15

Hello fellow crafters!

I was delighted to receive two new Kaisercraft Collections to create my Finalist DT Entry projects with. Base Coat Christmas and Tropical Punch.  What a wonderful palette of colours to play with!  I'd love to share with you some images of the projects.


Basecoat Christmas Collection 2014

I created a layout depicting a Christmas Wreath.  This collection has so many wonderful images to fussy cut and use as embellishments, so these became the decorations for the wreath.

I crafted the actual wreath base from corrugated cardboard, primed with gesso then aged with distress stains and antique gold embossing powders.

I also decoupaged some dictionary definitions from an older Kaisercraft collection, randomly over the wreath to add another layer of interest.

There are lots of little details, including wooden Kaisercraft leaves and hearts, ruby coloured beads and the occasional festive charm!

All I need now is some pine needle scent to spray over it - to really invoke the Christmas spirit!

Tropical Punch Collection

I must admit, I had difficulty deciding which photos to use with these papers - since they all pretty much worked!  The palette in this collection just screams of summer days and balmy tropical holidays!  Here I have created a layout of my beautiful daughter - whose personality matches the colours!

Once again, I let the paper be the star of the show here, by using the images as embellishments.  All the floral images are double layered and slightly shaped ( a-la paper tole) to give definition and a more realistic look and feel.

The papers in this collection are such that they would work for boy and girl themed layouts as well as general holiday/home/garden.  A multitude of options - this collection will become a 'go to' choice for me!

Short & Sweet

To finish today, here are some short and sweet projects - a simple layout and a fun bookmark...and yes - I mixed the papers from both lines for these!!

Lots of white space (literally!) on this layout!  This photo makes me feel pretty happy!

Love the combination of yellow and wood grain papers - almost reminiscent of the 70's!  And yes - that's a feather tucked in the left side there - my feather fixation still continues!!!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today - I hope these projects and papers inspire you!

Maggie

Renaissance Scrapbooking - A Return to Basics

Hello to all my crafty friends!

Have you seen this?

Welcome to the Renaissance Scrapbooking Group - celebrating a return to the basic premises of scrapbooking. Borne from a discussion about the need/want to get photos and journaling on a page in an aesthetic and fun way, without feeling obliged to go down the mixed media route. This group is not about dissing mixed media - which I personally love too - but rather rediscovering a simple, old fashioned craft.

To join the group we only ask that you share with us the one thing that you enjoy most about this craft. I love to handcraft embellishments for my layouts - using paper, stamps and anything else that take my fancy!

We hope that this group will be a fun, informative and inspiring collective for 'paper artistes' around the globe! Once again - welcome.

If you would like to join our group click here  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1498801960333823/

Cheerio
Maggie

Gluedots and Marion Smith Designs - Welcome to our Bloghop!

Welcome to our bloghop!  Thanks for finding your way to my blog - I hope to inspire you today with an altered piece I made with Easter in mind.


I was thrilled to receive a healthy supply of Gluedots a few weeks ago, and even better still - a fabulous pink Gluedot dispenser!  Gluedots are the perfect adhesive for an altered project like mine, and as they come in different sizes (small, med, large, xlarge etc) there was no need to cut up the dots to suit.

So, I'd like to share my altered cross with you.  I started with a plain MDF cross which I painted with gesso then black acrylic paint.  I then covered the front with paper from the Nirvana Collection by Marion Smith Designs and lightly sanded back the edges.

Choosing which Junque Gems and resins to use was the hardest part really!  Since they are all so gorgeous I ended up making a random selection and just going with the flow! Little strands of dyed and distressed muslin are tucked in here and there to soften the effect.

And a few inspirational sayings added the final touches.

Here are a couple of close ups, so you can see the details...

 Thanks for joining us today on this fun blog hop!

Cheers
Maggie