Gabrielle Pollacco : MajaDesign

Saying Thanks

4 November, 2015 - Cards, Enjoying Outdoors, Vintage Autumn Basics

Hello Maja Design fans, it’s Gabrielle here with you today! I don’t know about you, but I have so much to be thankful for, so for me it’s important to always have lots of pretty ‘Thank-you’ cards on hand. I made this card for a dear friend who has been so generous with me, I wanted to say thanks to her in a way that shows my deep appreciation for her friendship.

For this card I mainly used papers from the Maja Design ‘Enjoying the Outdoors’ collection. I used ‘Late Summer Flowers-bs’ for the background of my card. Then I opened my pack of Enjoying the Outdoors 6×6 paper pack and layered a variety of the patterned papers onto my card, using one of the mini-print floral papers as the inside of my heart design.

Another paper that I find indispensable is the clock paper ‘XVI’ from the Vintage Autumn Basics collection. I usually take a moment to cut out all the clocks and keep them in a little plastic baggie so I have them handy for embellishing my projects. Another little tip: I never throw out the paper strips from the bottom of my 12×12 paper pads, they come in so handy for decorating my projects as you can see here.

A sweet friend of my sent me a bunch of chipboard frame designs, among them was this heart design. I painted the heart with Shimmerz Paints ‘Grape-tastic’ Dazzlerz, this is a thick pearlescent paint that goes on beautifully in one coat. While the paint was still wet I sprinkled on some bronze and purple micro beads (no name dollar store brand). I then finished the card design by adding a few Prima Hydrangea’s in a purple color and used a leaf stamp from one of my stamp sets that I designed for The Scrapbook Diaries….these I stamped onto the ‘Woodlands’ paper, cut out and slightly crinkled them, then just tucked them into the floral cluster.

I hope you enjoyed my project today and hopefully inspired you to use this gorgeous paper collection for your next cardmaking adventure! xo

Gabrielle-sign

A Little Fall Drama with Walking In the Forest

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

21 October, 2015 - Layouts, Vintage Autumn Basics, Walking in the Forest

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Hello Maja Design fans, Gabrielle here with you today! I’ve had this photo of my two girls hamming it up on a walk we went on, waiting to be scrapped for over a year now, it was time to do it! It’s autumn and I just had to do a little scrapping with the beautiful Walking in the Forest collection!

I just love the lovely denims and flannel print designs in this collection. I chose the following papers to work with for this page: Walking In the Forest (Fresh Air-bs, Flannel shirt-bs, Flannel shirt (front side), Autumn In The Air, Birch).

I used a variety of Dusty Attic chipboard to decorate this page with. I got the idea to use the postage stamp chipboard design from the Walking in the Forest Die-cut sheet of paper. The Dusty Attic Clock Frame got a rusty treatment using Dusty Attic Rusting powder sprayed with a combination of 75% white vinegar and 25% water. You wait about 1/2 hour for the rusting to happen. The l’il mushroom design was cut from the ‘Autumn in the Air’ paper and attached with foam pop dots. The white butterfly is from Prima. The Clock faces were cut from a paper called XVI from the Vintage Autumn Basics.

The blossoms I used for this page are a combination of Prima blooms (large cream flower), some Recollection (Michaels Craft store brand) blossoms, and some Dusty Attic blossoms (small blue).

I layered a few of the Walking In the Forest papers behind the photo, creating a few ribbon banners peeking out of the bottom. I added some foliage stamping in 2 colors around the focal points on the page. The stamp is a K & Company set called Lotus by Amy Butler. The inks I used were Prima Branch Bark chalk ink and Denim Mixed Media chalk ink by ColorBox. The title is by Heidi Swapp. Directly behind the photo I used a little Scattered Straw Distress ink by Tim Holtz.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Maja Design blog today, we love to hear your comments and feedback! xo

Lilacs & Love

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

7 October, 2015 - Collections, Enjoying Outdoors, Layouts

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Hi all! It’s Gabrielle here with you today to share my newest layout using the new Maja Design paper collection called Enjoying the Outdoors! Love the gorgeous colors and designs in this collection!

I used ‘Woodlands’, ‘Having Tea In the Sun’ ‘Garden Moments’, ‘Late Summer Flowers’ and a variety of color papers from the 6×6 paper pads for my page.

I used Dusty Attic ‘Corner Flourish #3’ under my photo with a stencil I designed for The Crafter’s Workshop called ‘Moving Vines’ using a texture paste called ‘Arti-choked’ by Shimmerz Paints.

I also used an elegant new chipboard piece by Dusty Attic called ‘Ornate Pendant #3’ and ‘Pearl Pendants’ as a decorative element for the side of my page. I used a metalic 3D paint by Scribbles to get the metal look on the pendants.

I tore a small ‘peek-a-boo’ section in the bottom of the ‘Having Tea in the Sun’ paper and added a bit of lace behind it. The Love title is a new Mini Captions title by Dusty Attic that I painted with Purple Rain Vintage Creameez by Shimmerz Paints. Once it was dry I added a Glossy Accents.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Maja Design Blog today! Hope you all have a chance to play with this gorgeous new collection!

Retro Style cards with Summer Crush!

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

23 September, 2015 - Cards, Collections, Created Art, Summer Crush

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Hello Maja fans! Gabrielle here with you today to share a couple of cards I made using the adorable summer collection ‘Summer Crush’! I just love the ‘Snapshots’ paper, so many fun little vignettes to serve as centerpieces to a cute retro style card!

Maja Design paper is just made for layering. I start by choosing a favorite patterned paper like the polka-dot ‘Flirty’ paper. I distress the edges with a Tim Holtz Edge Distressor, then just start layering on more and more patterned papers. Tuck in a little burlap, some floral embellishments and a little wood-cut trellis (Scrapiniec), and you’re done!

For my second card I again used the polka-dot pattern, this time in the blue and used the cute l’il blue guitar picture as my center piece. Perfect for a fun little card to cheer up a friend! Again, I just did lots of layering and tucked in a little burlap, embellished with a butterfly and added a little twine. In a short amount of time I had 2 fun cards ready to go!

Maja Design products used in these projects: Summer Crush 6×6 paper pad, Summer Crush 12×12 paper (Flirty, He Gives Her flowers, Snapshots, Long Summer Nights, Falling In Love-bs)

Thanks so much for stopping by the Maja Design Blog today, hope you all get a chance to play this week and get creative with Maja Design’s Summer Crush collection! xo

Life Is Beautiful

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

9 September, 2015 - Layouts, Nyhavn

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Hi Everyone! It’s Gabrielle here with you today to share my first Maja Design project since I got back from my summer hiatus! For this page I began by choosing a few papers from the Nyhavn collection.

I chose ‘Sitting on the Dock-bs’ as my background paper, and then used a variety of strips from the ‘Kings Square’, ‘Eating Out’ and ‘Romantic Lunch’ papers for the area behind the photo. To matte the photo I used a striped paper from the Coffee in the Arbour collection called ‘Raspberry Cupcakes’.

I used an inexpensive pack layered floral stickers I had found in my local dollar store to accent my photo area and also added a variety of Dusty Attic Chipboard (Elegant Swirls #3, Word Pack #3 and Foliage #3).

For my mixed media, I used a variety of Shimmerz Paints both on the paper and on the chipboard pieces.

For the top corner (and under the photo area) I used one of my new The Crafters Workshop Stencils I designed called ‘Moving Vines’.

I actually have a video tutorial I”m working on getting done,….I was unable to get the video done before my post today but I should have a video tutorial up on my blog/youtube very soon (by the 10th) on my blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Maja Design blog!