Gabrielle Pollacco : MajaDesign

The Sweetness of Scrapping Baby Photos

1 August, 2015 - Altered Items, Coffee In The Arbour, Collections, Created Art, Layouts, Sofiero, Tutorials, Vintage Baby

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Hi everyone! It’s Gabrielle here with you today to share with you my first page using the incredibly beautiful Maja Vintage Baby collection.

When I first saw this collection it made me wish I still had my own little bablies to scrap!! But fortunately I have some really sweet photos of my little great-niece Kiera that I have the privilege of scrapping. I knew these were the papers that would be a perfect compliment to here sweet little photo. I used 5 of the pretty patterned papers to create this page….Special Moment-bs, Die Cuts-bs, Flowers for Mum, Journaling Cards Pink-both sides, and Our Little Miracle.

I gotta love it when two of the design teams I’m on create products that work so well together! This chipboard baby banner by Dusty Attic was just the perfect compliment for the lovely vintage look of the Maja papers. I gave them a simple paint job using Tim Holtz Victorian Velvet Distress paint (also used on the background paper).

The floral accents are a recent new release from Prima (the butterfly is part of the set) and the cute lil title is from another new Dusty Attic chipboard word pack.

The little wooden toy chest is a wood embellishment by a Polish company called Scrapeniec. The cool thing is that I created this page for The Scrapbook Diaries as a Page Kit……so you can get all the products I used on this page all in one kit, along with a full video tutorial on how to make the page. It can be ordered as either a Girl Kit, as I made it, or a Boy kit using the blues in the Maja Vintage Baby collection. The kit is available while quantities last at The Scrapbook Diaries.

Before I close off for today I thought I would share one more project that I recently made using papers from the Maja Coffee in the Arbour collection and the Sofiero collection. As some of you may know I recently shared a line of stencils I designed for The Crafter’s Workshop. One of the stencil I designed was called ‘Complicated Hearts’ here I used the stencils (both 6×6 and 12×12 size) to create the center pieces for this Shabby Chic wall decor….and of course combined it with these lovely Maja Design paper collections.

I actually made up a step by step video tutorial on how this project was made, so sit back, relax and enjoy! …

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial, and hope you feel inspired to play with the pretty shabby chic beauty of the Maja Design papers. Thanks so much for stopping by today! xo

Tattered Frame

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

25 March, 2015 - Altered Items, Canvases, Collections, Created Art, Vintage Autumn Basics, Walking in the Forest

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Hi there! It’s Gabrielle here with you today to share a frame I made using the Maja Design Walking in the Forest collection papers. I have to say this collections is an old favorite of mine, I love the tattered, worn look of the papers.

I began by picking up an inexpensive unfinished wood frame at a local craft shop. It cost me only $1.50 (I love me a good bargain!) I then had the daunting task of choosing which papers I wanted to use to create my frame. I say daunting because there are so many gorgeous papers in this collection that I had a hard time choosing which I wanted to put together.

While I was shopping for my frame I came across these pretty tattered looking blooms (Recollections brand). When I saw the colors I immediately thought of the papers and colors in the Walking in the Forest collection. I just love those faded denim colors and the worn craft colors. I added a little hemp twine and some bits of burlap to finish the rustic look.

Included in the floral package was this cute triple layer butterfly! I also did a patchwork design on this frame so that I could use a variety of the patterned papers in this lovely collection. I used some Bronze metalic dimensional paint to add ‘rivets’ to the cut edges. I also used a little water on the edge of the paper so that I could gently pull back the edge to reveal the Flannel Shirt paper.

I hope you enjoyed my project today using this versatile and beautiful collection. Be sure to pop by daily for new inspiration from our talented design team! xo

Scrapping Masculine Style

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

11 March, 2015 - Collections, Layouts, Vintage Autumn Basics, Walking in the Forest

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Hello Maja fans, Gabrielle here with you today to share my latest scrapbook page using some of my all time favorite Maja papers! As many of you already know about me, I’m a mom of two girls, so most of my scrapbooking is done in a feminine style. But recently a friend of mine sent me a whole bunch of photos of her children that she wanted me to scrap. Although she has beautiful little girls, she also has an adorable little boy! So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to do a masculine ‘boy’ style page.

When I saw the cute little plaid shirt that her son was wearing in the pic, I immediately thought of the perfect ‘Flannel’ shirt and ‘Jeans’ papers from the Walking In the Forest collection. I added in some of the clock elements from the Vintage Autumn Basics collection and I had some lovely papers to get started.

All the chipboard I used on this page is from Dusty Attic Designs. I had a lot of fun with my chipboard pieces. I thought I would go for a nice rusty finish….they look like real rusty metal don’t they! What I did to get this effect is first I painted the chipboard pieces with some Dusty Attic paints (Hot Chocolate, Raisin and Gingernut), I kind of dabbed on the colors with a sponge dauber, randomly placing my color. While the paint was still wet, I sprinkled some Dusty Attic Rusting Powder over sections of my chipboard, allowing some of the paint color underneath to show through. This gave my pieces a nice mottled look. The next step in rusting is to take a spray bottle and put some white vinegar in it….spritz your pieces with the vinegar, then allow your pieces to begin rusting. The process takes about 20 minutes to a half hour. I sped up the process a bit by hitting it with the heat gun. I also dry brushed some Dusty Attic Paint in Sunburnt Orange over a section here and there to get an even more mottled rusty look to my pieces.

Here is another close-up of the rusted chipboard pieces. I also tucked in clock cut outs from the Vintage Autumn Basics (XVI) collection, applied with some foam pop dots and then used some Stickles (Platinum) around the edges of the clocks.

I created the rusted ruler by cutting out a strip of chipboard and then using some of my homemade texture paste and the Tim Holtz ‘Measured’ stencil on it. I then painted the piece and used the rusting powder on it the same as I did for the other chippies. I also made use of a Crafters Workshop stencil, appropriately named mini ‘Specimens’ which I used to create more design behind the photo on the ‘Jeans’ paper.

Another design element I went with was the zipper opening. I used this twice on the page, at the top right corner of the page and a small ‘V’ cut in the ‘Flannel Shirt’ paper on the right side of the photo. I just cut a little tear into the papers and inserted another Dusty Attic chipboard piece into the groove (Dusty Attic Zippers)….I treated these pieces with some metalic paint as well.

I took one of the chain chipboard pieces and gently bent it to get this curved hanging chain look. I painted the piece with some bronze dimensional metalic paint (Scribbles) and then added a bead of the 3D paint along the straight lines of the chain to give more of a 3D look to the chain.

Oops, how did that lace get in there?! LOL….well, at least I resisted adding blooms right? So there is my take on a masculine ‘boy’ style page. Hope you enjoyed seeing my project and that I’ve inspired you to scrap the boys/men in your life.

Making Pretty Gifts

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

25 February, 2015 - Altered Items, Äntligen, Collections, Created Art, Life in the Country

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Hello Maja fans! It’s Gabrielle here with you today to share a fun little ‘Thinking of You’ gift idea. I found this cute little unfinished wooden crate at my local Dollar store and thought I would use some of the fresh pretty patterns in the Maja Design papers to dress it up to create a candle holder gift set.

I used the ‘Naturen doftar’ paper from the ‘Antligen’ paper collection to cover the outside strips of the wooden crate. I used a mixture of equal parts white glue and water to adhere my paper strips to the wooden crate. I just love the sweet white dotted green paper for this, I think it gives the project an nice Spring feel to it.

For the inside of the box I used the pretty gingham design in the ‘Kitchen Garden’ paper from the ‘Life in the Country’ collection. And for the middle/side walls I used the lovely script/floral paper that is on the reverse side of the Kitchen Garden paper.

For the front of the box I wanted to keep the clean lines of the box design so I didn’t over embellish the box, I just added a few paintable Prima Blooms, a twine bow and a Dusty Attic swirl chippie (Elegant Swirls#13), which I painted white and edges with some brown chalk ink (Ingvild Bolme’s Branch Bark).

I hope I’ve inspired you to pull out some of your favorite Maja Design papers to create a little gift to cheer a friend of yours! Thanks so much for stopping by the Maja Design blog today, we love to hear your feedback on our projects! xo

Creating a Canvas with Old & New

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

11 February, 2015 - Canvases, Collections, Created Art, Vintage Spring Basics, Vintage Summer Basics

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Hello Maja Design fans! Gabrielle here with you today to share a canvas I made using some older bits of my scrapping stash mixed with some beautiful Maja Design papers. I had recently been browsing on Pinterest and found this artist out of Singapore, named Grace Ciao, who makes fashion designs out of real fresh flowers….I thought the artwork was beautiful but at the same time thought it sad that they could not last being that they were made from fresh flowers. It got me to thinking about some very large Prima blooms that I had bought many, many years ago when I first started out scrapping. I realized that they would be perfect to make up some lovely couture canvas designs. Yesterday I shared one canvas that I made out of one of the other flower petals (also shared a video tutorial on how I made it as well). Today I’m sharing another canvas using some pink/cream petals from my stash.

I used a variety of papers from the Maja, Vintage Summer Basics and Vintage Spring Basics collections. I used the center of the ‘March 1st’ paper (from Vintage Spring Basics) for the body of my couture figure as well as the pretty Daffodil images in the corners of the paper for my canvas background. In the center of the canvas I used ‘1910’ from Vintage Summer Basics, and then cut out a heart shape from ‘1909-bs’ also from the Vintage Summer collection.

I always feel that the Maja papers are beautifully complimented by Dusty Attic chipboard, in this case I used a new chipboard design called ‘Elegant Swirls #3’ to top my canvas. I used a stencil that was designed by a lovely and talented friend of mine, Janene Meyerowitz to make the wings behind the figure and to add the lattice design in the corners. Running down the side of the canvas I used a piece called ‘Branch #3’ and in the bottom corner I used a corner chippie from the DeVine frame set.

Running down the side of the canvas I used a Dusty Attic chipboard piece called ‘Branch #3″ that I just gave a coat of Gesso and inked with some Ingvild Bolme ‘Moss Garden’ chalk ink, and some Branch Bark ink by her, as well. In the bottom right corner I added a corner chippie from the DeVine Frame Set (Dusty Attic). The dress design was made entirely of a couple of the petals I had from an old, old Prima box. (I’m sure you can use petals from just about any silk/fabric flower you have in your stash).

I sketched out a couture figure to create my canvas design and saved the page as a template. Just right click on the photo and ‘save image as’ to your computer if you would like to try using my sketch for one of your projects.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Maja Design blog today, I always enjoy reading your comments and feedback! xo