Gabrielle Pollacco : MajaDesign

Scrapping Friends

27 August, 2014 - Coffee In The Arbour, Collections, Layouts

Hi there, Gabrielle here with you today to share a layout I made of my oldest daughter and one of her dear friends. Summer is here and the house is busy with my kids and their friends, so I’ve taken the opportunity to get more pictures taken. Chloe has a collage on her wall with her friends and she wanted me to update these photos.

I used a variety of papers from the ‘Coffee in the Arbour’ collection to make this mixed media style page. I used : Raspberry Lemonade, Raspberry Jam, Rose Garden (front and backside) and Let’s Share a Cookie.

I embellished with some flowers that I got from Recollections (pleated pink blooms) and Tresors de Luxe (deep rose), and a new thing I like to use to finish a bloom cluster….Spanish Moss! I picked up an inexpensive pack of this stuff at a local dollar store, one package goes a long long way, but I find it adds a nice natural touch to a floral cluster.

I also embellished with some of my favourite leafy chipboard pieces from Dusty Attic (Leafy Stems #2), I primed them with Gesso and then inked with some Ingvilde Bolme chalk inks (Green Moss, Branch Bark). I gave the chipboard pieces a bit of texture as well with some Glossy Accents.

I also did a little stamping on around the photo area (with Bo Bunny Stamps) and added a bit of texture with texture paste and a circle stencil. And what’s a mixed media layout without some fun paint effects. I used Shimmerz ‘Bamboo Leaf’ Spritz and some ‘Plum Pudding’ Shimmerz paint (I just applied the plum paint with the tip of my finger rubbing it in to get the fade out effect).

I finished the page off with the fun epoxy title stickers from Heidi Swapp.

I hope you enjoyed my post today and hope that if you haven’t played with this beautiful collection yet, that you will have the opportunity soon!

Delighting in Outdoor Play

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

13 August, 2014 - Crea Diem, Layouts, Vintage Spring Basics, Walking in the Forest

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Hello Maja fans! Gabrielle here with you today to share a layout I made of my little great niece playing in the dirt….sometimes it’s fun to just get dirty, isn’t it?! I wanted to stay with some neutral colors with a hint of lavender (to bring out the sweet bow in her hair). To create this page I mixed a variety of collections. Here are the collections I used….

I just love the way you can mix and match different collections. I used the following papers:

Vintage Spring Basics (1st of March), Crea Diem (Karleken Overvinner Allt), Walking in The Forest (Flannel Shirt, Fresh Air).

I used 2 papers from the Walking in the forest collection as my background papers and then cut the cute Daffodil designs from the Vintage Spring Basics collection to create embellishments for the page. I recently came out with my own stamp collection and used them for the first time a this page. For the cracked wall/brick look here, I first stamped the image on the light background paper….I then stamped the same image on the terrcotta color paper (Fresh Air) and cut out the brick section and glued in over the matching stamped area on the light paper so that it looks like cracked plaster walls with brick showing through.

I also used another of my stamp designs in another area of the page. Here I did a little inking behind the photo area and used one of my cracked brick stamp designs to create a rustic look behind the photo area.

I used a new Dusty Attic chipboard piece called Bearded Iris and painted it with some Gesso and chalk inks to compliment the daffodil design in the Maja patterned paper.

I framed another of the cute daffodil designs with another of the Dusty Attic Elegant Frames and finished the corner cluster with some blooms and glass gems.

I hope you enjoyed viewing my page today as much as I enjoyed creating it! Thanks for stopping by! xo

Scrapping Masculine Pages

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

30 July, 2014 - Collections, Crea Diem, Layouts, Vintage Autumn Basics, Walking in the Forest

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Hello Maja Fans! Gabrielle here with you today to share with you all a masculine style page I just finished. Lately I’ve gotten a number of messages and emails requesting that I make a more masculine style page. So I gathered up some of my favorite Maja papers from the Vintage Autumn Basics Collection, Walking in the Forest and the Crea Diem collection for the page above.

I just love the stripes in the Vintage Autumn Basics collection, the plaids in Walking in the Forest, and the clock elements in the Crea Diem collection. All of the these designs work well for a masculine style page (at least I think so).

I used the striped framed paper ‘Tempus Fugit’ from the Vintage Autumn Basics collection as the matting/frame background paper. I then used the simpler side of the ‘Flannel Shirt’ paper as the main background design. I curled back the top left corner to expose the lovely plaid design on the back of the paper, and used the extra strips I had cut from the paper for my ribbons/banners at the bottom of the photo cluster.

I used a variety of fabric textures (cheesecloth, burlap and twine) as well as lot’s of nice masculine chipboard elements to embellish the page).

I did some machine stitching to add a little more texture and design to the page, and although I added some floral elements to the page, I tried to keep them small and/or in a rougher masculine texture like burlap in order to keep to a more masculine theme.

Here is a close-up of the photo cluster, as I mentioned above, I tried to stick to more masculine textures when adding some floral/nature elements to the page. Keys, cogs & wheels, light bulbs and clocks, are all embellishments that I find work very well with a masculine style page.

I used some spritzes on the background papers and did a little stamping with some bubble wrap. Another fun way to add texture to a masculine page is to use some Drywall Tape (found at your local hardware store), this stuff is so easy to use because it already has a light tacky background so it’s easy to apply.

Maja Design Papers used in this project: Vintage Autumn Basics (Tempus Fugit), Walking in the Forest (Jeans, Flannel Shirt-front and backside), Crea Diem (Den Oersattliga Tiden).

If you would like to recreate this page for yourself, I have made this one into a Page Kit for The Scrapbook Diaries, where you can get the Maja papers and all the page elements including the chipboard, mixed media products, blooms and embellishments in a single page kit with a Video Tutorial created by me included in the package.

Thanks for stopping by today to see my project! xo

Shabby-Chic Mixed Media Canvas with Video Tutorial

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

16 July, 2014 - Canvases, Coffee In The Arbour, Collections, Crea Diem, Created Art, Tutorials

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Hello Maja fans, Gabrielle here with you today to share my newest canvas using the beautiful Maja Design collections Coffee in the Arbour and Crea Diem. The lovely rosey prints in the papers lend themselves so well to the shabby-chic look, don’t they!

chic look for this one because I had been playing with some air dry clay (Martha Stewart) and had made this little corset trinket that I wanted to use as my center piece.

I mounted the corset on a Dusty Attic chipboard winged dress form (Divine Divas) adding a little fabric to dress it up. I layered on some lace (Tresors de Luxe) and added a little bit of texture with a stencil and homemade texture paste. I painted and spritzed the canvas with a variety of Shimmerz Paints sprtizes, paints and Inklingz (all products are listed in the video below).

I added an interesting embossed texture to my Dusty Attic chipboard frame using a variety of mixed media products (you can watch a step by step in the video below)

Maja Design papers used in this project: Coffee in the Arbour (Rose Garden, Butterflies are Free), Crea Diem (Clock paper).

I hope you enjoyed watching my process and hope that I’ve inspired you to give Maja Design papers a go when creating your mixed media projects!

Saying Thanks in Style

Posted by Gabrielle Pollacco

2 July, 2014 - Cards, Collections, Crea Diem, Created Art, Tags, Vintage Spring Basics

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Hi Maja fans, I’m just dropping by to share a little tag I made using some blue paper from Crea Diem and a creamy/yellow color paper from Vintage Spring Basics.

I used the Spellbinders Rose Creations floral dies with the cream color paper and tinted the centers with some Ingvild Bolme chalk ink. The vine flourish was cut from a Cheery Lynn die called Fancy Flourish. I added a little texture with a Crafters Workshop stencil and texture paste. Finishing the design off with a few adhesive pearls.

If you are like me and don’t want to waste a bit of your Maja papers, then creating cards and tags are a great way to make good use of them.