Crate Paper

Guest Designer :: Evelyn Pratiwi Yusuf

As we say 'hello' to the weekend, a long time Crate Paper CP Gal is visiting us with a special, unexpected contribution. Evelyn Pratiwi Yusuf is a gifted photographer and paper craft artist who's talent is met with an elegant feel that is very much her own. We are delighted to have her as a guest. Welcome, Evelyn.

EVELYN PRATIWI YUSUF: Typically, I'm not one to partake in DIY project making. If it just so happens that I feel up to creating something pretty and the moment calls for it, I'll jump in headfirst!

Recently, we celebrated my baby boy's {Jasper} 1st Birthday. Before the celebration, I visited Pinterest in search of party ideas. Eventually, I decided upon a 'Lemonade Summer' birthday theme with the color combination yellow, brown and a little bit of gold.

In working with my chosen theme, I created a series of decorative centerpieces that included party bags using Maggie Holmes' Confetti collection and Craft Market's Mason Pocket Jars.

I started with three brown paper bags and decorated each one using the pocket jars and other odds and ends. The plan was to create 'birthday wish' bags for the guests to write down wishes for my baby boy on his special day. Later in life, he can read their wishes and be reminded of the event and those who love him.

Inside the bags, I tucked a random assortment of CP papers & tags for the guest to write on. I then leaned them up against canvas wrapped mason jars adorned with flowers, and a lemon & pencil.

After the party was over, I committed each wish to memory and then placed the pocket jar paper bags into Jasper's special box.

 

Summer Love Poolside Layout w/Jen Chapin

Did you know that tucked away in the Maggie Holmes Confetti collection is a large wood veneer heart frame? It's the cutest thing ever as you're about to find out...

 

JEN CHAPIN: Hello and welcome! Today I am sharing a summer-themed layout with you using Crate Paper's new Poolside collection as well as the fabulous wood veneer heart frame from Maggie Holmes' Confetti collection. I thought it would be a great compliment to my "summer love" title.

 

 

I started by adhering the heart frame to a piece of patterned paper with wet adhesive. After it was dry, I trimmed around the edges and adhered the heart to a piece of 'black and white striped' paper from Poolside. I set to work embellishing the different spaces in the frame, first with the gold sequin 'Love" -- what a great embellishment to use as a title!

 

 

I had this picture of my son which I am just in love with. I added a gold clip and used foam adhesive to adhere the picture to the layout. I kept my journaling simple with a few typed strips.

 

 

I love how this layout turned out -- lots of color, texture and dimension -- my favorite! Have you been mixing and matching Crate Paper's collections? We would love to see! Please link us up to your layouts in the comments so we can have a look!

Thank you so much for stopping by the blog today. Have a great one!

 

Shabby Chic Gift Bag & Card w/Melissa Phillips

We have another "pretty package" assembly up for admiration from our sweet and lovely Melissa Phillips. It includes both a card and gift bag using the Maggie Holmes Confetti collection and a sprinkling of American Crafts "WOW" glitter. They are quite the shabby chic pair!

MELISSA PHILLIPS: Hello there!  Today's project uses Crate Paper's Confetti collection to whip up some pretty packaging...one of my most favorite ways to use my crafting supplies :).

 

I began with a Sizzix gift bag die and patterned paper to create my gift bag.  I then selected a doily from the Crocheted Doily Garland, snipped it apart from the rest, and adhered it around the top edge of my gift bag to create a sweet, decorative topper.

Next it was time to start dressing up my gift bag using Confetti cardstock stickers, chipboard, wood shapes, and ephemera.  

For today's project I wanted to use the Confetti "WOW" glitter to add sparkle and shine to a few of my elements, so I added the cream tinsel glitter to the top of my birthday cake, and aqua glitter to my wood star. This is a really fun and easy way to bring in a little shimmer and make your projects shine.

I then created a coordinating card that I could present with the gift bag. I chose a set of colors that complimented my bag and tied both projects together.

Once again I added aqua Confetti glitter to the leaves on my chipboard flower...how could I possibly resist using such a gorgeous color?

A few sequins, cardstock stickers, and a sweet birdie from the Confetti Ephemera package and my card is complete.  I love all of the wonderful ways we can incorporate paper-crafting into our daily lives...occasions large and small.

Thanks for stopping in!

Melissa Phillips

Garland Gift Wrap :: Rebecca Luminarias

The Maggie Holmes Confetti Crochet Doily Garland is the centerpiece of today's gift wrap presentation with CP Gal, Rebecca Luminarias. Watch as she completely transforms this *uber* cute party accessory!

REBECCA LUMINARIAS: I truly believe you can turn just about anything into gift wrap...patterned paper, fabric, newspaper, vintage linens, string and twine, washi tape, children's art...I love that the possibilities are endless because it definitely gets my creative mind stirring to think of the next medium I'm going to use.  So how about this gorgeous garland from the Confetti collection?

It took just a kraft box, a few embellishments, and a doily from the garland to create some lovely-looking packages.  Because the crochet pieces make me think of antiques, I kept a neutral palette, in remembrance of a more old-fashioned way of gift wrapping--back before they had every kind of wrapping paper design under the sun.

I pulled in some pale pink elements from twine and crepe paper, and paired them with cream, black, and gold.  A ruffled crepe paper tag from Open Book, a glittered clothespin from Craft Market, an acetate letter, glitter star, tag, and flower from Confetti, handmade twine tassels...just a few random bits but when you piece them all together, they make a beautiful gift topper.

 

For an extra touch, I painted the edge of the "A" letter with a gold leaf pen.  It's kind of a trendy, modern look mixed with an antique feel and look at all of that lovely texture--if you tune in regularly to the Crate Paper blog, then you probably know how much I adore texture!

 

 

The "S" gift is simpler, but retains the mix of old and new with the addition of the fabric strip and the rustic, coppery butterfly charm.  I'm really pleased with the way these came out and I can't wait to give them away!

 

 

It's actually pretty simple to complete this ensemble, too--a few inches of crepe paper, a strip of fabric, the gift tag from the Confetti ephemera pack, and the acetate "S".  Then I clipped the tassel to those pieces and secured the entire set to the garland.  Underneath the garland, you can see the very feint appearance of a pink glitter flower, also from the Confetti ephemera pack.  I wanted only a hint of it to show through.

 

 

Just a dab of Fabri-Tac keeps the butterfly in place, but if you'd rather string it onto the tassel or use a jump ring, either of those would work, as well.

 

 

I hope you'll give this gift wrap a try, or at the very least, look beyond the scope of traditional paper and ribbon.  You can do amazing things if you think 'outside the box'!

 

Summer Inspired Mason Jars w/Laetitia Poissy

You don't have to go overboard with our Mason Jar Pockets to make something cute and gift-worthy. Laetitia Poissy has a surprise glassine bag idea that is simple and prettier than anything you'll find at a store.

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LAETITIA POISSY: There are a multitude of ways to use Poolside's beautiful mason jar pockets. Today, I want to present two different projects that give boost to the jar's cuteness factor.

This first creation is a quaint gift bag meant to hold small surprises like candy or whatever type of tiny something or other you might have in mind.

It's quite simple to put together. I selected an assembly of small items from the Poolside & Confetti collections. I then chose a blend of sequins that corresponded with my embellishments and had a 'festive' feel.

I slipped the sequins inside the jar, leaving them to roam freely.

Underneath the jar, I layered two sheets of pattern paper and stitched around the top to create a 'sort of frame' for the jar to sit in. Finally, I decorated the jar with my chosen embellishments, keeping them vertical and somewhat overlapped.

The finished bag includes a cute gold glitter clip from Crate's Craft Market collection. Don't forget to add treats to the inside!

Moving on to my next project, a "holiday at sea" mini album, I went a slightly different direction with the jars.

I love the idea of pairing a special memento with a photo, together, in one of the mason jar pockets. Here, I captured a photo of my little girl walking in the sand while visiting a beach on holiday. I tucked it inside one of the jars and added a sprinkling of sand.

 To keep with a Summer theme for my album, I accented the jar with a popsicle and sun from Poolside's Ephemera Pack. I love the collection! It makes me want to take a second vacation!

 And there you have it, two jars --> two ways! Don't forget about our Poolside Mason Jar Challenge that is currently in the works–get the full scoop HERE.

Spring into Color with Crate Paper!

Cute & Colorful is where it's at! Today, Maria Lacuesta plays hostess to a pretty desktop image that is the inspiration for her layout and playful color palette. Everything about it is darling!

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Spring always makes me a little giddy. After a long winter, I dressed up my computer with this cute and colorful wallpaper. I used it as inspiration for my layout this week because I fell in love with the polka-dotted whimsy and amazing hues.

(Design Love Fest: Dress Your Tech)

The color palette: 
Gold, Beige, Yellow, Orange, Pink, Fuchsia & Red

These photos are from a recent trip to Shake Shack. It finally felt like Spring and my boyfriend and I had fun walking around the city and eating delicious food. It was definitely a celebration and I knew I wanted to document this memory for my Spring page.

I also love that my photos have pops of red, orange, and beige that tie in with my color palette. The rest of the hues were easy to incorporate with papers from the 'Confetti' collection by Maggie Holmes.

I'm in LOVE with the sequin stickers from the new 'Poolside' collection and used one to mimic the typographical feel of my inspiration image. I also grabbed a couple of elements from the Poolside ephemera pack to help reinforce my color palette.

To finish, I added some messy stitching and journaling strips--my favorite!

Spring into Color with Crate Paper!

Do you ever find yourself turning to images of floral bouquets for color inspiration? They're available in abundance at Pinterest these days, and pinning them can become its own addiction, especially when there's a handy-dandy color palette included!

As part of this week's Spring into Color feature, Melissa Phillips mimics a beautiful arrangement of flowers to create a set of showy tags flocked with flowers, birds and butterflies. They are so, so Spring-y!

(stylyze.com)

I love color and its way of creating emotion and feeling, such as in this lovely, vibrant photo above.  How can you not be happy and energized by soaking it in? I've named the colors shown in the photo the following:

~Golden Apricot

~Kiss Me Pink

~Ballet Slipper 

~Grandma's Bloomers 

~Sea Glass

Using this color combination, I created a set of tags made up of elements from the Confetti collection and had so much fun doing so. I always enjoy starting with a cream of white base and so each tag contains a large amount of Grandma's Bloomers from which I started building.

I always love using Crate Paper dies to create unique, handmade embellishments and used the Confetti dies for my first tag, creating layers from Ballet Slipper, Kiss Me Pink, and shades of Golden Apricot.  

The Confetti vellum paper is a fun element to bring in and creates wonderful, translucent layers.  I've used it here for my top tag layer, and then followed up with two more die cut tags from white cardstock, and Confetti patterned paper.  Layering is so much fun and using white or vellum as your base, makes it easy to build on by adding pops of color.

Lovely little bits of Sea Glass splashed here and there create a soft focal point while bringing the other colors together.

Kiss Me Pink in the textural form is used with the fabric brad at the top of my tag, and mixed with stripes of gold on my chipboard number 4.

I love bringing in soft and subtle color and shimmer through the use of sequins.  They can certainly make a project pop, or very gently just add a bit of character by stepping up a project.

The sparkle in this chipboard frame shows hues of blue, but deep within, soft Sea Glass can be found and that's what I love so much about glitter.  It's like velvet with so much texture and depth :).

Love this darling Ballet Slipper balloon accented with sequins that shine with different shades of pink...isn't it fun to explore the many different shades of just one single color. Enchanting!

Splashes of Golden Apricot here and there remind me of the sunshine. Perfectly springy and delicious to my eyes.

Hope you'll grab yourself a beautiful color combination and spoil your senses by getting creative and exploring the effects color can have on you and your creativity.
Enjoy your day!

Melissa Phillips

Spring into Color with Crate Paper!

 
We're creating with bright, bold color! All week long, our awesome design team is going to infiltrate your world with colorful creations you won't want to miss. It's a mix & match of your favorite Crate Paper collections and straight up saturated color. The CP blog is coming to life!

Rebecca Luminarias is the ultimate knick-knack crafter and color enthusiast! She is first in line to talk COLOR!
 

When given this assignment, I turned to the ultimate in bright colors: fluorescents.  You can't get much brighter than that, right?  In trolling the internet for a neon scheme that wasn't too cheesy, I actually found two sources for inspiration.  The first was the "bright" part of the equation.  When I saw this photo with the vibrant trays and the pretty floral rug, I thought it offered plenty of options.  They are toned-down neon, but still lively and saturated.  The second source I'll talk about a bit later...

{Photo Credit: Brit + Co}

The challenge:  There aren't many neon hues in the Crate Paper collections, so I had to get creative.  I first looked through my own stash of supplies to find washi tape, thread, and crepe paper which would serve as the fluorescent base for each tag.  After that, I went pretty far back through the troves of Crate lines to find some bright accessories that would complement and balance the neon.

 

 

 

In the end, I didn't end up using most of the pieces I found!  But they did add interest when it came to photographing the project.  I settled on using mainly items from the Confetti collection and paired them with stacked washi tags and a few other everyday items--the crepe paper and thread, along with some lace.

 

 

Being that I was designing with neon, I wanted to then create tags with a more modern, graphic look, rather than going with soft and sweet, which I suppose has become my norm.  There are traces of sweetness--the resin birds and flower, the gold sequin leaf, and the lace bits--but overall, the feel, I think, is bolder.  That's why, instead of the cute bow embellishments, I chose the two-toned diamond elements.

 

 

I was pretty excited about all of the mini clothespins I still had in my hoarding pile (one instance where that has actually paid off!).  They are from DIY Shop and one of the older Maggie Holmes collections and at the time, I kept them because I was mad for neon.  As it turns out, all these years later, I'm still mad for neon!

 

 

Because I was (mostly) going for bold, I paired the bright neon and white tags with the deep black and gold sayings.  This contrast is striking.

 

 

Seeing the photographs on my computer screen, I love the bold black and in hindsight would have probably switched out the 'pretty' phrase on the tag below with another black sticker.  But this was the very first tag that I finished and at the time, I loved it.  I still do, actually--the complimentary pairing of the aqua and coral is much more dynamic in real life than it looks in my photos.  I have a very difficult time capturing the true essence of fluorescents with the camera.

 

 

Remember I had 2 inspiration photos?  The first was bold and bright; the second is a bit softer, but what actually influenced me were the patterns and textures.

 

{Photo Credit: El Rancho Relaxo} 

 

I incorporated bits of this into my tags, using the shades of bright aqua/coral and the black dot patterned papers (Confetti's 'Life of the Party' and 'Garden Party').  And because it's difficult to capture the fluorescents, especially when I'm using a plain white background, I decided to use a linen/tweedy canvas as my backdrop.  While it's still not perfect, I think it definitely helped.

 

 

 

Although the idea of stepping out of my soft and sweet comfort zone was a bit scary at first, I ended up embracing this challenge and maybe even finding a whole new color scheme to adore!

 

 

A Confetti Birthday Mailbox & Matching Tag

 So sweet & loving, this birthday mailbox from Melissa Phillips takes advantage of Maggie Holmes' Confetti Hardware Kit & Flower Die-Cut set. It's gift giving at its cutest! 

I am so enjoying the new Crate Paper Confetti collection and today's projects use it to create a fun gift ensemble for the birthday girl.  

I began with a mailbox die from Sizzix and after selecting some fun, coordinating patterns for the body, ends, and flag for my mailbox, began die cutting and assembling.

Mixing and matching patterns and colors is my favorite way to create and the Confetti collection is like being in a candy store with so many playful possibilities and combinations waiting to be explored.

After assembling my mailbox, I started adding my favorite toppings and embellishments including Confetti Ephemera Hardware, chipboard, and cardstock stickers.  

I have been excited to use the beautiful Confetti dies and so once again, I chose a few different patterned papers in which to construct a lovely layered flower.  I even threw in a layer of wide, vintage trim to bring in more texture and softness.  I added sequins and more Confetti Hardware to the center of my flowers and added hand-cut Confetti banners to add a sentiment mixed in with the layered flowers.

Inside, well...what's a girl to package up in this fun little box?  For now chocolate will do :).  

I created a tag to coordinate with my packaging that I can either nestle inside the mailbox or hang from the outside.

The way that all of the pieces of the Confetti collection work together, make creating such a snap and so much fun.  I adore the darling elements in the Hardware package and have used a few of them on my tag including the metal bow clip, glittered heart, and enamel sparrow.

At the base of my tag I used more hand-cut banners, chipboard, and a wood heart.  A lovely mix of colors to finish off a sweet, heartfelt birthday package.

Thanks for stopping by!

Melissa Phillips

A Trip to New York & Pocket Page Scrapbooking

Crate Paper's trendy CP Gal, Maria Lacuesta, is highlighting a two-page spread using a streamlined memory keeping system that makes scrapbooking everyday adventures a breeze. There's even a bit of Maggie Holmes' Confetti as an added bonus–come check out this fabulous duo set-up!

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This week, I'm going back in time and documenting a fun trip to New York I took in the summer of 2013. I plan to devote multiple spreads in my 6" x 8" album to this memory and these two pages will serve as an introduction to the rest of my photos from the trip.

It took a long time for me to finally find a memory keeping system that I could actually keep up with and pocket pages have really helped to stream line my work flow. I've always been drawn to grids, collecting memorabilia, and documenting everyday moments, so my attraction to pocket pages was no surprise. But really, the best thing about this memory keeping system is how fast and easy layouts come together. Now that I have a rhythm with my scrapbooking, I can revisit unfinished albums and continue working on them.

These two pages came together really quickly because as I've mentioned, I've been able to stream line my process. I definitely like trying new things, but at the same time, I have favorite techniques that I incorporate into almost all of my layouts. This helps me maintain a comfortable work flow and put together layouts really quickly. Practice makes perfect!

First, I gathered up my supplies. If you're anything like me, you have a ton of supplies and I like to limit my options at the beginning of my creative process, otherwise, I tend to get overwhelmed. This week, I was dying to work with the Confetti collection by Maggie Holmes. I'm absolutely in love with all of the patterns and embellishments and I know I'll be able to use it on all sorts of different projects.

Then, I thought about what photos I wanted to use and made a rough sketch of my layout. I decided to go with a full page photo, one of my favorite compositions in my albums. Next, I did some editing in Photoshop and I printed my photo at home using my Canon Pixma iX6580. I decided to go light with my embellishing and simply added some text right onto my photo, another technique you'll see again and again in my work. For this page, I used the really great foam Thickers in the Confetti collection.

On the opposite side, I layered a PP with a grid of 2" x 2" pockets over another full page pocket, but this time, I decided to use a fun patterned paper from the Confetti collection instead of a photo. In the small pockets, I added some playful embellishments and I thought the dotted stripes of the patterned paper added interest to my layout without becoming too busy or distracting. All of the embellishments lay securely in the small pockets except for that cute little Ampersand chip, so I quickly stitched the opening closed with my sewing machine.

When working with see-through compositions in my pocket pages, I always try to make sure the backside of my pages remain cohesive to the layout. In other words, I wanted to make sure my page of embellishments looked good layered over my large photo when I flipped the page. And finally, as a finishing touch, I added the "remember" sticker, keeping things simple, but still interesting.

In the end, I loved how the pages turned out and I didn't have to spend a lot of time on them. I find that working on my albums in small, manageable chunks keeps things fresh and I stay motivated and creative. One of the most important lessons I've learned as I've developed my work flow is that just because I keep things simple that doesn't mean I can't add touches that still create a lot of impact.