Victorian Holidays guest design spot with Astrid

Hello, and thank you for coming by here today!

I am super excited to be here on the blog, both as guest designer and designer of the Victorian Holidays papers that are part of the December Main Kit as well as the Paper Add-On.

My name is Astrid, and on the web many people know me as Astridchristine. I have been stamping and paper crafting probably for about 10 years or so, but did not get seriously into it until about 2007.

My paper crafting hobby has developed from those early stamping and card making days into using many different media and I would like to call myself a mixed media artist. I love journaling, altering all sorts of objects and playing about with gesso, acrylic paints, collage and many layers. My style is Vintage/Shabby Chic and I love playing around with ribbons, flowers and lace.

I also love designing scrapbook papers in Photoshop Elements, all in vintage style of course, and over the years I have designed many freebies that can be found on my blog. http://astridsartisticefforts.blogspot.com

I was delighted and honoured when Deonna invited me to design a set of vintage Christmas papers specially for C'est Magnifique and today I will be sharing some of the projects I made using the papers and some of the wonderful embellishments found in the other December kits.

My first project is a tag holder, made out of two envelopes, this is the front, and below you can see the inside and the tag to go along with it.

I will be posting more detailed instructions of how I put my projects together on my own blog in the following days and weeks

My next project is a hanger, made from an old 78 record that is part of the Mixed Media Kit

There are two records in the kit and several of the other designers have made them into amazing albums, make sure to check them out! The full content of all the kits is detailed in this post, if you want further detail. Again, further instructions will come to my own blog in the days to come, if you want to know more.

My next project is a mini book made out of one piece of 12 by 12 paper and then decorated with papers from the main kit, and the Flower Add-Ons. If you want to know how to put this together, there are full instructions on my own blog today. The snow flakes and metal bits came from my stash. Below are some of the inside pages:

The little book is constructed in such a way as to have some pockets, they could be used for photos, journaling tags etc. Here are some tags I made to go inside the pockets:

My next project is an altered book box that I had in my stash, it's going to be a gift for a friend:

This is the front, using similar techniques and products that I used for the hanger.

Here you see a view of the back and the sides, both the angel and the santa were fussy cut from the papers in the collection and then embedded into the crackled background to make the whole thing look like an old book.

Here you can see the front and the inside. The lock at the front is part of the Embellishment add-on The top of the box was embellished with flowers from the flower add on.

My final projects are some cards in different styles, one can never have enough Christmas cards at this time of year...

A shabby chic card with many different layers, using several papers left after finishing my other project.

A simple card, using an embossing folder from my stash, the inside holds a sentiment that is printed onto one of the papers

And finally a slightly more complex step card that has a pocket, holding a smaller card made with elements from the C'est Magnifique Card Kit.

I have to apologize for this photo, the angle makes it look as if the flower on the bottom panel is really large, - it's actually not really. I love how the colour matches the paper so well.
Here is the little card that fits in the pocket:

The front, and below the inside holding the message, - part of one of the papers:

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my projects and that they have given you some inspiration. Thank you so much for your visit and I hope you will take the time to check out some of the wonderful projects the Design Team have been creating over the last few days!

Guest Designer Evgenia Krapivina

Hello! It's Evgenia Krapivina here to host the blog for you today. I'm really happy to be guesting for C'est Magnifique and created a few projects using C'est Magnifique November 2015 Kit.

I made three scrapbooking layouts, cards, and a mini album of tags. I hope you feel inspired!

"Romantic" Layout

I used stamps and flowers for my projects (not from kit).

"Dream" Layout

"Serenity" Layout

 I did the background using white gesso, and blue and brown mist.

"Cherish" Card

"Romantic" Card
I love to use factory packing from scrap products. I used packing from kit flowers on my card.

"Hello Summer!"  Tag Mini Album

Thank you for joining me today! I hope you feel inspired by these projects I created using the November kit! If you have any questions, please leave a comment or send me an email. You can find my email address from my blog - here. I would also love for you to visit me there or on Facebook!

Wishing you a creative day!

Guest Designer Nicole Doiron

Hello everyone! This is Nicole Doiron and I'm your Guest Designer today!

Let me tell you a little about myself before we get to the creative stuff!

As already said, I'm Nicole and I'm from Canada's beautiful East coast. I share my life and home with my boyfriend of 9 years, Yves, and our furbaby, Sugar the cat. I often sing in the shower and I have a quirky sense of humor. I have always had an artistic side...drawing, writing poetry and trying different crafts. I work at a regular office job and can't wait to get home every day to my studio! I started scrapbooking in 2004 and have been hooked since. I create mostly layouts, both single and double-page, as well as cards and canvases. I am loving mixed media more and more. My overall style is shabby chic with lots of flowers! I also love to get my hands dirty with different mediums 

like gesso, molding paste, mists and paints. Visit me at my blog, Scrap-Utopia, to see my creations. You can also follow me on Facebook, Pinterest & Instagram!

I am thrilled to have been asked to guest design at C'est Magnifique and to share with you my creations using the November Main Kit, as well as the Paper and Flower Add-Ons!

First, let's take a look at my single-page layouts, 3 of them:

This page features my parents some years back. My father has since passed away and it felt good to be able to scrap this picture and think back on some lovely memories.

You can see that my papers and embellishments are covered with a coat of white that has become my signature style, so to speak. I love the whitewash and frosted look and to create that effect, I simply dab some white acrylic paint all over my project, flowers and all!

Next is this layout of me and my honey using mostly Bo Bunny 'Juliet' papers, die-cut shapes and stickers!

I love how all those die-cut shapes allowed me to add  layers upon layers of different designs and colors on my page.

Some fussy cutting and some more of the white paint dabs to finish!

My third single page layout created with the Main Kit is more focused on the Blue Fern Studios 'Paisley & Vine' collection's fun and bright patterns. The cute little girl in the pictures is my niece Ella!

I added a polka-dot design on the background using a stencil and molding paste, colored the white cardstock titles with a red markerand glued on some buttons to bring in the colors of the papers.

I absolutely adore this combination of fun patterns and bright palette! And look at the tiny Petaloo flowers from the Flower  Add-On! A favorite of mine for sure!

Whenever I work with a kit, I always love to go back to my roots and create at least onr double-page layout.

For this layout, I opted for lots of flowers over this lovely bracket shape patterned paper from Kaisercraft that I cut in half diagonally to board each side of my double-page. 

This is me, feeling very serene lounging on a rock at the Falls.

The Main Kit offers so much material that even after creating 5 pages, I wasn't finished!  Using some of my leftovers, I created these 2 cards that I call my 'Juliet' cards.

The first dressed in yellow and pink:

and the other in yellow and blue:

And now, last but not least, I used up most of the papers, flowers and buttons left over from the kits to create this mixed media canvas.

After priming my canvas with white gesso, I stenciled in some molding paste and added layers upon layers of inks, mists and paints to reach the desired shades of purple and brown.

After my base was completely dry, I started gluing down my paper pieces as well as flowers and buttons which I dabbed with different shimmery paints, then topped with my signature white!

 WOW!  This sure was a looong post so THANK YOU for those of you who have read all the way to the end. Hopefully that means that you have enjoyed my creations and  that you will want to come see me at Scrap-Utopia where you'll see more!

Thank you again to C'est Magnifique for having me!