Andrea Ewen : MajaDesign

Feeling Brand New

20 June, 2013 - Cards, Walking in the Forest

Hello again, Maja friends! I’m curious, do you consider yourself an avid stamper? Like every day when you wake up in the morning you check your blog? Galleries? E-mails pertaining to crafting? Do you feel that you need to get into your craft space at least once a day? Do you walk around your house or outside and wonder if any little detail you see could be used on a project? If you answered yes to most of these questions, you’re like me….totally enamored of this paper crafting thing. Case in point, for this card I’m about to show you, I walked around my house and snipped off the little bubbly orange thing from an arrangement in my living room because I thought it would go perfectly with my card based on the Walking in the Forest collection:Am I right? How could I NOT use it? I distressed all the edges and added some paper piercing to the outside perimeter of the card. The butterfly was cut from the Die-Cuts page contained in this collection. I added some Zva Creative crystal flourishes, a Prima paper flower and that thingy that I cut off. (I did cut it off from the BACK of the arrangement, FYI!) The ribbon is from Verve’s Summer Sailing collection and worked perfectly to bring your eye to the flower detail.

Here are a couple of other card that I made this past week using Maja Design’s Vintage Summer Basics :

Time for me to head out…got some paper crafting to ~~obsess over~~, uh, work on! Thanks for spending some of your day with me! Have a great rest of the week!

Pinterest Inspired Christmas and a Tutorial

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6 June, 2013 - Cards, Tutorials, Vintage Winter

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Hello Maja friends! I decided to shake things up a bit and make a little Christmas card here…though the temps here in New Jersey are pushing 90F! I keep a file under my Pinterest account called ‘Card Inspiration’. I never know when inspiration will strike, so if it happens to be a Christmas themed card in June…I go with it! This particular picture also encouraged me to make a tutorial after I figured out how the template was made. The original picture credit can be found here. First off, here’s the end product using Maja Design’s Vintage Winter collection:

I started the process by cutting out 4 hearts, two with ‘Wishing You’ paper and two with Soft Suede card stock. I stacked the four of them together and with my paper piercer, I punched out holes around the perimeter. I stacked them together so that the holes would all line up when I went to sew them together: Next I dabbed the edges of the fronts with Walnut Stain distress ink: I need the hearts to malleable, so I spritzed them with water and crinkled them up: I carefully unfolded them and waited for them to dry before sewing. To give them a puffed up appearance, I added a bit of crinkled tissue to the inside as I was sewing them closed. The brown heart is the back and obviously the printed side is the front:I then began meticulously sewing the perimeter, using a blanket stitch through the pre-pierced holes:
Then I added an inside perimeter of sparkle using Ranger’s Platinum Stickles: Lastly I added the ‘Merry’ and ‘Christmas’ banners, cut out of the same “Wishing You” paper:Here are some close ups of the hearts:

The Maja Design papers that I used were: Wishing You, Christmas is Coming, Cozy Inside and Cozy Inside (bs). Other supplies used were: a paper flower, Zva Creative flourish, burlap, jute, gold stars, a doily and a paper distresser.

Thanks for joining me today…hope you have a wonderfully crafty day!

Happy Anniversary…and more

Posted by Andrea Ewen

23 May, 2013 - Cards, It’s Christmas time, Ska Vi Ta En Fika?, Vintage Spring Basics

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Happy Thursday Maja friends! Looking out my craft room window last week, I saw the most beautiful site! It’s Spring time here in New Jersey and my favorite tree in the yard is in full bloom…a Weeping Cherry tree. Every bough is bent over with an enumerable amount of blooms and it’s just a sight for the soul! With that vision in mind, I went for Maja Design’s Vintage Spring Basics, namely the 1st and 4th of May papers. Here’s what I came up with: I fussy cut an image of trailing flowers from the 1st of May papers. I then added some Star Dust Stickles to the middles of the flowers for a little sparkle. There’s a length of crushed silk ribbon, tied into a bow and adorned with the same color fabric flower. I also added a strip of lace and pearls as well. The edges are all distressed.Here are a couple of other cards that I’ve made over the past few weeks with Maja Design papers:

It’s Christmas time

Ska vi ta en fika

Thanks for stopping by…hope you have a wonderfully inspired day!

Feeling the Blues

Posted by Andrea Ewen

9 May, 2013 - Cards, Life by the Sea, Vintage Spring Basics

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Hello Maja friends! I’m here today with a couple of card that I made using both Maja Design’s Vintage Spring Basics and Life by the Sea collections. I was really in a mood to work with blue, a definite diversion from my mostly neutral palette of cards. My first card features the Vintage Spring Basics collection:

When I make cards, I don’t throw any scraps away unless they are of the minutest of pieces. What I like to do is add them as panels to cards. There really doesn’t have to be any rhyme or reason, especially when your cards are shabby in nature, so you can basically do no wrong. This card features a bunch of scraps I had left over…I simply roughed up the edges and attached them. One thing I like to try to do is layer color effectively. You want to add opposite color spectrums (for the most part) when layering so that each layer is defined. If I stacked two blues together or two white, they would get lost in each other. Here I staggered the colors so you could see each individual panel.

My next card is more on the masculine side…before you shake your head that it’s not…I was going to say…about as masculine as I can get {grin}. This card features Maja Design’s Life by the Sea collection and it’s perfect for all these nautical stamps I see entering the marketplace:

My dad happens to be a boat lover so I thought this card would be perfect for him. This card features Navigate – bs, Bottle message, Bottle message – bs, Drop the anchor, Drop the anchor – bs, Landmark – bs papers. I did tie a little rope bow on there along with a seam binding bow and button. The only thing is…I don’t think this will fit in an envelope so I think maybe hand delivery is in order!

Thanks so much for spending part of your day with me, I really appreciate the visit!

Folding Fika Fabulously

Posted by Andrea Ewen

25 April, 2013 - Cards, Ska Vi Ta En Fika?

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Hello Maja friends! A couple of weeks ago, I pulled out one of my favorite collections of Maja Design papers, Ska vi ta en fika. Then my mind started to wander…how can I make something really neat out of these papers? They are beautiful in and of themselves, but, what can I do differently with them? In a roundabout way, I came up with this card here:

If you remove the flower band (I call it a belly band, not sure why) the card can be opened by pulling on the two purple floral triangles. Inside reveals the sentiment.
Here’s the flat version so you can get a better feel of how it opens. The band is shown up at the top. It does not open, it simply slides from the bottom up to the middle to keep the card closed.The outside panels are all sewn and I added some Zva Creative flourishes, antique copper corners and Dark Chocolate Liquid pearl drops to both the top and bottom exposed panels.

To keep the card closed, slip the ‘belly band’ up onto it.The papers that I used from this collection are Kaffetåren den bästa är, Kaffetåren den bästa är-bs, Kärleksmums – bs and Lejas cafe. There was a lot of measuring, trial and error, frustration and tears (no, just kidding about the tears part). It took me most of the day to make, so if you’re looking to make something quickly, this is not the card. However, it was worth the work, I really like how it came out.

Thanks so much for spending part of your day with me, I hope you were inspired!