Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Wanderlust Workshop Wrap-Up

Thank you to all our lovely ladies who attended our recent Wanderlust Workshop.

A full day was had by all and it was great seeing everyone getting 'travel fever' with the great layouts and our mini-album project.

We so enjoyed meeting some lovely new ladies who joined us for the first time.  Welcome to Leisa, Kim and Julianne, it was a pleasure getting to know you!



It was so nice seeing our workshop room full with familiar faces and hearing all about Christmas celebrations, holidays had and holidays planned (yes Lexie, Ruta and Lynney we are most envious of your up and coming travels all over the world). 

Take a look at our ladies emersed in their creativity. Here we have our lovely Kerry showing us her UBD page she is about to repurpose on her next layout along with Dianne, Julianne, Maureen and Kim.




Here we have have a snapshot of our gorgeous friends Alex and Debbie working on their layouts.... heat tool in hand having lots of fun working on what Miss Lisa had on the design menu!!!









Terrie, Janice and Kim were on task in this photo working through one of the great projects - thanks ladies we loved having you join us again!
The Embellees Team aim to introduce new ideas, techniques and materials as the key focus in all our Workshops and, this Workshop was no exception.
Lizzie had everyone stamping on balsa wood to create the cover for their mini travel journal/album, cutting up lots of manila folders to create album pages, trying lots of new background stamps from Darkroom Door and other great stamps from Ippity, Tim Holtz, Unity and Hero Arts. 
We embossed gorgeous Tim Holtz kraft glassine paper and added acetate pages and tags for additional pages. Book binding tape we sourced from our local Riot Craft Store  was the perfect material to secure our pages and extras in place.
But, it wouldn't be an Embellees Workshop without some 'repurposing'.  Check out the fabulous use of pages from an old UBD and Gregory's Street Directory that we diecut using our Sizzix Alphabets available from StampinUp.

This class layout designed by the lovely Lisa Greedy had everyone using masking tape to alter their
background.  Paint and stamps complete the fabulous mixed media effects.

Lisa again used a repurposed UBD page to create the collage background and some great embossed frames to anchor her photos from a family trip to Adelaide.

Everyone just loved this fun and very creative layout!





Another great layout by Lisa Greedy saw all Workshop Lovelies playing with Tim Holtz alphabet masks, Mr Huey's Mists, embossing folders and distress inks, more great stamps and embossing powder to add a bit more texture and a creative use of a circle punch to produce the postage stamp border effect.








Another fabulous sample layout from Lisa Greedy - showing great use of background stamps and how to make a simple sheet of cardstock really interesting.

Just love how Lisa incorporated a map she collected on her recent family holiday as part of her layout background.











Lisa created this fabulous grid layout .... just love the stamping, embossing, inking and creative way she has added 5 photos on a single layout.



The lovely Natalie Bright from our Design Team has been busy with this 8 x 11 layout.  Check out her use of great techniques like:

  • punches and stamped cork
  • a laminex tile sample stamped and embossed (yes the local Bunnings really does provide us with lots of interesting 'embellees')
  • masking tape to create a journaling block and the use of her trusty typewriter - very vintage!!!





The lovely Cassie McCumstie from our Design Team was also very busy with this fun layout that showed us how to take simple paper based embellishments and turn them into something special with the use of dimensional magic for that epoxy look that is so popular again.  Cassie shows us that a great layout using all the new travel inspired papers and embellishments does not have to centre around a trip - but can be an exercise in journaling about our 'dreams' of travel!!!


We just love that there are so many new travel related papers, embellishments and stamps cdue to hit the shelves in the next months - we hope we have inspired you to take a journey (pardon the pun) exploring some great new layouts about your recent travels!!!

Be back soon with more updates and sneakies for our March Workshop - Paper, Punches and Photos.

Lisa and Lizzie 

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Design Team for Embellees



We are so very excited to introduce the Embellees Team for 2012. 

While Miss Lisa and Lizzie are the owners of Embellees, it is not just us that keep the 'wheels turning', the kits happening and the Workshops on track.  We have a lovely group of friends that have supported us from day one and great family support.

Now that we are nearly 2 years 'young' and, from our early days we have always wanted to work with a design team as part of our structure.... it is time to announce that this is finally a done deal!

It is important to acknowledge that while this blog post is about announcing our Design Team, the Embellees Team has had a 'silent' member who has been with us since day one.... and that is our lovely friend Dianne Lovett .

Dianne has been a big part of the Embellees Team, always there to encourage, support and help us.  We just call this lovely lady 'our go to girl - our wise owl' (a reference to Dianne's love of all things Owl that started with a gift from Lisa a few years ago)

Dianne is a 'wealth of information' and if you need research done then she is the lady to set on the task... we can't thank Dianne enough for her constant support and, even through some very sad and difficult times of late, this grandmum to many (yes triplet grandsons born recently to add to her growing tribe) she has always been there doing anything we ask of her.  Dianne is an Embellees Girl through and through and our team would not be complete without her... we love ya Di!!!

Over the last two years we have made many new friends and two of these have now joined us as our 'Design Team' Gals.

We welcome Cassie McCumstie and Natalie Bright officially to Embellees.  Girls we can't wait to see all the great ideas and projects you are going to produce and work alongside you both.




Cassie is very well known in our local town of Newcastle as our 'go to StampinUp lady'.  Cassie has a gorgeous family of boys and her and Miss Lisa now bring that balance of gender to our scrapping projects.... yes, we have heard you ... more boy layouts please!!! 

Cassie does beautiful work and with her lovely quiet presence she is sure to balance our team in other ways.  If you want to check out Cassie's work please visit her blog called Pieces of Me by Cassie at:  http://piecesofmebycassie.blogspot.com.au/ . 

We also welcome the very bubbly Natalie Bright  to the team. This gorgeous gal like Lizzie has a beautiful DD and her work is always of the highest standard.  Natalie has been scrapping for many years and not only is she talented, but this gal is so funny that a crop/workshop or retreat is never dull with her in attendance.  We already have Natalie putting together some gorgeous kits to compliment our workshop themes and they are fabulous.

So, please keep watching our blog as we have many more changes ahead and this will be the first of several 'BIG' announcements to come over the next months.

I am so glad that we have been able to let this 'secret' Embellees business 'out-of-the-bag' as it was just about impossible to contain it as we were so excited when Cassie and Natalie agreed to join us.

So please, next time you see them say congrats and we look forward to featuring lots of their beautiful work very soon!!

Be back soon!
Lizzie and Lisa

Wanderlust Workshop Sneaky Peeks!


Wanderlust
[noun]a strong desire to travel.

We are on the countdown to our first workshop for 2012. 

We are now only 8 sleeps away from our Wanderlust Workshop on Sunday 19 February at Edgeworth Bowling Club (near Newcastle NSW).



We are very excited to see lots of our workshop friends returning again 2012 and, welcome lots of new ladies. 

So for all those 'workshop lovelies' that have booked in - watch your emails as your 'bring list' is going to be on its way shortly! 

We have been very busy with lots happening at 'tribal council' (as our friend Natalie calls it) and, the Embellees Team have lots to tell you - but that will be another blog post coming shortly.

Yes ... time to let you know what we have been busy planning with some great new Embellees ideas bubbling away and finishing touches happening in the next weeks, just got to make sure we have all the pieces sorted before we do the announcements.




But for now... some quick sneaky peeks of what we are 'kitting' for our Wanderlust Workshop next weekend.

We are going to be completing two great layouts with Miss Lisa guiding us through lots of techniques and using lots of repurposed items and fun stuff .....

.... come on let's get serious Miss Lisa is never happier unless she has a pot of paint, stamps and inks of every kind at her finger tips.










We have so wanted to do a workshop with a travel theme - be it the big overseas journey, a holiday to the theme parks with the kidlets or just a day trip to a favourite spot locally - these pictures are in everyone's stash and this is the workshop to get them onto a layout or two....

We will be using lots of stamps, tags, mixed media techniques to create our backgrounds, punches, inks and diecuts... so many tools ..... just what we love at Embellees - using our tools over and over again!






And ..... it wouldn't be an Embellees Workshop without a great 'off-the-page' project -  a great mini album ready for that next holiday or to put those recent holiday pics in...

So lots will be happening....

  • Our workstations will be in over-drive with paints and stamps
  • Our kits will have wood and tags and lots of repurposed items in them so that you get to play with lots more than just paper