A Rustic Garden Wedding Guest Book

Oh well, before I get into this... Happy 2019! Though a little late for the New Year greetings (it's March now!), I still feel there's a need to greet everyone who reads my blog. 💝

For the very first project of 2019, it's probably one major project to begin with that took me about a month plus to get this done up. Planning started as early as late December. Sharing here is one special wedding guest book I've done for one of my girlfriends, who got married recently. It's also one project that I decided to use it for Graphic 45 February challenge.  

Wedding guestbook is perhaps one of the basic essentials most couples would want to have during their big day, a book that allows all their friends and families to jot down their heartfelt blessings and messages. While it's easy to get the wedding planner to get one for you, my friend Sarah actually approached me to help her with this. What really touches me is that she entrust this entirely to me, believing I'd be able to deliver the very best for her. That's the best part, but it could also mean stress to me.

Knowing her wedding was going to be of a garden theme and would be held in a colonial house restaurant with a rich history, I thought a dainty wood-grain textured cover with a touch of gold and distressing brown would be more suited. Bearing in mind of the colour scheme Sarah was using for her wedding, Graphic 45 Princess collection is the way to go...

"Once Upon A Time" is title of the guest book within where I modified and re-engineering the pocket albums into a functional book by means of bookbinding. It took me a while to figure out how to integrate the book onto it's cover. After much thinking, I decided to keep the book separate from it's cover.

To make the entire guest book an interesting one, some of the couple's pictures were made detachable using magnets where they can place their photos anywhere they want. This will add some fun to it and not making the guest book a boring one. Rather it'd be very close to heart and personal.

Nearer towards the end, I decided to do up a mini album for the couple. To house them, I made a box from scratch as well. Everything made was made with thoughts of functionality and usability. Inasmuch as I could, I try to make this guest book as durable as it can last.

I used quite a lot of gold to brighten up the entire look mainly on the diecuts, a club kit I bought from Spellbinders that I also use it for Sarah's bridal shower card!

Well, this is the whole package I made for Sarah and Jason for their wedding day, which spans more than just any other guest book. To keep it short and sweet here, I've written a brief description over at Graphic 45 blog in how I made this entire package. Over here I just wanted to share the extend of my work and some thoughts on how I created this project, in hope to provide some inspiration.

Nonetheless, should any of your is interested to know the supplies I'm using for this project, the list is below with links to where to get them for your convenience:

• Graphic 45 Princess Collection
• 12" x 12" collection pad (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• 12" x 12" patterns and solids (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• 8" x 8" paper pad (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Ephemera cards (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Tags and pockets (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Chipboards (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Stickers (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Graphic 45 Staples
• Antique brass stamped metal brads
• Square tag and album in Kraft
• Square tags in Kraft
• Clearsnap Decades Dye Pad (Venetian Lace)
• Mixed Media
• Heavy white gesso
• Soft matte gel
• Light paste
• Golden rod stickles
• Spellbinders 
• Club kit (Fancy Floral Frame set)
• Shapeabilities (Lace Heart etched dies)
• Em-bossing fold'ers Bricks and Bark (discontinued)
• Sizzix Tim Holtz Ornamental Bigz Die
• Tim Holtz Kraft Stock Metallic 8" x 8" Gold & Silver Cardstock (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Finnabair Art Alchemy Metallique Wax in white gold (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Glossy Accent (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Aleene's Always Ready Tacky Glue (Blitsy)
• Dusty Attic chipboards (upper alphas, lower alphas)
• Other supplies (pearlescent craft paint, assorted fabric and satin ribbons, golden fleur dressden, jute string, mulberry leaves, elastic band, cream paper and cardstocks)

A Quartet of Masculine Grandeur Cards

Bonjour! Everyone! It's the very last day of 2018 and tomorrow will be a brand new year. 2019 is just round the corner! And today will be my very last post for this year over at my blog. It's a card project I made in November. I'm sorry that it had took me this long to present here on the very last day of 2018. Due to my busy schedule, finding time in between has proven quite a challenge for me. Nonetheless, I still manage to make it before 2019!

These masculine cards are especially made for 4 brethren who came all the way from the United States to Singapore, who travel afar in order to preach God's Word. It's a show of earnest appreciation and gratitude in the kind of work they do for the benefit of mankind. For this year, I choose a theme of masculine grandeur using various collection from Graphic 45 to create this quartet. 

Red and Black are the chosen colours as my base, with gold as the main focus. Placing Victorian clock as the main central element of the cards is exactly what was planned for. Though the design seems relatively simple at it's first look, the search in finding the perfect match with synchronization was indeed a challenging task. It took me close to a week to get all the necessary papers with the right colours and patterns together. Matching them up was another challenge to me, simply because I want them to look like a quartet, yet unique and different from one another. Though each of them is gifted to 4 individuals, but all share the same kind of look. When they're gathered together, they're consider  as ONE body; like a quartet of individuals that have different personalities.

A quartet of 2 blacks and 2 reds, which can be paired up as duos. However, all of them possess the same clock face. The clock die from Graphic 45 was honestly the best chosen choice for this project; timeless and classy. What I really love about this die is the intricate delicate design that make the clock a very Victorian one when diecut onto metallic gold cardstock. What's really interesting is that the clock hands are designed as such that they can be made movable, giving some dimensions to your project. 

Heartfelt personalized messages

Close up details on the card

I'd suppose such intricate cards need some sort of instructional manual in place to retain their glory. Therefore, I decided to come up with my very own version of card care manual (with some biblical essence injected within) to go with this quartet; enclosed within the policy envelopes. The introduction might seems like I'm the one narrating about my creation when read initially. However, when one takes a little more effort to read further within, the expression does reflects biblically on the main essence of God and His creations, and how mankind are a reflection of His creation (Genesis 1:27). Something worth pondering about our existence... 

Some tiny messages around the policy envelopes

The quartet with their respective policy envelopes

Last but not the least, not forgetting the packaging! These cards are carefully packed into polyacetate bags and sealed. As usual, I'm not ashamed to tell people to share and flaunt my work with some disclaimer's clauses and a butterfly on top as a messenger of the message. 😄 

That's about it for this year 2018! Till next year we shall meet again! I hereby wish everyone the most merriest 2019 New Year ahead. Not much New Year Resolution for me as it doesn't really works on me. I prefer to refresh my day and have resolutions on a frequently basis rather than keep it till the end of the year. This makes much more sense to me as life is full of uncertainties. There's so little you can control. Below is the list of supplies I used for this project with links to where to get them if you're interested:

• Graphic 45 Deluxe Collections
• Communique
• Raining Cats and Dogs
• Botanicabella
• Graphic 45 Past Collections
• Typography
• Good Ol' Sports
• Graphic 45 Square Tag, Clock Metal Dies 
• Graphic 45 Policy Envelopes
• Regular Red
• Regular Black
• Scrapbook Adhesives 3L Thin Square Foam
• Tim Holtz Kraft Stock Metallic 8" x 8" Gold & Silver Cardstock (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Own stash (brads, golden trim organza ribbon)

Magical Kewpie Post Tags

Perhaps my first rather familiar encounter with Kewpie was probably from a bottle of mayonnaise that's widely known as Kewpie Mayonnaise by Kewpie Corporation, a Japanese food manufacturer who popularize the condiment. I might have some personal "close up contacts" with Kewpie dolls while I was young however they didn't get into me till I had some Kewpie Mayonnaise! In fact, Kewpies are comic strip cartoon characters created and developed by Rose O'Neill, an American cartoonist and illustrator in 1909. As little as I know about Kewpies, I believe everyone of us has somehow have some sort of childhood encounter with them.

Well, I really have to say they are really cute! When I received my Graphic 45 Christmas Magic collection, I was delighted to see so many cuties within the collection and those Kewpies just caught my attention. They are way too adorable that I had to come up with something. Kewpie Post is what came into my mind back then. Combining with my love for flying matchboxes, I came up with an idea that they can "fly off" from the tags... 

Therefore... Using those cute little Kewpies as Post Dolls, here is what I've come up with...

My initial intention is to make the tags as a whole piece, without any separating elements or parts to them, but this seems like it would have probably "defeated the purpose" of adding wings onto the matchboxes. To make them removable and "flyable", I used magnets to "adhere" them together. Notice how these flying matchboxes "flying away" from their "bases"? That's practically the idea behind.

I used a variety of floral embellishment from mulberry ones to die-cuts holly leaves to create levels of dimensions. Used loads of metallic gold and iridescence here; from fanciful dollies to glittery flowers and ribbons. It's all these shimmerings elements that make the project stands out and not making these Kewpie dolls doing their job in vain.  

"Tis the Season" wreath is a stamped image from Graphic 45 previous Christmas collection, St. Nicholas, which I coloured with colour pencils to create a wreath base for the flying mtachbox to land onto. Subtly choosing colour pencils as my colouring medium to create this distinction, making the process in creating this tag a more "dimensional" one. After much thinking and searching for the right embellishments, I decided to make my very own tassles and insert them as "tails" to match the whole design using the metallic gold crochet yarn I found in a box of yarns and strings. 

Not forgetting these cute little Santa helpers, who play a vital part in making these magical Kewpie Post tags a more interesting one. They are also "removable" with magnets adhered at their backs where they can "jump" onto the wreath base on the tags or back to their respective matchboxes. Added a little jingle bell within each drawer adds some jingles as I pull the drawers. Since it's for this holiday season, I'd think this will add in some fun to the entire project.

Here is a very short and sweet video I made very last minute to show how the entire mechanism work with those magnets incorporated into this project:

Last but not the least, I kept the back of the tags as simple as possible so as not to complicate the design so much. I've provided some tips over at Graphic 45 blog which I didn't share it here. Though I'm a little late in sharing the story behind about this project, be sure to check the tips out at Graphic 45 blog to find out more. As usual, below is the list of supplies I used for this project with links to where to get them:

• Graphic 45 Christmas Magic Collection
• 12" x 12" collection pack  (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com) 
• 12" x 12" patterns and solids  (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com) 
• 8" x 8" paper pad (Blitsy,  (Scrapbook.com) 
• Ephemera cards (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Graphic 45 St. Nicholas Cling Stamp 1 (Tis the Season)
• Graphic 45 Metal Dies & Staples
• Regular tag, gears 
• Square tag, clock
• Antique brass stamped metal brads
• Clearsnap Decades Dye Pad (Venetian Lace)
• Spellbinders Metal Etched Dies (Fancy tags 2, Opulent ovals)
• Tim Holtz Mini Holiday Greens Thinlits (Scrapbook.com, Sizzix) 
• Tim Holtz Kraft Stock Metallic 8" x 8" Gold & Silver Cardstock (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Finnabair Art Alchemy Metallique Wax in white gold (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Glossy Accent (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Own stash (jingle bells, butterflies clear stamp, sparkling flowers, metallic gold dollies, organza ribbon)

Rustic Nature Wedding Guest Book

On 3rd March this year, I've witnessed the wedding of a lovely couple I know - Ernest and Stephanie. As part of my wedding gift to them, I did a guest book for them. It was also part of Canvas Corp July Wedding Challenge this July. A long overdue project update here. This entry was on draft mode for very long till the birth of their son Theopilus reminded me on this book. Without much talking, here is what I've made for them.

The guest book itself is a vintage ledger book from 7gypsies Architextures which I purchased it for this purpose. I merely did up a mixed media layout for them on the front cover. I used quite a number of die-cuts for this layout, mainly from Tim Holtz steel dies. I tried to match up to the "look" of the photos they provided me and decided upon a rustic, dainty nature look. As always, I love to centralize my design focus as this is one of my most preferred layout.

Loads of floral and swirls, together with touches of twine, burlap, handwritten script and woodgrain effects which I transformed bits of chipboards into. Since the front is already quite dimensional, I kept the back of the book as simple as possible.

Wedding is just only a ceremonial indication of a marriage between a man and a woman, what's really important is the marriage itself. Therefore, I didn't just stop at the front cover, and think it'd be better to have one more layout of this lovely couple right at the very first page of the book which marks as the very new beginning for them after their wedding.

I hope the guest book has been filled up! 

Below is a list of supplies I used for this project with some links included. Unfortunately, not all are available and most 7gypsies and Tattered Angels products can be purchase at Canvas Corp website itself:

• 7gypsies Architextures 
• Vintage 12" x 12" Ledger 
• Mix and Match Bee 8.5″x 11″ Book
• Mixed Media Pack
• Tattered Angels 
• High Impact Paints (Antique Gold & Platinum)
• Naturally Aged Kit – Rusty Metal (Faux Finish Paint Kit)
• Color Wash Paint Faux Finish (Verdigris)
• Glimmer Mist (Key Lime Pie)
• Sizzix Tim Holtz Dies
• Flourish and Scroll
• Tattered Floral (Sizzix, Scrapbook.com)
• Garden Greens (Sizzix, Scrapbook.com)
• Styled Labels
• Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black (Blitsy, Scrapbook.com)
• Own stash (burlap, jute twine, mini alpha chipboards, scripted handwriting & bark grain stamps)