Inspiration Vacation: Summer Crafts and Craft Challenge Winner Announcement!

Hello Crafters,

Happy Friday and thank you for stopping by and seeing us on this lovely summer day! Today is exciting for so many reasons. We have amazing summer craft ideas from our design team, and we have two winners to announce for this week's craft challenge! We have had so much fun featuring all of these amazing summer-inspired crafts! We want to thank our amazing design team for all of their hard work, and big thanks to all of our readers, and everyone who submitted projects for this week's challenge! Our randomly chosen winners are: 

Melissa Hampton and Margreet Westerling. Here are the great projects they created for this week's challenege! Ladies, please email us at info@g45papers.com with your contact information so that we can send you your prize! This first adorable project was made by Melissa Hampton.

And here is Margreet's wonderful summer mini album! You can see more photos of this sweet mini on our Facebook page! You can also see all the beautiful crafts that were submitted for this week's challenge. Thank you all so much for sharing your amazing work with us!

Okay, lets get to the crafts! Today we have a stunning summer layout by the amazing Yuka Hino, as well as a gorgeous and fun altered lifeguard birdhouse by Nancy Wethington. Nancy's project also includes a fabulous tutorial! We hope today's crafts give you some great ideas for your weekend crafting. This first project is a splendid On the Boardwalk layout by Yuka Hino. This LO features beautiful paper flowers, splendid central photos, and a wonderful use for our Ornate Metal Door Plate and Knob Staples. Take a look!

Graphic 45 Supplies:

On the Boardwalk Collection: On the Boardwalk, She Sells Seashells, Seaside Chic, High Style Holiday, Life's a Beach, By The Beautiful Sea, Bathing Beauties

Once Upon a Springtime Collection: Tiny Treasures, Primrose Cottage, Frames

Steampunk Debutante Collection: Steampunk Debutante

Times Nouveau Collection: Alphabet

Staples: Ornate Metal Door Plate and Knob Staples

 

Other Supplies:

Chipboards: The Dusty Attic

Brads: Zva Creative, BasicGrey

Dies: Sizzix, QuicKutz, Wonder House

Stamp: Prima Marketing Inc

Stickles: Ranger

Ink: Tsukineko

Adhesive: Tombow, Glue Dots

Acrylic Color

This next creation was made by Nancy Wethington. It's a gorgeous altered lifeguard birdhouse that features On the Boardwalk. This adorable and fun piece is another example of Nancy's amazing imagination and talent. She's even included a tutorial to help inspire you! This sweet house would make the perfect piece of summer home decor, as well as an amazing gift for someone you love! Here is what Nancy had to say about her techniques for creating this lovely little house.

Found this lifeguard bird house at my local craft store and immediately thought of On The Boardwalk Collection! I like to keep some type of centerpiece in the middle of my dining room table and thought this would be a good addition.

Started off by staining the entire house with watered down acrylic paints.  Then got to work cutting up the words on Summer Crush to attach to the roof.  Once that was done, I used the leftover Summer Crush and a punch to use the small circles on the edge of the roofline.  Attached both the words and small circles with 3-in-1 glue.   A bottle cap filled with Summer Crush and the Coney Island New York sign (also from Summer Crush) completed the rooftop.

 
 

Cut out a square of She Sells Seashells for the *water* and glued that to the bottom of the lifeguard house.  Then adhered small strips of On The Boardwalk to the door frame and bottom of the house. 
 
Next step was to add the people.  Cut out the 3 men from Coney Island and adhered to one side with Glossy Accents.  Added lots of Glossy Accents to the bottom and adhered a piece of driftwood to cover the missing arm and leg from the man standing on the right side.  Then added sand to the bottom of their legs to make them look as if they're standing in sand.

 

 

Used one of the Bathing Beauties under the lifeguard house.  Since I didn't want the back of the paper to show through the front, I added another piece of driftwood and adhered her to the driftwood.  Added sand to the bottom of that vignette.

    

The lifeguard house needed a lifeguard so added the muscle man from On The Boardwalk.  Adhered him to the front of the house and . . . you guessed it . . . added sand.  I adhered all the sand in this project with Glossy Accents.  Simply poured a lot of Glossy Accents to wherever I wanted sand, then sprinkled the sand on top and let dry before I took any of the loose sand away.  If you pour on the sand and sprinkle off right away, you may have blank spots.  So be patient and let it dry first.
 
Took the *to the beach* sign from High Style Holiday and, after attaching two brads, strung the sign to the side of the lifeguard house with roping.  Added a bit of Stickles to the sign to give it some punch.

 
 

The last step was to string some fishnet around the lifeguard house, add more sand and a couple of pieces of sea glass and my project was complete.

 

Supplies:

Graphic 45: On The Boardwalk Collection:  High Style Holiday; On The Boardwalk; Coney Island; She Sells Seashells; Summer Crush; Bathing Beauties
Ranger Glossy Accents
3-in-1 Glue
Martha Stewart scallop circle punch
EK Success small circle punch
Acrylic Paint:  Simply Paint Turquoise; Americana Burnt Umber
We R Memory Keepers: Crop-a-Dile; eyelets
Miscellaneous: bottle cap; sand; fishing net; sea glass; birdhouse; rope

Well, that's all for today. We want to thank Yuka Hino and Nancy Wethington for their superb work today. We hope to see you all back her on Monday for more amazing craft ideas and a new weekly blog contest. We hope you all get some time to be creative this weekend.

Happy Papercrafting!

Team Graphic 45

Comments

[Ephémère13]

You are amazing....gorgeous creation, I like all. Congratulation, it's great!
C'est tout simplement merveilleux, quel talent, j'adore!

[Melissa Hampton]

Sooo excited to win a prize pack!! Love the mini by Margreet, and the projects by Yuka and Nancy are phenomenal. Thanks so much Graphic 45, I love all of your paper!!!!

[gio]

Such a wonderful project!!

[cat lacigale]

amazing projects !

[Nicole Eccles]

Nancy, I absolutely love your lifeguard birdhouse! So fun and creative! Yuko, your layout is truly stunning. Such fabulous projects!!

[Sharon Gullikson]

WOW, those are all amazingly wonderful!

[b. poteraj]

Ok, I'm making the bucket

[Natasha G.P.]

Those are too cute!

[Margreet]

Wow can't believe that I really won!! Thank you so much.
Melissa's project is really great too!
I just LOVE the lifeguard birdhouse. Really awesome! The layout is so beautiful.

[rebekah]

OMG "Margreet's wonderful summer mini album!" is so amazing i'm feeling light headed!! i'm SOOO in flippin love with this! WOW congrats to you!! and the following project/a layout - by yuka is just beautiful!

[Nancy Ward]

I posted a link to your blog today.

Nancy Ward
PaperFriendly
http://www.nancywardcrafts.com