Graphic 45 Design Team 2014 Audition

This is a very special post. Today I am submitting work for the Graphic 45 Design Team 2014 Audition. I only recently discovered Graphic 45 papers, but have worked very hard in the last few weeks to create six projects for consideration. Thank you for this opportunity and for creating such lovely papers to work with.

 1. Tower of Treats: For this project I used 6 x 6 Couture and Botanical Tea paper pads. I wanted to use the striped papers because I like the way they look zigzagging up and down the sides of the boxes.

As you can see in the picture above each box holds a surprise; vellum envelopes with punched butterflies, a Couture bead necklace, Botanical Tea party invitations, and an origami dress box with a mini origami dress inside.

 The design for these boxes came from Winson Chan, but I modified his original design to make the box sizes go from large to small. Note how the base of one box is locked into the lid of the one below. This makes the construction very sturdy.

2. Bird Song Wall Hanging: I created origami pockets to hold squares cut from the 8 x 8 Bird Song paper. They fold up accordion style and fit into the 2 x 2 box that I made. 

                 

 3. Pinwheel Alice: I invented this paper form and it reminded me of four stages where scenes can be creared. The Halloween in Wonderland papers had a perfect set of images that were just right to be cut out and placed on each stage.

4. Steampunk Accordion: This book is made with Graphic 45 Core'dinations card stock and Steampunk Debutante papers. It is held together using a slit and curled tab system. I embellished some of the images with vintage watch faces and gears. I like the contrast between the beautiful images and the industrial watch parts. 

5. Three Flexigons: A flexigon is a paper toy that can be turned several times to reveal different images (see video for demonstration of how a flexigon works). I created two different square ones using Steampunk Debutante and Steampunk Spells as embellishments. I also discovered to my delight that Graphic 45 makes a few papers that have images and their mirrors. That allowed me to make the Hexaflexigon with fairies from the Once Upon a Springtime collection, dragonflies from Botanicabella and rabbits from Halloween in Wonderland. The technique creates surprising shapes and background images when carefully cut.

6. Finally, Three Glove Books: I saw an artist book once that had red leather gloves as the covers and decided to make my own. I started collecting vintage ladies gloves and created a way to bind them into books without damaging the gloves. They slip onto custom cut chipboard that has a book cloth spine. 

6a. These pink gloves cried out to be paired with Botanical Tea papers and I created a woven paper design that looks lovely when open and folds flat for easy storage.

6b. The beaded black gloves were just the thing for a Couture book. The pages can hold vintage pictures, scraps of lace or whatever you can imagine.

6c. Long white leather gloves should be reserved for weddings and this pair serves as a guest album. I embellished the pages with cutouts from A Ladies Diary. It is ready for any fashionable wedding.