Graphic 45 Papers

I am a BIG fan of Graphic 45. I love their vintage style papers, not to mention the quality of their cardstock.  They will be releasing several lines this year, including:

Curtain Call

Le Cirque

One Line Graphic 45 has already released is Once Upon a Springtime.  They did some marvelous cards and 3d structures that I thought I would also share with you.  These gave me lots of inspiration to create my own cards!

Once Upon a Springtime



7 Gypsies

Hi everyone!

Today at CHA I went to see 7 Gypsies (a favorite of mine).  They came out with PAPER TAPE! There are two rolls in a package and they are rather large.  I can't wait to buy some!  The styles are vintage and some have a bit of color to them as well.

I did see some really nice samples. I really liked the bottle mobile.

There were a number of really cute tags. (look at the owl, how cute!)



Sizzix 3

The second project that I completed in the Sizzix class was a flower pot with flowers.  The teacher came up with a great idea by die cutting packing bubbles (small size) along with cardstock and then layering it to make the flower.  The die that was used included cut petals.
The cup or pot is a scoreboard die.  These dies are special because they cut matboard (which is thicker and harder than chipboard).  There are a number of scoreboard dies already online at sizzix.  The pot is one of the 2011 releases.  The die actually cuts only halfway through the matboard.  This makes it possible to bend the matboard to make the cup.  There is also a bottom that is cut as part of the die.

The third project was a card using one of the new sizzix texture embossing folders. 

The card itself was also anew die from sizzix.  (The top part of the card was a separate die cut not part of the card die itself and was added as decoration.)

Sizzix 2

In addition to the pop up dies, sizzix has several 3-d dies.

Sizzix!

I was fortunate enough to be able to take a sizzix class Friday evening.  It was called the Triple Play because three of sizzix most popular die designers (including the one who designs all their pop up dies) taught the class.

POP UPS
Sizzix has some really great pop up dies.  The new dies that are being added this year are a bit simpler to use than the ones in the past which were more involved.

First I would like to share some of the great pop up cards that were made as samples (not part of the class).  You will note that some of the cards (including the gear pop up) actually were not made from pop up dies but regular dies (the gear card was from a Holtz die).

The card below was one of the three projects that I made in the class.  It features three new sizzlit dies including the crown and medallion below.  This card also features one of the new pop up dies relasing this year.  This die creates a pop up base that you can attach other items to.  It will seem to pop out of the card when you open it.  This is different than the step cuts that we make to crreate a regular pop up.

CHA Day 2

Hello everyone!
Today I had to go in to work (unplanned) and so I was unable to go to CHA today.  However, I wanted to share a couple of things from CHA that I didn't share yesterday.

First up - FAIRIES!  Yes, they DO exist!  This darling fairy was made with beads and glitter, oh my!

Here I am at CHA!

Lots of things to see and report! Read my other posts!

Cricut

I wanted to make one last post tonite before I go to bed (boy am I TIRED!).  Cricut is always an active booth full of enthusiasm for their latest and greatest.  Provocraft is coming out with EXPRESSION 2.  This expression uses both the regular cartridges and also the Imagine cartridges (it does NOT print - it only uses the images on the cartridge).
New about the 2:
-no keypad
-touch screen driven-can use images from imagine cartridges but does not print - only cuts
There is much more about the Expression 2 so be watching!

Tim Holtz!

Yes, my friends, Ranger is at CHA and so is TIM!  As you know Mr Holtz designs for Ranger (new Distress Stains), Tonic (paper piercer and other not new items), Sizzix (many new dies) and Stampers Anonymous (many new cling stamps).  You can go to his blog to see them all! 
I have captured a few of the sample projects for you to enjoy.

CHA Day 1

Hello everyone!  Well, I am at CHA this weekend.  I live nearby so I am driving the one hour to Los Angeles rather than staying in a hotel. 
I have seen many exciting thing at CHA.  I am going to post some pictures and I'm going to start with Die Cuts with a View.  This company makes papers, beautiful papers in 12 x 12, 8 x 8 and 4 x 5 (a great size for all of us cardmakers out there who want a great variety of papers but find ourselves cutting up 12 x 12 sometimes and wasting more of the paper than we would wish.)

DCWV is coming out with more spectacular cardstock, glitter cardstock and metallic cardstock, all aimed to please.

BUT the most amazing thing I saw was that their designers made PAPER DRESSES out of their current and new releases.  WOW! Take a look below and see if you can guess which dress is made out of which collection!

That's what I call paper ART!