Articles : Creative Team Reveals

Graphic 45 Renaissance Faire

Inspiring simple gorgeous vintage looks

I was so excited when I found out that I got to work with the Graphic 45 Renaissance Faire line this month. Not only is it my first official month as a member of the ACOT CT, but I adore this line of papers! I love vintage looks, but I also love color, so the rich jewel tones of this line really spoke to me. Also, I have literally thousands of photos from a trip to Europe in 2004 that I have grown completely bored with scrapping. This line inspired me to scrap some more of them because the patterns are just so perfect for them. However, when I got these papers in my hands I found that they worked for lots more than just my Europe photos.

Since I had planned a couple of Europe pages before I actually received the papers, I started with those pages.

For this first page I used the September montly challenge sketch, shown below, and adapted it a little bit.

First, I took the background cardstock and drew pencil lines where I wanted the two distressed borders to be. Taking advantage of the Coredinations cardstock, I placed the paper on the edge of my glass mat (any straight hard edge would work) so that the edge of the glass was right under my pencil lines and then I sanded along the edge to expose the colored center of the cardstock. I also sanded the edges of all the papers and photos. Next I arranged the photos and papers to be evenly spaced and tacked them down with a little bit of adhesive in the center of each one. (I put the adhesive in the center so I could peel up the edges to cut out the circles and so the needle on my sewing machine would not get all gummed up when I sewed the edges.) To create the cut-out circles, I traced two different sized round objects onto the page in pencil. Then I peeled the papers up and cut out the circles by hand along the pencil lines and lightly sanded the cut out parts. Next I stitched along all the edges. The large title circle proved a little difficult to stitch around and my stitching wasnt even close to a circle so I decided to go around it a bunch of times to make it more uniform. That was a happy mistake becuase I love how it turned out. Finally, I topped it off with the Jenni Bowlin letter stickers and the prima flower with the Making Memories brad. This page is one of my new favorites because it is vintage and distressed, but also clean and graphic. It's an interesting combo don't you think?

This next page was inspired by the background paper shown below. I thought it would be fun to cut out the letters to create an interestingly shaped 'window'.

After I cut out the center, distressed the edges and flipped the paper over, I decided to fill the opening with felt. I stamped the felt with some staz on ink to give it a little more pizzazz, then I sewed it to the background paper. I distressed the edges of all the papers and then I also sanded some lines onto the top of the photos and the paper. I wanted the title to show up more so I haphazardly brushed some paint on the spot that I wanted it. For the flower, I traced a fancy pants felt shape onto a scrap of the blue paper and cut it out, then layered the brown fancy pants felt flower on top, and the prima leaves underneath, and topped it off with the making memories brad.

Next I decided to tackle the gorgeous paper shown below. This paper is the icon of this line and is undeniably beautiful, but this kind of detailed large image laden paper can be intimidating. When working with this type of paper, I often like to cut out individual elements, but in this case I wanted to capitalize on the sheer beauty of this piece. So I decided to use a large portion of it to create an altered item.

This altered item was unbelievably easy to make - even I was surprised. I got this wallet at the dollar store a while ago, but didnt know what to do with it. When I saw this paper, I just knew it would be perfect!  I coated the outside of the wallet in Mod Podge to adhere the paper, being careful not to stretch it too tightly so it would still be easy to fold the wallet, but the fabric of the wallet was already the right size, so I didnt really have to worry too much. After it dried, I turned it over and sewed along the same stitching that was originally used on the wallet. Then I turned it back over and again sewed along that same line so that the thread would show up on the front. Next, I trimmed off the excess paper before covering it again with Mod Podge to seal the paper and prevent tearing. Finally, I glued a little black metal detail on the bottom snap, and some metal embellishments on top of the outside of the snap. Now that it is finished, it actually kind of looks like leather with the semigloss mod podge on it, and the texture of the wallet underneath.

With the leftover paper from the wallet I created this page. I thought the beautiful ladies would go well with some elegant wedding photos. When I saw these photos of us all getting ready at my wedding I just knew it would be perfect! I cut the border from another Graphic 45 paper to frame the page and make it even more elegant. The photos already had the white borders which was just perfect! To make the flower I just rolled some of the Jenni Bowlin scalloped crepe ribbon and then took a few stitches on the underside to hold it together.

Finally, while I was playing with these papers I noticed that there were a lot of reds and greens in them, and thought they would make some great Christmas cards (or layouts). I created this card using a vintage santa image from my stash and a bunch of scraps from my other projects. The ribbon is Maya Road.

Products used for this Reveal

About the author ...
Megan has been scrapbooking since 2004. She has been a member of the ACOT CT since September 2009. Besides scrapbooking, and specifically challenges and scrappy products, Megan enjoys reading, watching TV, gardening, and traveling. She currently resides near Philadelphia, PA with her husband, daughter and dog.

Published on 09/15/2009. Submitted by megamay