Graphic 45 - paper crafting

**This post was originally published in July but I am re-posting it again today to celebrate the last day of the Fiskars and Graphic 45 week of collaborative projects**

I am no scrapbooker and have to confess, not generally a papercrafter either, despite having a huge appreciation for stationary, paper products, notebooks and cards. As a student, I think I spent more time in the student union school supplies shop than I did the library. And as a teenager holidaying in France with my family, my highlight every summer was going to the supermarkets and buying stationary, pens, pencil cases and paper where everything was so much cooler than in England. (We did other great things on those holidays; boating down rivers inside caves filled with stalagmites and stalactites, sheltering from tornadoes in a caravan whilst flooding and high winds destroyed our surroundings, diving to the bottom of a lake and bringing handfuls of clay to the shore and making our own bowls....but yep, the stationary was the highlight).

So when I got the chance to try out some amazing Graphic 45 products, I was really excited but also reluctant to use them because they looked too pretty to cut, me not being an expert and all. Graphic 45 produces lovely vintage inspired scrapbook and paper crafting items like this..

The one on the left I think is my favorite (though it's hard to choose) and comes from their Once Upon a Springtime collection. The center image is from the Le Cirque collection, which of course I also love having read Water For Elephants a while ago. The one on the left is from The Magic Of Oz collection and is really fun.

The Proper Gentlemen collection has pages with golfing and car prints, and I particularly love the necktie and golf trouser prints.

So, are you wanting to know if I have taken knife to paper and made something? Why, yes I did. How could I not at least try? I had to use the fairy papers first because they were my favorite. I came up with a sweet envelope for my 5yr old.

The envelope contains 6 pull-out cards decorated with fairy images.

It's just the right size for little hands.

And has space on the reverse for her own fairy drawings.

Not to leave out my 7yr old, I made him a notebook using the On the Boulevard paper.

I found this tutorial on Japanese stab binding which completely fascinated me so I used some of Graphic 45's ribbon trim and gave it a go.

So although I'm still going to say I'm not a papercrafter, I really enjoyed using these papers to create some new things.

I have a tutorial here on how to make an envelope like the fairy one I made.

Finally, do you papercraft? Anyone have any suggestions of things I could make using all this beautiful paper I have?