Aug 2015 Pop it Ups Designer Challenge - Inspired Creations
August 12, 2015
It's Designer Challenge day! This month I challenged the team to be inspired by each other. They were instructed to go back through their teammate's creations and find one (or more) to use as inspiration for a new project. They could be inspired by the whole card, a technique, a color scheme, a combination of dies - anything. The results are magnificent and you'll definitely want to check them all out on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog Post here.
I was inspired by three projects - Kelly Booth's Easter Oval Accordion from the Spring/Easter challenge, and Caz Counsell's "FrankenPop" card and Fran Sabad's Poppy Halloween card from the Spooky September challenge.
From Caz's FrankenPop card, I took inspiration for styling Jolly the Mouse as a monster. I filmed this as its own video so it can double as the "how to assemble" video for Jolly. Just cut the pieces from traditional mouse colors instead of monster colors when you want to create a sweet mouse instead of a scary one.
Once I had my "monster mouse" I was ready to tackle the main project, where I included several techniques. Here are the techniques (and start times) included in this video:
- Technique #1: How to create the silver/black embossed damask pages. (slide to 1:50)
- Technique #2: How to create an Open Center Accordion. (slide to 3:35)
- Technique #3: How to cut an opening in an accordion page and add fishing line to float items. (slide to 6:00)
- Technique #4: How to make bats and bones from the Cocoa the Horse die. (slide to 8:40)
- Technique #5: How to use transfer paper to make a spooky debossed tree background. (slide to 12:35)
When the album is closed there is no indication that the middle pages are not full outer frames. This is why it's important to make Open Center Accordions in multiples of 4 pages so that each "open center section" is attached to full pages on each side. This view shows off Technique #1 (silver/black embossed damask), #3 (Cocoa bat) and #5 (transfer paper spooky tree background)
Here is a close-up of the first two pages:
The close-up of the second two pages shows Technique #3 (fishing line floating) and Technique #4 (Cocoa bat & bones) plus another version of Technique #5 (spooky ghost tree)
Here’s a handy reference for making bats using the Cocoa the Horse die.
The video mentions that the display of an Open Center Accordion will differ slightly from a typical accordion. The two inner ovals will not pull out all the way into a straight line but will stay slightly bent in the center. However, the lack of a center outer frame means there’s no problem viewing both inner ovals.
Don't forget to see all the inspiration pieces on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog Post here.
Elizabeth Craft Designs products are sold at independent craft stores worldwide. Here are some online shopping links for the products used in both videos: