How To Get Playful With Pastels & G45 Papers!

Hello G45ers,

Happy Thursday and welcome to another fantastic day here at the Graphic 45 blog. Today we are celebrating the beauty of the classic Graphic 45 pastel color pallet. Obviously color is a very big deal here at Graphic 45. We are well known for both our richly saturated color pallet and our delicate and elegant pastel color pallet. Today you will see some amazing crafts that highlight fabulous uses of pastels with our collections Little Darlings and A Ladies Diary. These creations are so pretty and fun! You can't help but fall head over heals in love with pastels! There's an adorable layout by Gloria Stengel that's got a fun twist! Gloria took one of her first layouts and gave it a Graphic 45 makeover! What a great idea! Plus there's a marvelous nameplate by Maiko Miwa! Get ready to be wowed because today's crafts are simply outstanding!

We just want to give you all a quick reminder about this week's blog contest! In honor of the fabulous Jim, The Gentleman Crafter, we're giving away 3 original works of art that Jim has made! There's a stunning card featuring A Ladies' Diary, a 5x8 altered art box that's all decked out in Nutcracker Sweet, plus a fantastic Happy Haunting tag! We're also giving away a Nutcracker Sweet 8x8 Paper Pad, Nutcracker Sweet Stamp Set, Le Cirque 8x8 Paper Pad, Le Cirque Stamp Set and Graphic 45 Metal Butterflies! The only way to enter to win this amazing prize pack is by leaving us a blog or Facebook comment this week! We will be choosing one random winner from this week's comments and announcing them on our blog tomorrow! So stay tuned!

This first craft is a true inspiration. Gloria Stengel took one of her very first layouts and gave it a makeover! This is a really fun idea! She used the Graphic 45 collection Little Darlings which is a true celebration of stunning pastels! You can see how perfectly these soft colors look with adorable photos from childhood. By layering the beautiful papers and lovely colors its easy to create an unforgettable work of art! You can really see the difference between the two layouts. Those pastels make the final layout a true vintage-inspired treasure! Add some beautiful embellishments and a sweet sentiment and you've got a gorgeous layout that you'll cherish for a lifetime! Here is what Gloria had to say about these two LOs!

"This is one of the first layouts I made when I started scrapbooking in 1996.  Note the use of large die cut shapes and random stickers. I also use some ill-composed snapshots of my daughter, Laura, with my mom, my husband, my son, and me." -Gloria Stengel

"This is my layout redesign, using the Graphic 45 Little Darlings Collection and a studio portrait of Laura at 18 months. I could not find any suitable baby photos as I scrapped them all, and she was born before the digital photo age!" -Gloria Stengel

Supplies:

Graphic 45 papers:

Little Darlings Peek-A-Boo, Rock-A-Bye, Heaven Sent, cardstock stickers, chipboard shapes

Graphic 45 Staples:

Metal Key, Metal Keyhole

Ink: Clearsnap Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink Rose Coral; Ranger Distress Spun Sugar, Old Paper

Die cuts: My Favorite Things Fishtail Flag Stax; Spellbinders Asian Accents border

Flowers: Petaloo, Wild Orchid Crafts

Doily: craft store

Tools: Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Spellbinders Grand Calibur

Adhesive: Scotch 3M tape; Heidi Swapp Scrappy Glue

And now we have another pretty pastel craft creation for you all to enjoy! Here is a gorgeous nameplate by Maiko Miwa. This adorable little accessory is like so unique and fun! Maiko used our stunning collection A Ladies Diary as well as the new Graphic 45 Metal Staples such as the Orante Metal Label Holder in this splendid creation. By adding a few fun embellishments and A Ladies' Diary Alphabet Stickers, Maiko created this sweet and easy nameplate! Pastels are such beautifully soothing colors. Bring some calm to your crafting table with fabulous Graphic 45 pastels!

Supplies:

Metal Butterflies

Metal Clothespins

Ornate Metal Keys

Ornate Metal Label Holder

Metal Tag Staples

Afternoon Tea(paper)

Garden Stroll(paper)

A Ladies' Diary Alphabet Stickers

flowers,stones,candygems:prima

Ribbon:MayArts

Gesso and ModeringPaste:liquitex

Stickles:Ranger

That's all for today, G45ers. We hope you all enjoyed today's pastel party! Please come back and see us tomorrow for more incredible crafts and a blog prize winner announcement! We want to thank Gloria Stengel and Maiko Miwa for their fantastic creations today. We wish you all a very happy day!

With Love and Pretty Paper,

Your Friends at Graphic 45

Comments

[Pat Von Minden]

I love the pastel layout. What a great idea to color the embellishments white. The prize package is to die for! Would love to win it.

[Sue B.]

I have pages just like yours. My friend Missy calls that sticker snizz. LOL we have come a long way.

[Gitte]

Wonderful creations. The prize is awesome.

[Amy Kluchesky]

I feel so much better. I thought I was the only one who wished they could go back and have a redo of their scrapbooks. It is funny how back then I was trying to get the most for my money. I would buy the stacks that were cheap and one-sided and I'd only like about 1/3 of them. The pages never looked good and did not coordinate well. I would cram as many pictures as I could fit on a page to save money and get them done faster. Now I'd rather have one nicely embellished page with great paper than have 20 of those old pages. I also see the importance of great photography or a really great camera. -Idaho Amy

[Cindy Roderique]

Great projects! Oh I have so many scrapbooks with the random stickers and doodling, we have all come such a long way!!

[Loris v.]

The prize is amazing.

[julie Tucker-Wolek]

I loveeeeee all of these!!! Loving that make over!!!

[Cindy Lou]

The redo is very nice and brings back smiles of my older books. I like to compare how much I have grown in the world of art, so when I do a redo, I just scan the photo's and start a new page. I see all the old open white space, and pictures without mats on my old layouts and think oh my, how far we have come since the 1980's LOL

[vihreantalonunelmat]

Love, love, love...that's all I can say about these pastels...love so much!

[Marilyn Hughes]

I'm not a big pastel fan but these are great!

[Athanasia]

Beautiful work! The prize is amazing too!

[Sharon Belanger]

Love, love, love pastels. Awesome giveaway, would love to win. TFS.

[Sharon Young]

Pretty in pink! Great projects. Love to see how this craft has evolved. We all have come a long way.

[Caroline]

Good to see pastels TFS :)

[TheresaMP]

I look back at my original scrapbook layouts and would like a redo on many of them, but they are certainly representative of the time and what I knew just as I see Gloria's work. And Maiko's name tage is lovely. thanks as always for sharing.

[Tristan Robin Blakeman]

Even though I'm not a huge pastel fan, I can appreciate how lovely these pieces are!

The prizes you're awarding are very generous - and fabulous!

Gotta love some Gentleman Crafter art!

[bev orris]

these early scrapbook pages are wonderful it shows the history of the art form and the way she has grown as an artist and the scrapbooking world has grown

[Mary Jane]

I smiled when I saw Gloria's before and after layouts.. it reminded me of my own first attempts. It's amazing how far scrapbooking has come and the beautiful products that are available to us now.. especially Graphic 45 products!
I think Maiko's nameplate is awesome! I can't wait to make one for myself!

[sue settera]

Sweet! I especially love the 10/10 birthday for that sweet baby. Best day of the year! (guess why!)

[Dee]

Okay, not to be negative, but that is not really a redesign of her old layouts....while it does show how her scrapbooking skills have progressed and grown and the new layout is gorgeous, it is NOT a re-do of her older layouts. A 'redesign' in the truest sense of the word would be taking those same photos and redoing them in a new layout! It's easy to make a cool layout using studio portraits, but many of us still have lousy, pre-digi snapshots that need to be scrapped! And/or layouts in old albums that look very much like her original pages. I think it would be fun to see how to make THOSE look awesome!

[Brenda Stiltner]

Great projects!!

[Sara Nell Langland]

Love seeing the makeover! Lovely projects today.

[MaryLouH]

Love the baby silhouette. The pastel colors are so pretty. They bring spring to mind - only a few more months and we'll be back to spring.

[Elaine Allen]

Gloria, what a beautiful page. Love the use of your flowers and the little stamps. And Maiko, I adore your nameplate! So shabby chic and I really love all the elements you used. Beautiful!

Elaine Allen

[Becky D]

Gorgeous projects ladies! Sometimes I wish I was further behind on my children's albums so I could use Little Darlings on the baby pages - I know it's crazy! I just love the soft pastels!

[Wanda]

Gloria you have come a long way "baby". I like the looks of the collage on both projects.

[Jeniff]

Beautiful, love the pastels colors.

[pitje]

Oh how funny those first lo's!! I remember those day's and have lots of them in my scrapbooks...

[Julie]

Amazing talent. Love all of them

[Debbie Juillerat]

Oh my! Yep, I started scrapbooking in '92--about all they had were stickers. Who would've imagined, huh?

[orlie]

Love the Redesign here. It is crazy how much WE ALL have come from back then to today. Thank you for sharing!

[Mary]

Oh my gosh what inspiration today. Love love the pastels. Beautiful projects. What a super giveaway. To actually own something from Mr. Jim. Wow. Very generous. I so Love coming here every day at G45. Makes my day.

[jengd]

Wonderful projects... and thanks for the blast to the scrapping past Gloria! ;)

[Jocelyne B.]

les projets sont superbe, j'aime beaucoup. Je viens faire mon tour sur votre site tout les jours pour venir voir toutes ces belles idées, merci beaucoup de ce beau partage.

[Ruth M.]

I have a ten month old babe girl and I just love this layout. I have never worked with pastels before and have this paper line but haven't started yet. You just gave me the inspiration to start my layouts now. Thank you.

[Michelle Salasar]

Oh we have changed our scrap style from the early days. Love the pastel I don't often use pastels but maybe I will give it a try!

[Kathy Jo]

Isn't it great to go back to the old scrapbooking layouts?

Thanks for the trip down crafting memory lane...and for the new layout design. It looks sweet.

[JANET Anderson]

I love this collection! And I too laugh at my earlier creations that I was so proud of at the time!

[Rea Custer]

Gorgeous projects, and I always love seeing all the creativity by your design team with the awesome Graphic 45 products.

[Myra Skidmore]

Truly beautiful work. I especially enjoy the reworking of the layout using the Little Darling line. It's hard to go wrong with such beautiful papers to use!