For my Graphic 45 design team 2013 audition I wanted to get
across my crafting personality but I’m realising that it’s a hard thing to do
when your style is as interactive as mine. I’ve never been the sort of person to just
stand and look at art – I need people to interact with my creativity. That
said, it’s hard in a photo to get across the fact that I like to make my
projects practical. I like doors that open, things that pop up, hidden drawers,
buttons that you push to make music start up or lights come on. I love to see
clean lines and white space in other people’s work but in my own design work I’m
all about busy and interesting which is probably why the Graphic 45 style suits
me so well.
I had a little panic when I thought I was only allowed to include six projects (how to choose!?!) but then I re-read and noticed it was a minimum of six - phew! Anyway - here they are and whatever the outcome I hope you like looking at them as much as I enjoyed making them.
My first project is my most recent (and the only one I have
done since I decided to audition). This is for an Easter present and uses the
latest Graphic 45 French Country papers. I’m also using these papers for one of
my classes at the ‘A Trip Down Memory Lane’ retreat in a couple of weeks – but that
project (a flip over display book) has to stay under wraps for a little while
longer. This is a French Egg cabinet I found online and I have used the French
Country papers to decorate it – now it’s all ready to add a dozen chocolate
eggs to ready for Easter…
The egg holder in the drawer is removable so that the drawer could be used for other things instead!
From Easter to Christmas… I loved the Nutcracker Sweet
Papers as soon as I saw the first ones appear on the Graphic 45 blog and knew I
wanted to teach a class using them. In the end I taught two – one was a
tealight holder class that I taught at the ATDML retreat in November 2012 and
the other was the Nutcracker book with pop-ups and a hidden drawer to hide
chocolate which was for the UK Scrappers 10th birthday cybercrop…
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The altered book which features a hidden drawer full of chocolate...
Inside the first page...
the pop-up page...
The recipe page...
One of my favourite all time Graphic 45 projects was my
little altered gift box which was for a retreat competition. We were given a small
necklace box to alter. When I opened it up the flaps on the box reminded me of
a theatre or a big top and I decided that I would make my box into a miniature
travelling circus using the Le Cirque papers. I decorated the box as a big top and made extra flaps that
came down for the circus ring. I mounted clowns and acrobats onto acetate
sliders so that they could be moved about and ‘played with’. For the final
touch I downloaded the ‘Entry of the Gladiators’ music which people would recognise
as ‘Circus music’ I then recorded it onto a voice recorder which I stuck to the
back of the box. I just love the look on people’s faces when they open up the
box and then the smile when the music starts!!
The box we started with...
And after I had altered it...
check out the roll of tickets on the side...
Remove the paper band and open sesame...
Finally, pull down the circus ring and let those clowns and acrobats perform...
Don't forget to play the music...
I have made several projects with the Olde Curiosity Shoppe
papers including a one twelfth scale apothecary shop filled with lots of glass
bottles. But since that’s still a work in progress I decided instead to include my
scrapbook album cover which I made last Spring. I love little things and as one
of my other hobbies is making dolls houses I have a healthy collection of lots
of little bits and pieces. I used quite a few of them in this project. It’s not
really interactive like lots of my other pieces (although being an album it is
a practical item) but it’s one of those things that you can just spend ages
looking at because there are so many little spaces that have been filled with
things. I used a bare scrapbook album which I covered with Olde Curiosity
Shoppe papers before attaching a printer’s tray. I then lined the compartments
with different papers and images from the collection and filled them with
interesting and fun things…
Ok – so I have to include some layouts here because at
the end of the day these are scrapbooking papers! This first one was made using the
Curtain Call collection and features a photo of some street Jazz musicians I
saw when I was visiting Norwich. Being a saxophonist myself, I love swing and
jazz music. I really wanted a record on my page but couldn’t bring myself to
use one from my collection so instead I used a circle of black card which I then
covered with glossy accents and used a nylon brush to brush grooves into the
surface – painstaking but worth it!! Oh – and before you think it’s not
interactive – there’s another voice recorder on it so that you can play a bit
of the jazz while you look at the layout…
Here are another couple of layouts based on the same sketch which I did for a crop competition, one with Tropical Travelogue papers and the other with A Ladies Diary papers. These are not interactive - but they're not flat either - I have to at least have an element of 3D in my work!
And another couple of Layouts with Graphic 45 Papers...
One of my cats in a 'Once Upon a Springtime' page, with hand cut flowers and a hand rolled paper rose...Both this layout and the next featured in The Scrapbook Magazine when I did their budget challenge...
An interactive Layout featuring the Victorian classroom at Beamish Museum - so of course the ABC Primer papers were perfect for this...
I find that I use lots of Graphic 45 in my card making too – the
rich papers make for very luxurious looking cards. This was a very special card
I had to make since a friend and work colleague was appointed last year as head
teacher of an independent school in Glasgow. I was very proud of her and wanted
to make her a card that she could keep. Again the ABC Primer papers seemed to be the most
appropriate choice for the card and I made it in the style of an easel card…
Also with the ABC Primer papers I designed this little
book for another class I taught. The book is bound together with pencils using
the Japanese stab method of binding. The pencils just seemed to go so well with
the papers and added some bright colours to the otherwise muted project…
There are so many mega talented paper-crafters and artists
out there that ‘pigs might fly’ before I end up on the design team – so in
homage to that here is one of my other Olde Curiosity Shoppe projects – an altered
chocolate box featuring a flying pig which is attached with a strip of acetate –
I love that little pig!
Thanks for looking and good luck to everyone auditioning.
