Announcing! **saxophone solo please**

We here at the Gauche casa are reformatting our design team. We need something unique that works for us. After much brainstorming and margaritas, we are happy – nay, ecstatic – to announce our brand-spankin’-new DESIGN TEAM CAPTAINS!

Nicole Maki is a scrapper, cardmaker, and altered artist extraordinaire.  She is one busy lady – homeschooling 3 rambunctious boys, designing for Bombshell Stamps (which, as you know if you’ve been around for a while, we frequently partner with… because they rock so hard.  N’ stuff.), and dying her hair an unnatural shade of red.  She’s funky to the core.  N’ stuff.

Nina Patena hails from the Philipines and guest designed for us last December.  She is such a sweetheart and adds a personal touch to everything she touches.  (Yeah, that made sense…)  She also homeschools… what is this with homeschooling?  My hats off to you ladies – I’m sure it’s full of thrills, chills, and challenges (says she who knows absolutely nothing about it).  Nina is part of an impressive network of Filipino artsy-crafty gals.  Hop on over to her blog, follow a few links… it’s all so wacky and wonderful.  🙂

These lurid… oh, I mean LOVELY ladies will become quite visible in the near future. They will be posting cool stuff on the ol’ blog and sending out newsletters. Heather, my stawart partner, will also become more visible – I can’t wait for you to get to know her!  I appreciate her style but can’t duplicate it.  (Why is it that we try to duplicate someone’s style instead of appreciating our own?  Hmm…discuss.)

Lest you think they will replace me, you think wrong. 😉 I’ll be around as much as ever.  (I know, you were hoping, right?) My opinion, as always, is that the more brains working together, the more fun and interesting things get.

Of course, around here, you have to have a certain, shall we say, GAUCHE quality to rise to the level of team captain.

More news – as part of restructuring the design team, we’ll be doing a design-team call soon. (Soon. That’s all I can say. So don’t get all up in my biznatch if it’s not announced as soon as what you consider “soon.”)

We are unsure whether design team gigs should last 3 months or 6… any feedback from the masses?

Yet another piece of news – exciting to us but perhaps not such a visible thing for most of our readers (or at least commentors). Apparently, we have quite the Japanese following (thanks to Yasu’s brilliant style and continual crediting and/or profiling of Gauche Alchemy and the games we play over here). The sad part is that we know not much about them… there is often a language barrier. I do post some of their fantastic work when it’s forwarded to me by Yasu, but sadly, that is usually all we see of these lurking fans.

Yasu is leaving us here in sunny Arizona for her homeland of Japan in October. Me so sad. So so so sad.  Sobbing and sobbing sad.  😦

However, because of the partnership and – more importantly – friendship we’ve formed, Yasu will be our new Japanese affiliate! How about that!? We’re an international entity! Whoo-hoo! More importantly, Yasu has been able to run interference between those of us most comfortable with English and those of us who are more comfortable with Japanese. We are so flattered that she has chosen to take our influence (and kits made exclusively for her) to Japan. We hope to continue to share the work of these talented ladies, even if we don’t hear their words very often!

Speaking of which, get a load out of this layout by  Yurippe!

This layout was made using primarily our I’m a Very Handsome Man! kit, but I can definitely see some red color kit pieces in there, too.  🙂