I told you yesterday that I had a secret I'd been keeping... are you ready to hear it? I'm so excited about it because I really think it's going to push my creativity in a new direction.
You sure your ready? Okay, here goes:
I'm the newest member of the GLUE Art & Paper Studio Design Team!
Now, before I go any further, let me say: I've been around the block a few times in the world of stamping and papercrafting design teams. (Close friends of mine are guffawing as they read this, muttering 'Understatement!' I CAN HEAR YOU, you know!!! LOL) I am way, way past the point of accepting another design position just for the sake of free product and/or minimal compensation. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm plenty busy as it is with the work I've got and my family. For me to take on anything else at this point, I have to really LOVE the product, it has to be different from and/or enhance the work that I already do, and it can't be in direct competition with the companies I already represent.
GLUE is different from anything I've ever done before. GLUE makes high-quality, unique products for paper crafting and scrapbooking, most of which are wooden alterables. I first ran into GLUE when they were showing at the 2008 Winter CHA show and immediately fell in love. They had the coolest display of decorated dress forms as interpreted by some of your favorite papercrafting superstars. Shortly thereafter, I bought my first GLUE product from my LSS. My good buddies Susan Liles and Jen del Muro are long-time members of the GLUE Design Team, and I've always admired the cool projects they've created for GLUE. (Remember the fabulous TCB wallhanging Jen made me for my birthday last year? That was created with a GLUE 4-section shallow tray, fyi. :) )
Anyway, I'm really pumped to stretch my creativity beyond cards and scrapbook pages and more deeply into the realm of altered projects. Such possibilities for fabulous home decor and presents! Yay!
Let me show you've what I've made for my inaugural project... first, I started with a GLUE organizer box. (See photo at left.) It's a heavy-duty wooden box that comes with six chipboard dividers and a masonite divider. It's handy & sturdy, but kinda plain on its own, don't you think?
Luckily, I have a little paint, paper, stamps, and ink at my disposal. So that plain wooden box has now been transformed into.....
This!
Isn't it cute?! I created a weekly organizing station, using the chipboard inserts (plus one I cut from some leftover packaging chipboard) as daily placeholders. And heaven knows, I need all the help I can get as far as organization goes! At last, I'll have one spot to keep all of those pending invitations, bills, birthday cards to be sent, permission slips, DT assignments, etc -- sort of a large 'tickler' file, if you will.
First, I painted the box with a couple of coats of white acrylic craft paint. Next, I cut 1.5" squares of three patterns of Cosmo Cricket's Girl Friday patterned paper. I inked the squares' edges in Memento Pear Tart ink, then adhered them in a patchwork pattern to the box with Mod Podge.
Next, I used My Favorite Things' Bling 'bet alphabet to stamp out 'get organized' in Purely Pomegranate ink on a manilla folder and also on Soft Sky cardstock. I cut the manilla folder letters even with the inked edges, but left a margin when I cut the Soft Sky letters out. Then, I adhered the manilla letters on top of the Soft Sky letters (I wanted manilla 'dots' with a Soft Sky border to make it *pop*). I adhered the letters to the box using Jody's Foam Boosters.
It still needed a little somethin'-somethin', so I added a trio of square chipboard tiles featuring some of the Girl Friday cardstock stickers.
The files inserts were created by making a file tab from a blank manilla folder, gluing it to the chipboard, and adhering the corresponding Girl Friday Day-of-the-Week paper to it. All of the papers in the Girl Friday line are named for days of the week, so I just took my handy word-window punch and used the names as printed at the bottom of the papers as titles for each file insert.
And here's what my box looks like with a few of the items I'm going to be using in the upcoming week. I've got a few birthday cards to send out, and there are a few other things in there I'm going to be using this week but can't show you just yet (stamps for the upcoming MFT new release on Wednesday, next Saturday's SFYTT, etc.). I think something like this would also work well in a kitchen or wherever your family hub is, and it's deep enough to house things you're always needing like tape, spare pens, postage, a key repository, etc.
Thanks for letting me share this fun news with you, and I'm looking forward to showing you more altered items from GLUE in the months to come!
Supplies used:
Featured product: GLUE Organizer Box with Inserts
Stamps: Bling 'bet by My Favorite Things
Paper: Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday patterned paper, manilla folder, Soft Sky
Ink: Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky (SU!), Memento Pear Tart, Adirondack Sunshine Yellow
Accessories: Mod Podge, Jody's Foam Boosters, word window punch (SU!), Technique Tuesday Square Center Pieces, Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday stickers