Notebook Organizer tutorial with Graphic 45!

Today Graphic 45 is welcoming me to the design team on thier blog.  What an honor!!  I hope you'll stop by the Graphic 45 blog and see some of my favorite projects that are featured.

I created a special project for my introduction, an organizer notebook. I am a self confessed organization freak when it comes to things I have to do! To help me keep track of my design team responsibilities, I've created this organizer in a small 3 ring binder with dividers for different teams and tasks. The notebook I am using is 7 x 9" and I like the small size so I can easily take it with me where ever I go. You could use this for so many things, it would be a perfect gift for a bride to be who is organizing her wedding. How about for a busy Mom so she could keep track of appointments for the children, shopping lists, social occasions, birthdays, the possibilities are endless. You could use a standard size notebook and make a school notebook. Wouldn't that be such a fun project to do with a child?

My video tutorial takes you through creating the cover page for the notebook and creating the subject dividers inside as well as the design for one of the divider pages. At the end of the video, I've included photos of all the divider pages that I created so that you can copy them if you like.

Thanks for stopping by, hope today is special for you!

Creative Embellishments and my sweet Tisha!

Here’s my very sweet Tisha “driving” the motorhome.  She loves to sit in the driver’s seat and look out the window when we’re not rolling down the road.  There are other windows that she can look out, but for some reason, this is her favorite perch.

I used Junque Gypsy papers from Marion Smith Designs for this layout, love her collections so much!

I used Creative Embellishments Puppy Love word set for my title that I heat embossed with Stampendous Chunky Metallic Seasonings embossing enamel.  Its a new color that I just got and I really like it!  Creative Embellishments has so many great word sets, check them out!

Puppy Love

Be sure to stop by the CE store often and check out the deal of the day.  That’s when you can buy certain pieces of chipboard for 40% off.  WOW, now that’s a great deal!

Thanks for stopping by.

A Graphic 45 Typography tag

I love making tags!  They are such fun little projects and they have so many uses.   I can hear you all saying, "Really, what do you do with them?"  Well, first the obvious, I attach them to gifts.  I make cards out of them by gluing them to a card base and I use them on layouts.  They are my "art journal", meaning that when I am experimenting with a new technique, I will make a tag  rather than a larger project so as not to waste a lot of product if it all goes bad.  I have a large cork board hanging over my desk and I pin my favorite tags to it and I give them away and include them with RAKS.  See, there are so many fun ways to use your tags!  So please, join me in making tags, I think you'll find it rather addictive!

My tags usually have two ingredients that are essential to my tag making.   I love layers and I find that diecut shapes really work well for layering tags.   If you have a die cutting machine, I'd suggest that you add a few basic shapes to your die inventory, if you don't already have these basic shapes.  I'd start with an oval of some sort, then add a round die followed by a rectangle and last, a square.

To make the layers on your tags really stand out, pop them up with foam tape or even better, pop them up with pieces of cardboard.  I was going broke buying foam tape until I started using cardboard to pop my layers!

Typography is the BEST collection for tag and card making!  On this tag I've used rectangle, oval and round diecuts to create my layers.  Then I fussy cut the beautiful lady from one of the cut-aparts.  Check out my Snapguide tutorial to see exactly how I put this tag together.

Check out How to Make a Tag With G45 Typography by Maggi HARDING on Snapguide.

Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it!

Creations with the Swirlydoos Kit Club May Kit, Spring Chic

Let's kick this off with a layout of one of the nicest ladies I have ever met!  Here's our very own Swirly Savage, Sherri, in a candid photo I captured at Swirlycamp 2014.  Sherri and I sat next to each other and I enjoyed her so much!

The kit includes gorgeous papers from Kaisercraft's Oh So Lovely and Bo Bunny's Garden Journal collections.  I used Kaisercraft papers for this layout.I made a vine with some leaves and pink rosebuds from previous Swirly kits and tucked in some green kit flowers.  The floral butterflies are from last month's kit.  The 3 pink words are from my stash and everything else is from the kit.  I used the weaving stencil from the Mediums add on kit to do some masking on the background.

I thought the kit flowers were just a little bit too green for my layout so I sprayed them with Dylusions white linen mist.  This is a great way to lighten up your flowers without really changing the color.  Then I dabbled on some white paint.

 I loved the Creative Embellishments mini frames that came in the kit.  I embossed the frame with Stampendous shabby white embossing enamel and then framed one of the cut apart images.

Next up, a simple layout of my sweet Nika, again with the Kaisercraft papers.  I used a WRMK Lucky 8 Frilly Lace punch to cut the large circle doily and adhered that to the reverse side of another sheet of the same paper.

All the flowers are from the Signature Flower Kit.  I tucked in a flourish I diecut with Kaisercraft's Flourish die.

My title is Creative Memories chipboard from my stash and I heat embossed it with Stampendous shabby pink embossing enamel.  It looks kind of white in the photo, but it is a really soft pretty pink.

I love these Petaloo calla lilies and mums from the flower kit!

Here is the  May sketch included with the kit and below is my take on the sketch.

This is an old photo of my Mom and a friend of her's taken during WW II when she lived in Washington DC.  I am lucky to have so many great photos of her from that era.  Again, I have used flowers and butterflies from the Signature Flower Kit and Kaisercraft papers.  In the upper corner I tried something that didn't really work out all that well, LOL!  I did some masking in the corner and while the masking paste was still wet I sprinking it with micro beads from the Mediums Kit.  The mask I used was very detailed and so the addition of the microbeads completely masked all the fine detail of the stencil.  I think it would have worked out fine if I had used a mask that was not so fine and detailed.  Anyway, I think the beads make a nice platform for the cluster of flwoers!

I dabble on some white paint and used some mists from the Medium kit on the background.

I fussy cut the words from the Lass paper and then framed it with one of the Creative Embellishments mini frames that came in the main kit.  Again I used Stampendous shabby white embossing enamel.  Can you tell that I love that stuff??

This is the page I created for the May Anatomy of a Layout feature.  You can see how I put this layout together in the Swirlydoos Kit Club  forums, here.

Here's a card I made using some of the Bo Bunny papers that came in the kit.  I used a couple Kaisercraft paper blooms from an earlier kit on the front, and added some bling from the main kit.  I used  Spellbinders Elizabeth Borderstrip die from the store and cut the diecut down the center to embellish the sides of the floral card.

I popped up the center to give the card some interest.

Thanks so much for stopping by our blog today!  If you are not a Swirlydoos Kit Club subscriber, please consider it so that you never miss any of our beautifully coordinated kits. Please visit Swirlydoos Kit Club and click on Join Our Club on the left side bar. Be sure to mention my name, Maggi, when you subscribe because you will receive a 10% discount on your first kit AND a coupon for 30% off an entire purchase in the Swirlydoos store. Your Swirlydoos store purchases are always shipped free when shipped along with your monthly kit. Swirlydoos also maintains a Forum where everyone can share their work, tell stories and have a ton of fun! We have monthly challenges too so please come and join us!

Mixed Media tag with Creative Embellishments

Hi friends!   I had some fun playing with this tag that I made for Creative Embellishments.  If you love chipboard, you should check out the Creative Embellishments store!  The store is full of great chipboard and wood veneer pieces in all the latest designs.  I particularly love all the steampunk designs.  AND I love that this is a US company selling quality chipboard at really great prices!  

I like to use tags like alot of people use art journals.  They are my experiments.  I used mists, masks, dribbling ink, stamps, paint, who know what else on this tag, LOL!  Sometimes you just need to play with your supplies and see what you can do with them!

I heat embossed the Create chippy with Stampendous aged black embossing powder.

This is our Inspire Word Set.

I love the steampunk light bulb that I  heat embossed with Stampendous aged gold embossing powder. Then I added some gold Stickles as I was in a sparkly mood!  I also added some gold embossing powder to my metal flower and leavesand yep, stickled those too.  This is quite the shiny and sparkly tag!

Here's a link to the Steampunk light bulbs.

Before I go, I want to remind you about our monthly challenge.  Each month we have a picture inspiration and all you have to do to be entered to win a  gift certificate to the Creative Embellishments store is create a project inspired by our photo and use at least one piece of our chipboard.   A winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month.  How sweet is that?  I hope you'll join in the fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Maggi

Steampunk fun with Creative Embellishments and Graphic 45

We have a great monthly photo inspiration challenge going on at Creative Embellishments.  This month's challenge screams Steampunk to me so I dove into my hoarded stash of Graphic 45 Steampunk papers and pulled out some  fabulous Creative Embellishments steampunk chippies!

Here's the inspiration photo:

Here's my layout inspired by the photo.  Of course I picked up on the clock face and wings.

I love the steampunk chippies in our store and there are 60+ steampunk pieces to choose from, I think I need them all!

 Around my photo I used the Steampunk Frame which I heat embossed with Lindy’s Midnight Gold.

 The challenge has a twist to use wings on your project so for the twist, I added those awesome wings near the bottom.  They are the Steampunk Wing Set 3.  First I heat embossed them with Stampendous Aged Spice embossing enamel. Then quickly, while the enamel was still hot, I sprinkled gold micro beads over them in random spots. After the enamel cooled down, I covered with Glossy Accents to make sure the beads were adhered permanently.

Our challenge winners are randomly selected so everyone has an equal chance to win the $50 store gift certificate.  Now that's a great prize, so be sure to stop by the Creative Embellishments blog and check out the rules for entering our challenge.

Thanks for stopping by today, hope to see you over at the Creative Embellishments blog!