CREAlies Create-A-Card No5 an and Nina Crafts

I wanted to show that once you have a CREAlies create-a-card die you do not need too much else to create a great card, so I made these three cards.  It is amazing how many people think that you need to use a lot of dies to create a card I prefer a clean and simple style and hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I enjoyed making them.
 

For this card, I simply used some Nina Craft stamps, Memento’s black ink, and Alcohol markers. I had a small piece of holographic acetate in my stash and decided to stamp the glass with StazOn and glue this over the top of my glass for a bit of glam. (July 2012 project club stamp set 'Classy Cocktails' and a new and free to class members stamp 'Pineapple Cocktail'.)

For this card I used some free papers and a topper from a magazine with the Robin Wishes Stamp from Nina Crafts.  I stamped the Robin on white Shrink Plastic and coloured it with Distress Markers before shrinking it and attaching it with a Glue dot. I added a green bow just to finish of the card.

 

A very simple card again using the Crealies Create-a-card No 5 die and some paper and decoupage toppers from the Me To You range by Docrafts

French Couture

Mini French Couture

Die-namics Mini Hybrid Heirloom Rose

Die-namics Mini Royal Roses

Crealies

A "series " of guest designer posts will be posted on the CREAlies blog every Tuesday but this beautiful creation by Norma Lee was so good it got posted the Friday before so go have a look at the rest of her creations at From My Craft Room.

 

Anneke kicked of the first official post and you and see her creation here and remember to go look at her blog as well. 

You can also view the design gallery with products used to create each project here or go check out these blogs:
 

Designteam:
Blog Crealies Designteam
Blog Anja
Blog Hennie
Blog Marianne
Blog Miriam
Blog Lean
Blog Shirley
Blog Wilma
Facebook Crealies
Facebook group Crealies
Pinterest 

Webshop: 
www.crealies.nl

Keep checking back for updates on these lovely creations.
Here's my answers to the Crealies-guest designer questions:

• Name: Mariaan Lawson
• Blog: http://bonscraft.blogspot.co.uk/
• What or Who inspires you? I get my inspiration from everything around me and have to admit that I sometime steal ideas from my son (10) and daughters who are only 3 and 4 years old and love to craft with me.  They have not had anything influence their creativity yet so they are tend to be more original and "out of the box" then I am.
• What do you like best: I love creating nice things, sharing and teaching other to be able to be the best they can be or as creative as they can be.
• How would you describe your own style?  I love femine styles and was always a very girly girl but do not let this limit my creations
• Favourite colours: Purple and Apricot but not together
• Favourite technique: stamping and colouring
• Favourite way of colouring: I love pencils but do also play with alcohol markers and marker pens.
• Favourite Crealies Product:  I love the card templates and the clever way these where designed not to be to bulky to store so go watch the Youtube video showing you what they look like and how to use them.  I also love the doily elements and hope to get some CREAlies stamps soon I can  create my own backing papers and add focus to my cards and mini books.

Creating a Crafters Resume for Design Team applications

A lot of companies are currently advertising for Design Team members and I have applied for a few.  I have not been to successful so I did some home work to see what the people who get to be on design team do differently from me and in this post I would like to share my discoveries with you.  Consider blogging or even getting your work published with letters to magazine editors with a photo of yourself and your work as this can be the start of something bigger. Personalized cards count as well and if you got a note from the person that requested it praizing you, scan it and post a photo of it with the card.  All these things count when you apply to join a design team.

Companies receive hundreds of application from all over the world and it can be a very intense process to select only the best so make sure you stand out.  Most companies want you to send them photo's of two to three of your favourite/best creations with a description of yourself and your work.
  

Important questions to ask yourself first:

Think about what you specialize in and start a list.
How many years have you been a crafter?  
What is your experience?  
What have you created? 
Who or what have you designed for?

  

Here is a basic template of what is required:

Resume

About Me:  
I've been crafting (card making, scrapbooking, etc) for ...... years. I love a wide range of projects such as pages, altered items, articles, sketches, and challenge inspiration pages.I am currently looking for design opportunities.  Please feel free to contact me with any enquiries via e-mail!

Certificates or Qualifications:

Current Design Teams:

Past Design Teams:

Guest Designer:

Pending Publications:

Publications:

Contests or Challenges Won:

Featured Here: 
Forums you belong to and share your photo's and tutorials on.

Additional Information:   
Here I would include a list of link where photo's or samples of your work e.g Photobucket, Flickr, etc can be seen followed by my Social media buttons to Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc

So now that you know what to put on your resume we can look into each section seperately.  Next week a little more on who post design team call or publication calls and why as well as what they are looking for.

I hope that you found this helpful, if you did please leave a comment and if you feel I left anytjing out please feel free to tell me all about it in the comments section.