Please welcome.....

......the new members of the Design Team at Our Creative Corner!

     I am so pleased and very proud to announce that we have three amazing new designers joining us at Our Creative Corner. We are all so excited to be welcoming them to the team and can't wait to work alongside them. They are sure to inspire everyone! 

Here they are to tell you a bit about themselves and show you some of their work.....

Susan

I was very honored when Laura asked if I would be DT member. It will be interesting to participate in OCC's Design Team who are skilled crafters with different interests. Their projects have often inspired me and I look forward to participate in this inspiring and creative team.

I live in Copenhagen, Denmark with my husband. I have been interested in scrapping for 7 years and became blogger for 1 ½ years ago. I like to experiment with new and old materials and playing with patterns, shapes and colors.
 

  Kerstin

The one and only picture of me :o)

I'm very happy to be a part of this very creative DT. I have been creating for many years now, always in search for new techniques and yet unexplored territory in craftland. My big passion are colours and I'm a big 'Shabby' style fan and love the things that are old and nobody wants anymore, because they have a history! 

Recently I discovered the steampunk style. Inventive genius and adventurous romance are what makes Steampunk so very special and exciting to me. 

I also like to invent always new and so I will also often be good for a surprise ;-)

 Karin

Hi, I am Karin, I live with my partner Roelof and my 16 year old daughter Amber in the middle of the Netherlands. 

A few years ago I started with scrapbooking and one thing led to another. And now I am addicted to stamping, mixed media and Art Journalling.  I love being creative with stamps, paper, templates, inks and paints. I love  bright colors and I get inspired by the things around me. 

Laura asked me to become a part of this inspiring team and I can’t wait to get started!

************************************** 

So there we have the wonderful new members of the OCC! We are thrilled that they are here! Please give them a warm welcome! 

They will all be here tomorrow showing you their debut DT work when the new challenge begins.

We hope you will come and see what the team has made to inspire you for the month of June!  I promise you it is really worth seeing!!! ;o)

A Creative Year

We all hope that you have enjoyed the celebrations at Our Creative Corner this month - The birthday quizzes were so much fun to do and we hope you had a lot of fun reading them! It has been a really lovely month celebrating a year that has been so amazing for all of us......

Over the past year we have all really enjoyed choosing our challenges for you and we are always thrilled with the wonderful entries we get. We love how willing you are to go out of your comfort zones and take part in the challenges....and so many of you do! Over the past year we have had over 1600 entries to our challenges!!!

Judging each challenge is the most difficult job for the Challenge Hosts to do, and each time we have so many that we really wish we could have featured. 
So to celebrate a year of wonderful amazing creativity, we are going to show some of the wonderful creations that have been entered at the OCC over the past year..........

But quickly some well deserved words of thanks....

Thank you so much to all of you for taking the time to enter your wonderful creations at the OCC.

Thank you to all the Guest Designers who have so kindly given their time to write posts for us and create such wonderful projects to help inspire everyone during our challenges.

Thank you to our wonderful Top Talents who give us such an interesting glimpse into their lives each month and never fail to inspire us with their time in the spotlight

And last, but by no means least - Thank you to my Design Team. Words really can't express just how grateful I am for all the talent, hard work and passion you put in to Our Creative Corner. You really are amazing!

 Samboscraft

Sue C 

Julie Short

Claire C

Viv

sam21ski

Deborah Wainwright

Samantha Braund

Yvonne Garner

Artwolf2009

Janny Jager 't Hooft 

Alison/Craftytrog

Rosie

Mark

Trace

Susan O'Connell

BlohaOlga

Birgit

Paper Profusion

Merethe

Joan W

Shari

And so we are nearly at the end of our celebration month! - There is one more post to come with a very special announcement - so make sure you don't miss it!!!

.....Don't forget that each comment this month is an entry into a Prize Draw - you have to be in it to win it!!!!

Thanks so much for being here!


Happy Crafting!!!! xxx

Birthday Quiz - Astrid

Well, this is the last of the birthday quizzes for our special celebration. Hope you enjoyed reading about the little in sites into the lives of all the designers so far, and if you have not looked yet, make sure to do so!!.

Today is the day to meet Astrid.
Astrid has loved being creative since childhood, as you can see from the picture below:

Anyway, to find out a little more about her, here are the answers to Astrid's questions:

What fictional character do you have the biggest crush on?
Mr Darcy without a doubt. I love the book of course, but have also seen several different versions of the film, my favourite being the one with Colin Firth. Let’s face it who would not have a crush on Colin Firth? So reflecting on this question, is the crush on Mr Darcy or more on Colin Firth, well the truth probably is, – a bit of both….. But to be honest, it’s just a crush right, my heart really belongs totally to my wonderful hubby of 40 years.

If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?
That's a no brainer, Australia for sure. My youngest son and lovely grandchildren live there and if I could, I would move tomorrow, not only to be closer to them all, but at my age, I just could really do with a bit more of that wonderful Australian warm weather!

Here you can see them Lucia age 19 month and Arielle newly born on May 15.

Is there anything that you would refuse to do?
Now that is a much harder one to answer as no doubt there are many more than one thing I would refuse to do…but as most of them are unlikely to be asked of me, (like robbing a bank, jumping out of a fast moving car, strangling a child or many of the other things that most sane people would say no to), it was difficult to pick just one. So in the end the one that I came up with, and am regularly asked about is this one: My hubby loves gliding and now has his gliding pilot licence. He keeps asking me to come up with him one day, but so far I have always said no, and I don’t think that will change. I don’t mind flying as such and regularly have to do so, but going up in a glider without any kind of engine, – nope, definitely not for me.

If you had a time machine, what historical figure would you love to see in 21st century life?
Well my answer was going to have been Leonardo Da Vinci, but as Jenny chose him already, I decided to choose someone else, after all we would not want to have the poor man time travel twice, - so I'll go with Joan of Arc

I have always been intrigued by this young girl, who managed single handedly to turn the entire course of the Hundred Year War, because she was convinced she had been given divine instruction to fight for her cause! What amazing strength and courage!! I think she had such determination that she would do  wonderful things (and perhaps with less violence) could she live again in our time.

If you had a year off, what would you want to do?
Craft from morning til evening and if I had the money for it, travel (to Australia and other places) and go on a cruise with Tim Holtz and some of my teamies to come along too!!

Well, hope you have enjoyed reading the last of our little birthday quizzes/spotlight and Happy Birthday to Our Creative Corner, may there be many more inspirational years ahead!!

Crafty Individuals Spotlight No.3

A very warm welcome to the last Sponsor Spotlight for May!

As you will already know Crafty Individuals are our wonderful sponsors this month and they have kindly donated some goodies to a lucky prize winner who will be picked by Random.org and announced on the 8th June.

I chose to make something with this stunning Floral Postcard stamp.....

 The beauty of this stamp is that if you love stamp layering then the work is already done for you! It is a gorgeous arrangement of postcard, script and flowers....

And here is what I made with it!

I wanted to capture the look of a Victorian Conservatory...trailing greenery, marble and flowers all wrapped up in a welcome sign.

     I LOVE making frames from scratch...I always have Balsa wood around and cutting it up and creating a frame is just so much fun. I cut four strips of balsa wood and then glued them together. When dry I covered it with embossed card, making sure that all edges are covered.

  

The embossed card was painted with Americana Decor Chalky Finish paint in 'Primitive'. I then covered it in White Decoart Antiquing cream, which was then wiped away with a damp cloth leaving a gorgeous distressed surface.

I decided to turn the stamp around so that it viewed as a postcard with the flowers growing across the frame. I did some wrinkle free distress with Frayed Burlap and Pumice Stone DI on white card and then stamped the image in Jet Black Archival ink.

The 'Welcome' was made from Tim Holtz Alpha parts that were covered in Frayed Burlap DP. I decided to only paint the tops, leaving a glimpse of black showing.

The flowers were made from Tattered Florals die cuts....I blended some Seedless Preserves on the petals making sure the colour was concentrated mostly on the edge of the petals.

I cut a thin strip of card and covered it with Walnut Stain DS and when dry I cut the edge of the strip into a fringe. Gluing the uncut edge of the strip and rolling it up created the center of the flowers.

The ivy die cuts were dabbed with Forest Moss DI and then covered with Peeled Paint DI. I then covered them with crackle glaze and when that was dry and cracked I coated them with the Decoart Media Antiquing Cream again and wiped it away when dry.

A marble effect clock was added to the frame

    And I added a golden birdcage....

    A few buttons were added.....

.....along with a Memory box die cut that was covered with Frayed Burlap DP.

A few tiny die cut flowers were edged with Frayed Burlap DI and had tarnished brass brads in the centers.

A white cord sting was used to hang up the 'Welcome' sign

And that is the final Sponsor Spotlight for May! Hope you liked it!

There are still three days left of Linda's challenge this month - so get making some creations with some leftover scraps and you could be in with a chance of winning some Crafty Individuals goodies!

And of course as well as a chance of winning a prize there is also going to be a winner who will be invited to be our Top Talent and our Top 3 too! So what are you waiting for?!!!

Don't forget - each comment made at the OCC this month counts as an entry into the Birthday Prize draw!

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit us! Hope to see you soon.....