Hello Maja friends! It’s Andrea coming to you one last time to bring you some delightful Maja Design goodness! This will be my last post as a design team member…I look back at my time here very fondly…Marie is wonderfully creative and generous, Jenny is super supportive and always helpful and the rest of the team, well, they’re just fabulous and wonderfully talented! I figured that my last post would be a collection of my very favorite Maja Design cards, so here we go: 
Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments over the past two years! Hope I’ve inspired you to go out there and create! 
Classes with Elena Olinevich… and the new A Gift For You
3 Write a commentGood morning folks!
Today I have some cards with the new A Gift For You collection to share. But first I want to tell you about a wonderful weekend I had some time ago.
In late August I had the privilege of meeting our own Elena Olinevich. We had so much fun. We had dinner with Marie, swam in papers in our warehouse, had some sightseeing and. Elena held classes and I attended two of them. Her classes are so personal, often with smaller groups to get the intimate feeling and be able to help everybody out.
So I thought I’d share the creations I made during her classes.
The first class I took was a canvas class where Elena taught different mixed media techniques.
We used the romantic Crea Diem collection in combination with Prima embellishments and different mediums.
Here’s a final close up where you can see the background work.
And here’s the class I took…
The next class Elena was holding was my favourite. We all got to choose whatever papers we wanted to use. Since there are so many Maja collections we all came up with papers from different collections. I don’t think I saw anyone picking the same papers, so all the albums were so different from each other. We also got embellishments depending on what papers we had chosen. I chose to use papers from the Life In The Country and Life By The Sea collections.
We used a lot of acryllics for the mini-album. I really loved that. They became new favourites of mine. 
Try to repeat that if you can. 😉
We used lots of different dies and mediums…
Elena really showed us the use of acryllic albums and embellishments.
Elena uses the acryllic sheets to make the album see through. Since I love to follow my albums from page to page I think this is a fantastic way to make it more visible.
And here you can see though the next page to see the previous one.
And here’s the page you saw through the acryllic before.
I really love this face…
And finally. Joel with his beloved IKEA jars…
This album was made during this class.
And now… a couple of Christmas cards made with the new A Gift For You collection that we have all been waiting for…
Joel’s first summer
3 Write a commentWe have had a fantastic summer filled with lots of sunshine and memories. Having a new baby at the house, your album’s get filled up with “first time” photos. Joel is no exception. So I created an album (8″x9″) with some of the photos from Joel’s first summer. Since we live on the countryside the Life In The Country collection was a perfect choice.
I have used Mod Podge to create the album cover. I simply tore papers apart and glued it to the cover and sealed it with Mod Podge. If you want to try it out, please remember that all layers must dry completely before adding a new one. I have cut out the holes with a knife and added some eyelets to the circular ones.
I added texture paste randomly and I also added some Weathered Wood Distress Stickles to the resin in the corner.
A tag created with Nestabilities. The bobbinet has been painted white and then I just added some ribbon and a cute pin. I like to hang all sorts of stuff on my mini-album rings.
What I really like with mini-albums is when you can see through the pages or the covers. It gives you a red thread to follow. Here you can see the photo from the first spread, together with the chipboard frames I used.
We are lucky to live a 20 minute drive from the west coast. We took refuge in Fiskebäckskil one really hot day, hoping for some breeze to cool us but no way. It was just as bad as back home. But it was Joel’s first time by the sea, so even if the album has been created with Life In The Country I thought it appropriate to use a bit of Life By The Sea for this photo.
I have used various punches from Fiskars and Martha Stewart for this album. Most flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Prima. The raw chipboard is from Scrap FX, printed from Bo Bunny and Prima. The chipboard album itself is from FabScraps.
I have used gesso and Distress Stickles on most of the raw chipboard in this album. All pearls has been created with Pearl Maker white. The rings go through a die cut hinge that continues on the next spread… following the red thread.
Here you can see the rest of the red hinges.
I really love this photo of Joel. He is so full of life and spoof, always laughing no matter what. All lace and ribbon are from LSS’s, metal and flowers by Prima. This page has got a door attached to the hinges that you can open up…
and here’s what’s inside. A couple of tags and a photo of Joel and uncle Jan on our terrace. I know it’s hard to see on the photo but Joel’s carrying a t-shirt saying “There’s nothing sweet about me”. We thought it appropriate since everybody thinks he’s so sweet. 
Moments chipboard by Prima, spinner by Tim Holtz.
Our little cutie pie refuses to wear a sun hat. This must be the first time he used it, because it got “lost” very quickly after that. The die cut in the corner continues on the following page…
… with the chipboard that says “Friends”.
Well. “Friends.” Osiris loves to walk around his stroller screaming for all he’s got while Joel’s sleeping to wake him up and Joel loves to chase his tail. So I guess they are even.
More texture paste and die cuts. I folded one of them so you can see both sides of the pattern paper. It turned out to a nice decoration to put some roses on.
Joel got his first swing this spring and he really likes it. Frames by Nestabilities, chipboard, resin and flowers by Prima.
As you can see I really like to use the paper stripes as decoration.
More cozy papers…
I shot this photo in our garden while Joel was constantly crawling around a picnic blanket. I was going to send it to my office, but all they could see was his back. 🙂 
This photo was shot while Joel was lying directly on the grass for the first time. He was really thoughtful and had a philosophic kind of expression that I liked while he was watching his hand. So I cut it in two. Tape, frame and tag die cuts by Tim Holtz.
Here’s a little family spread…
Daddy and Joel with the same tape that I used on the previous page, just rounding the corner. Metal by Prima, die cuts by Tim Holtz. 
Mommy and Joel. I have cut out the paper using the chipboard as template and then added it to the side of the album. I have used hinges here too, stretching over two pages. Same with the die cuts.
And here’s the last page. Joel got a pirate uv suit to use this summer and of course he needed a pirate baby pool to go along with it. Pirate flag and everything.
I have used most papers from the Life In The Country collection to create this album. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I did creating it.
Earthly Flowers
2 Write a commentMorning Maja friends! I’m so happy to say that I’ve recently received some happy mail in the form of ‘Coffee in the Arbour’! Delicate, dainty and ultra-feminine papers…I am in love! I had some sweet little daisy stickers hanging around my craft room (actually I had to dig them out) that went so well with the ‘White Daisies’ paper, so I married them to make this: 
I completed this card with some Buttercup liquid pearls, a Fleur De Lis Rectangle Nestability, a Deco Fan border punch and a paper distresser. I also pulled out some ‘Life in the Country’ paper to make this one: 
Wonderfully shabby and antique looking, I framed the medallion with a stained doily and some glitter. I added some Zva Creative pearl flourishes and a crinkled seam binding bow. For this next card, I upped the classy factor: 
Love me some Vintage Summer Basics! Framed with a Detailed Scallop Frame from Spellbinders, I added some Zva Creative pearl lines and Raspberry Liquid Pearls. All stamps used on these cards are courtesy of Verve.
Thanks for checking in…hope you like what you see! 
For Daddy
4 Write a commentMorning, Maja Fans! Welcome to the Maja Design blog today, it’s Maja here to share some Father’s Day inspiration.
I know many of you have already celebrated Father’s Day, but in Poland it comes on June 23rd and so we’re just getting ready with all the attractions 🙂 My boys asked me to make a layout for daddy with their photos and frame it so that he can put it on the wall in his studio. Knowing that, I had to go really flat which was a real challenge, I tell you! But finally I managed to make this:
Do you recognise the base papers? Yeah, that’s Coffee in the Arbour 🙂 It seems romantic shabby chic papers can do great for masculine projects too! And do you remember the patchwork background cards I shared in my previous post? I used the same technique in the background of my layout:
I punched some squares from the Life in the Country and Gammaldags Jul papers to add some red accents to the blue and brown colour palette, machine-sewed through them and then stamped some motives:
I added the title using a metal plaquette:
And finally a very humble – as for me – flowers and embellies cluster. I love adding metal charms! 🙂 I also brushed white gesso over the roses to match them to the whitened edges of the papers:
So, we have the layout for daddy, and my elder son made a matching card using the same papers 🙂
My younger son is a more of the drawing type, so he’ll be hand-drawing his card for Dad. And now we are almost ready to celebrate 🙂
Supplies:
Layout: Coffee in the Arbour: Smell of freshly brewed coffee bs, Butterflies are free bs, Blueberry cupcake, Blueberry cupcake bs; scraps of the Life in the country and Gammaldags Jul papers.
Other: flowers: Prima, stamps: Kaisercraft, Bo Bunny, Teresa Collins; wooden face, chipboard: Stempell & Kartoon; metal charms – from my stash.
Card: Coffe in the Arbour: Butterflies are free bs; Life in the country: Porch, Our Dear Summer Cottage.
Other: dies: Marianne Design, stamps: Marianne Design, Lemonade; twine: Divine Twine; charm: from my stash.
see you soon!
