Featured Crew Member – Gloria Stengel

We couldn’t think of a better way to start the week, then by sharing our next featured crew member in our ongoing CCB series where we feature a member of the Canvas Corp Brands Creative Crew letting you see a glimpse into their creative world.  These story moments allow us to show you what inspires them, which mediums they enjoying working in and their favorite projects.  We work with such an incredible group of diverse designers who love to share the latest techniques and show us new ways to use their artful supplies. Our crew spans across every corner of the globe, from California to New Zealand. This brings a wonderful cultural vibe to our team and allows us to see a variety of creative views.  Today our journey takes us to the surf side town of Oceanside, California, which is approximately 40 miles north of beautiful downtown San Diego, where we introduce you to a wonderful artist, Gloria Stengel.

Gloria makes a wonderful addition to our CCB Crew. Her presence on our team has filled us with so much creativity and brings a vintage element to our crew.  Her talent with paper and ephemera fills us with so much inspiration. Each one of her pieces tells a story which she brings to life through layering and found objects. Gloria’s work makes us want to head to our local antique shop and hunt for vintage photographs and found objects, then hurry home, dig out our supplies and start creating. We are so excited that she has been apart of our creative journey and that we are able to share her world with our creative community which spans across the globe.  Our story continues to be told through our products, projects and through our incredible crew. Although we say it often, its the truth, we aren’t just building a crew with amazing designers, but building true relationships on this journey.

Everyone of our Crew Members was asked to create a 4×4 Canvas that represents themselves and their personal style.

Vintage, Victorian, Romantic and Timeless are the words we want to use to describe Gloria’s 4 by 4 piece?  You can see her love of vintage, and for layering found objects through her altered canvas. We love the dimension that Gloria added from hardware, paper flowers and typography used to bring this piece to life.

Gloria’s design style can best be described as…”I think my “go-go” style is layered vintage. I prefer to use actual vintage or vintage-inspired products, but even when creating something trendy, I like to use lots of layers and give things a bit of vintage twist. Someone once described my style as “knowing when to stop adding items to a project at just the perfect moment style”! It is no secret that my handmade cards are very heavy due to all the stuff I glue onto them.”

Gloria was inspired most to be creative by….”I do not come from an artistic family and never had any art training or artistic leanings as a child. In fact my worst grades in school were in art class! However, I do come from a long line of innovators and folks who made their livings with their hands. My family was quite poor when I was a child, so art supplies and such were hard to come by, but my parents always allowed us to make use of what we had on hand – the button box, quilt scraps, leftover yarn, bits of wood, and so on. From a young age I was always making something or coloring or just messing about with whatever supplies we had around the house. I remember making my own paper doll clothes from old wall paper samples that my dad had found in a box of junk purchased at an auction. Part of my creative process still remains making something out of junk and using my supplies in ways not intended.”

What inspires you most today?  “Learning a new technique! Nothing gets my creativity going like learning something new or rediscovering a forgotten skill. Something as simple as buying new paper or unearthing some supplies from my stash can set me on the path of “creative genius.” I love when an old technique is dusted off and reintroduced into my skill set.”

What is your favorite Canvas Corp Brand Product? “7 Gypsies papers! I love the vintage imagery on the 7 Gypsies paper lines. They are so perfect for the types of things I like to create!”

What is one of your favorite Canvas Corp Brands Projects you have created? 

“I love everything about this vintage mini album! The denim cover, the red/white/blue color scheme, the vintage papers, the bits of metal. All of it. It is so perfectly ME! Jeans and America and old junk!”

I am the happiest doing…..”Reading! I know I should say crafting or creating, but I simply love to read. I learned to read at the impossibly young age of two! I read every day, and sometimes I have 3-4 books going at once. I read and study my Bible on a regular basis, I read scientific material and apologetics, I read history, thrillers, and Christian romances! If all else fails, I read the cereal box! I love to create things, but I reading is like breathing.”

My favorite place to be creative…..”My studio. I have a great space in which to work and I have a very hard time being creative when I am not there. I like to be surrounded by all my bits and pieces. I can get in the zone and just make a big mess. I have a nice work surface, tons of storage space, nice lighting, and good windows. If falls just a tad short of PERFECT, but it is very close.”

To see more of Gloria’s work visit her blog Gloria Scraps  and her Facebook Page Gloria Stengel Scraps of Life or follow Gloria on Instagram

To see more projects by Gloria and the Canvas Corp Brands Crew follow us on:

Blog: Canvas Corp Brands Blog

Instagram:  Canvas Corp Brands, Tattered Angels, Canvas Corp and 7gypsies

Facebook: Canvas Corp, 7gypsies and Tattered Angels

If you are not familiar with the Canvas Corp Crew it is a group of amazing designers from around the world they have come together to create, share ideas, support each other, let us know what we can do better and remind us of what we are doing well. Our Crew is made up of about 100 designers who contribute projects to our blog, design with our products on their blogs, and create models for our trade shows, packaging, and other fun little projects. We love to hear what they have to say, to be inspired by their work, and to learn new things everyday. For more information, about our crew, stop over to our website www.canvascorpbrands.com and if you are interested in being a guest blogger for us apply here.

To see our complete line of products with design ideas provided by our Crew visit our shop Canvas Corp Brands Shop.

Happy Creating!!!

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