As promised, here is the giveaway you have been waiting for. I hope it was worth the wait!  LOL!!!  All you have to do is leave me a comment about what your favorite thing to do this time of year! For me it is getting outdoors and planting flowers or going for walks. 

DETAILS:  The winner will be selected randomly from all entries.  I will leave this open until this Saturday, May 7th and I will announce the winner on Sunday!  Good luck to all who enter.  And please feel free to share this with your friends!

I have two images to share.  The first here is a huge amount of goodies from the Melody Ross collection called Homespun Chic.  I have included one of each sheet of paper and a ton of embellishments from fabric tabs, to borders, and glitter transparencies. 
Second I am including one of each sheet of paper from Melody Ross's latest collection for GCD Studios called Soulfood.  You can check out all the goodies that go with it on their website.
Thanks for stopping by!  I hope to have some projects to post and share with you soon!

Happy Hugs!
Juliana

Spring is finally here and I am so excited to see the green stuff popping out here and there! I prefer the warmer weather and I am quite pleased that I can now see that it really is on it's way! For our final GCD Studios project we were asked to create something spring or Easter themed so I went for the Easter theme. I was at my local craft store and saw these foam eggs and this wooden basket, the ideas started flying and here is the end result...a little mini Easter egg basket embellished with Chip Art Chipboard and patterned paper eggs and hand made paper flowers.
Melody Ross's new collection Soul Food is fast becoming a favorite of mine! I love the combination of orange, pink, green and brown and the fun text and floral designs. The wooden basket is covered with patterned paper as well.
As I mentioned, I used GCD Studios Chip Art products to decorate the front of my basket. I used the Squiggle stamp set to create the border around the tag piece. I distressed the Happy Easter plaque by painting the chipboard tag with white acrylic paint. Once it was dry, I applied a layer of antiquing gel and wiped off the excess, which leaves some of it behind, giving it a nice distressed feel. And don't you think the yellow glitter gives a bit of life to that cute little chick?!
I created some hand made flowers using die cut flowers and leaves to decorate the eggs.
Supplies:
GCD Studios
Soul Food Soulfield, Lovely Green, Soulful, Funky Soul, Soul Petit, and Brave Soul
Chip Art Chipboard Shapes: Birds and Tags
Chip Art Tools: Mallet, Block
Chip Art Ornamental Stamps: Squiggle
Now that you have seen my little basket, I thought you might want to know how I created the eggs. So I put together a little tutorial for you to follow so that you can create your own patterned paper eggs using your favorite GCD Studios papers.

Supplies:
Patterned Paper
4" Styrofoam Eggs
Hot Glue Gun
Modge Podge

How to make Patterned Paper Eggs:
Cut an 8" x 12" piece of patterned paper into strips of paper that are 1/2" in width.
Then adhere the strips to the egg in an overlapping pattern running the entire length of the egg.
I used a hot glue gun to get this started. Once I had added about 4 strips I began applying some Modge Podge to the sections were the papers were touching/overlapping each other. I found this to be helpful in keeping the paper more flat as you continue adding the layers. This does tend to make things a little messy, so consider yourself warned!
Here you can see that this egg is almost finished. Remember you want to continue to add the paper strips until all of the "white" areas are completely covered. Once you have the entire egg covered with paper, apply a coat of Modge Podge and let this dry. Once dry, apply a coat of Glitter Paint to give the egg a bit of shimmer.
Then feel free to embellish your egg with flowers, buttons, gems, etc.Thank you so much for stopping by today and I hope you have fun creating your own Easter Egg decorations!

HAPPY HUGS!
Juliana

Hi all! Today I am finally sharing the projects I created for the fantastic GCD Studios award winning CHA booth! I had a great time creating all three of my projects and I hope, as you take a peak at them, that you find some inspiration you can use on your next crafting project!

First up is a Ferris Wheel party center piece that I found at my local craft store. Of course, I knew right away that the new Fun House collection was the perfect partner for this project!
To dress it up a bit, I added tickets hand cut from the patterned paper. I backed them with scrap chipboard to give them more dimension and durability. I also embellished it with Melody Ross ChipArt Chipboard stars that I dressed up using a gold leafing pen and gold distress Stickles.
My next project is an altered painters tray that I altered using Animal Cracker for Girls! I cut out images from the fantastic die cut paper that is included in this collection and used them to "fill" some of the little openings.
I once again used some of the Melody Ross Chipboard Shapes and Chip Art tool to embellish this project. For these pieces I sprayed them with Glimmer Mist and then debossed them. Once dry I painted a light coat of antiquing gel and then wiped the excess away. I then added an edging of gold using a gold leafing pen.
For my final project I was inspired to create a cute little purse diorama using the new Material Girl collection! When I saw this purse at my local craft store, I knew it would be the perfect thing to alter with these papers!
More Melody Ross Chipboard love on this one using Glimmer Mist. This works the same as lightly misting it with the spray bottle of water if you let it dry just a bit before you deboss it with the stamps. When you open the purse you can see the little diorama I created on the inside of the purse. I cut the perfume bottles from the patterned paper and then adhere them to the bottom so they would stand up and look more dimensional.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed looking at the projects I created for CHA as much as I enjoyed making them!
HUGS!
Juliana

My time with GCD Studios will be coming to an end soon, but it has been a great year! It has been a pleasure to work with all of the talented ladies who have been a part of the team this past year and to work with the fabulous products created by GCD Studios. (My favorite has been the Chip Art Tool by Melody Ross!) But, as one thing ends another begins and that beginning could be yours! GCD Studios is having a DT call for 2011 that is going on now and will be open until March 5th. They are going to be adding 9 designers to their team and they are looking for altered item gals, card gals and scrapbook gals. You can stop by the GCD Studios blog HERE to find out more.

Also, they are having a contest for you to win a trip to the Melody Ross Brave Girl's Camp! You can check out all the details HERE!

And while you are hopping around their blog, make sure you take time to check out all the new collections they released at CHA! They are adorable and I had a great time playing with them and creating projects for the booth at CHA! I would love to post the projects, but I think they will be posted on the GCD blog in the very near future. So stay tuned over there!
Good luck and happy crafting!
HUGS!
Juliana

I love decorating for Christmas and I love creating my own decorations even more. For this project I was inspired to create a wreath for my home using empty ribbon roll spools. I used the fabulous GCD Studios Joyful Peace collection to create my project. Follow along below for all the details on how I created my wreath and the flowers that I embellished it with.

Happy Hugs!
Juliana