We have a guest designer today! May Flaum is in the house with some My Minds Eye All is Bright!

Hi there, my name is May Flaum, and I love to craft. I always have, and one of the things I believe most is that whatever you craft should be fun and bring you great joy. Today I’m excited to be guesting here at The Hens' Den, and I have created four new projects to share featuring the new My Minds Eye Christmas line by Rhonna Farrer. What I love most about this line, aside from the great soft colors that will work beautifully with any holiday photos I have to scrapbook, is that it is so wonderfully detailed and so full of rich embellishments and patterns.

Ironically, what I love most is also what could make this a challenging line to craft with! When I fall in love with a line like this, rather than getting overwhelmed with what to do with the big bold patterns and designs, I find a way to work with them. Generally speaking, I have three approaches:

1.       Embrace the wild side, go for lots of layering, details, and really junk it up. You can see this approach in effect in my layout that I am sharing. When doing this, I recommend keeping a fairly simple design and clustering and layering in select areas.

2.       Let the product  speak for itself. When the product designer has done all the hard work for you – why not leave it alone? In the first tag that I created, you can see I let that bold patterned paper dominate. I just added a few smaller details, but ultimately it is a very simple tag.

 3.       Alter the product to suit your needs. In my second tag, as well as my card I cut, inked, layered, and gently altered the products to suit my project needs. On my tag, I pleated (and added cut ends) to a piece of patterned paper, addd buttons and twine to a small tag, and layered in stickers all over a tag that had been painted blue.

On my card, I layered some cut pieces of tape (which is totally fabulous!) under a dimensional sticker that I had used rock candy crackle on as well as edged in glitter glue. Adding some brown ink to my card background for contrast and leaving my design simple, I created a rosette that worked for me, and a card I’ll be happy to give.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my projects, as well as my tips for working with this line of products. With so much soft blue and creams, I know I’ll find this line useful on all kinds of projects from gift wrapping through scrapbooking my holidays. The washi tapes and buttons are my favorites – though it is hard to choose when it is all fantastic!

Thank you for checking out my work – if you’d like to see more of my projects I invite you to visit my blog at www.mayflaum.com

About May:

Lifelong crafter May Flaum has authored two books, teaches classes both in stores and on-line, is a Ranger Certified Educator, has worked with many top manufacturers in the scrapbook industry, and much more. When she is not at her desk crafting or writing up a new blog post, May can be found spending time with her daughters and husband, dreaming of her next vacation, reading a good book, or testing out a new recipe.

Her crafting style is an eclectic one, known for ‘no rules’ she ventures in territories ranging from vintage and technique heavy to bright and simple. She loves to add distress stickles to just about every project, and believes that there’s no such thing as a project that couldn’t use a bit of distress ink or a button. For more information about May, and to see more of her work  visit her website and blog at www.mayflaum.com , and she can also be found on twitter at www.twitter.com/mayf

Thank you so much for joining us today May!! Please be sure to leave her some comment love!!

Twine Layered Stickers Decorative Tape Decorative Buttons Frames Paper Decorative Brads 12 x 12 Stickers Merry Paper Collage Paper Bright Paper Chevron Paper Linen Paper Noel Banner Paper

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