Graphic 45 Brand Ambassador Call 2024 -2025

It has been a really long time. Though I've been rather inactive and did some projects here and there form time to time, in actual fact I was lurking around keeping myself updated on what's happening within the crafting community. And YES! I decided to head back and hope to be part of Graphic 45 for this 2024 - 2025 Brand Ambassador team after my last term with them in 2018.

For this year's project submission, I delved into Graphic 45's retired calendar collection, Children's Hour. This undertaking has been one of my most extensive projects, utilising the majority of the collection to create these 12 monthly journal pamphlets, each representing a month of the year. These pamphlets are housed in a handmade bookcase, crafted entirely from scratch.

There is so much photos can tell and I think a video tour might be better to show this project. For the very last minute, I decided to do a quick one.

To add a touch of uniqueness, I randomly stamped the sides of the bookcase with a G45 floral background stamp using Tsukineko Brilliance galaxy gold ink. The result is a textured yet not too overpowering effect. For embellishments, I incorporated my newly bought stitched flower and medallion dies from Spellbinders, a reflection to match all the pamphlets' front covers I have made. Loads of stitching work are done here!

Pamphlets are all hand-stitched individually, measuring 4" by 5.5", each having enough pages for a month's worth of writing if written on a single page daily. Because the calendar collection has each of its colours and designs, I simply use the design for the whole series without having to think much on colour and design matching.

Each pamphlet was stamped and embossed with gold with the month (unfortunately, G45 has retired this calendar stamp set) on the tab of the insert pages, which I created using the folder die from the G45 Folder & Sentiment die set.

This project took me over a week to complete with nearly 3-4 days of prep work before I could piece everything together. Nonetheless, it's a fulfilling one given I've not been crafting actively for the past year, and I hope through this ambassador call, I can bring more interesting projects should I get into the team with Graphic 45.

Cheers!

Supplies List:

• Graphic 45 Children's Hour collection (available at my ETSY)
• Graphic 45 Floral Background and Calendar (retired) stamp sets
• Graphic 45 Matt Pearls Gems (retired)
• Graphic 45 Folder & Sentiments (SB, AMZ) Tags & Flowers (SB, AMZ, AMZSG) and Policy & Decorative (AMZ, AMZSG) metal dies sets
• Spellbinders Stitched dies - Medallion (SB, AMZ) and Flower (SB, SPB, AMZ, AMZSG)
• Spellbinders Label Forty Nestabilities & D-lite Flourishes dies (retired)
• Ranger Ink Embossing Power in Gold (SB, AMZ)
• Versamark watermark ink (SB, AMZ, AMZSG)
• Tsukineko Brilliance ink in Galaxy Gold (AMZ, AMZSG)
• DMC Thread #676 - Old Gold (AMZ)
• Ornate Metal Feet (available at my ETSY)
• 80gsm Papers (for pages)
• Vellum

Legend - SB (Scrapbook.com), SPB (Spellbinders), AMZ (Amazon), AMZSG (Amazon.sg)

Compensated affiliated links used are at no cost to you, refer HERE for more information.

An Altered Patina Photo Frame

It's 2018! I hope everyone has a pleasant New Year. Over at my tiny country where I reside, it was raining over the countdown period; practically rained through the last day of 2017 to the first day of 2018. Quite a significant day to remember; raining through 2017 to 2018.  

From this year onwards, I'm coming back with more updates and video tutorials, continuing to share and inspire people alike within the community. And I hope I'm able to do this for as long as I could. Your earnest support and encouragement in the work I share do means a lot to me. Though I may be slow in certain ways and may not be able to respond, I do value each and every one of you who has shown your kind support and encouragement towards my work throughout these years. As I promise before, I'll make an effort to bring more exciting projects and tutorials that's easy to follow and learn. Pretty excited for this and I'm looking very forward for this come back. 

Without me saying further and get carried away with my excitement, I'm moving on to share this altered patina photo frame which I made it as a belated birthday gift for one of my sisters within the Church of Christ. 

Throughout the years, I've been buying and collecting quite a number of "alterable" items which I've this tendency to keep them first, then think later what to do. At the end of the day, I'll always ended up forgetting what I've bought and never get to use them. It's because of a patina paint set I had bought since early last year, I decided to whip something up. While digging into a huge box of "alterables" (this is where I tend to keep them, conveniently sealed beyond my physical eyes), I found this Ikea Kvill photo frame which I had already torn away the plastic packaging. So right on the spot, YES! YOU'LL BE THE ONE I'M GOING TO ALTER! Without much further thinking, it got to me that I should also do up a start to finish video tutorial for this. 

There's an abundant amount of patina effect tutorials available online which I believe there's isn't a standard way in obtaining the effect. Neither is there any straightforward way as well. Previously, I've created a "non-traditional" method in creating patina using mists and solvent ink during my term with Graphic 45 which I still enjoy doing it this way. Certainly, with ready-made paint set available commercially, it just makes creating the patina effect much easier. 

In most of my projects, I've this tendency to match the colours and design elements as closely as possible. Basically speaking, they need to be in harmony and collectively a theme. As I was planning this project out, I already had in mind what kind of effect I want, and I had this Unearth paper from Kaiser Kraft Antique Bazaar paper collection which I took the design as a reference to create the patina effect. 

Unearth, from Kaiser Craft Antique Bazaar collection

Besides owning a number of "alterables", I also have several dies I bought and never put into good use. Decided to use this opportunity to use my stash, I dug into my die collection library (once again) to search for suitable dies to use together with this frame. The rose die from Susan's Garden collection and Tim Holtz's tiny tattered florals dies finally came to their pilot use, after being kept for years (Oops!). Because it's patina, I do find using bronze/copper metallic papers for these flowers as one of the better options over regular cardstocks. Very unfortunately, the bronze metallic paper I used from Time Holtz's Kraft Core collection is no longer available. This does shows that I do hoard onto things long enough till they could go into retirement. Nevertheless, it's not really the end of the world, I manage to find alternatives which I've stated a few in the list of supplies below at the end of this post.

This beautiful Spellbinder's ornate die-cut frame is also making it's debut. Yeah! I know! A crafter can never have enough. Suddenly, I took noticed that I just have too much things that haven't been put into good use. Guess I'd need to make several craft debuts in the future.   

I got the son from my sister-in-Christ to quote some bible verses that will describe his mum well and got these verses printed out onto premium paper. The print-out was subsequently tea-dyed and distressed. I mounted the print-out onto a piece of chipboard before placing it on top of the die-cut frame. I trimmed the Unearth paper to size to fit the window and I used the patina design as the backing of the sentiment. If you take a closer look, the altered patina frame does matches up quite well with the designed paper. 

To perk up the look, a little golden fleur dresden will be just nice. And a final lettering completed the whole project.

Here is a full list of supplies I used for this project, with links to various places you can get them if you're interested:

• Ikea Kvill Ornate Photo Frame
• Finnabair Patina Effect Paste Set (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Finnabair Art Basic, Clear Gesso (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Tim Holtz Tiny Tattered Florals Thinlits (Scrapbook.com, Sizzix)
• Spellbinders 5x7 Reflective Moment Etched Die
• Tim Holtz Distressed Ink in Brushed Corduroy (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Copper Metallic Papers (Cardstock Warehouse, CutCardStock)
• Daler Rowney System 3 Acrylic Paint (pale gold no. 708)
• Dusty Attic Teeny Tiny ABC Set
• Susan's Garden Rose Thinlits (retired)
• Kaiser Craft Antique Bazaar - Unearth (retired)
• Ranger Rose Gold Stickles Glitter Glue
• Golden Fleur Dresden