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We'll be choosing our lucky winner of BLOG CANDY tomorrow. All posts up until midnight tonight (EST) will be added to the list.
Don't forget the National Scrapbooking Day celebration ... we just can't limit it to one day ... we're celebrating May 2-4th. And all month long too!
Check out Art Girlz Scrappin Attic's store for special sales, great new kits and more!
Scrapbookers Don't Lie -- They Just Embellish!
I saw this as someone's signature on Split Coast Stampers. I can't remember who ... but I wrote it on a post-it note and thought I just HAD to spread the word. Since we'd had a number of posts and a lot of comments over the past few days about using your embellishments.
I've got another tip:
* I had LOTS of little stickers. It was the thing to put on your pages about 12+ years ago. Maybe some of you can relate. I don't use these like I used to and didn't know what to do with them.
Some of these I have used as centers for flowers, add to photo corners for an added embelishment (instead of a brad) ... but I have found that my 10 year old step-son LOVES them. He is always making something. I keep the stickers in a box, separated from my other embellishments. He thinks these are special and I let him use them for projects for school, cards for teachers, etc.
I don't feel so bad about "wasting" these stickers since someone is getting enjoyment out of them. I have to admit that even my daughters (now Junior & Senior in High School) have some favorites and went and picked them out of the box. The girls put them on cell phones, notebooks and more.
Remember: one crafter's junk is another's treasures.
Thank you all for reading and commenting on my blog. We've got a nice BLOG CANDY package for the winner of our contest ...
Leave us a comment before April 30th and you will be in the drawing for our BLOG CANDY!
We've got some great stuff from ARCTIC FROG, Queen & Company, Bazzill and more.
So far we've got the following names on our list:
Cindy, Bunny, Michelle, Giovana, Renae S., Patty W. Lizette, Rachel, Pam C., Andrea M., Char-, Ginny, Brenda H., Claudia F., Stephanie E., Linda SS, Swedie, Linda P., Mikesgal and Sandy H.
Several of you have left a number of comments -- and we certainly appreciate them all!
Happy Scrapping!
The other day we posted a fun page (8th grade graduation) using some birthday papers. Well, they are called "BIRTHDAY BOY" (by Doodlebug Design, Inc.), but they don't actually say happy birthday, so we thought they screamed PARTY!!!
I had some comments about using embellishments and your stash. Happily, I am not alone. You are not alone. Seems that a number of scrappers out there love embellishments but want to make sure that page they put them on is "the perfect page".
I used to feel that most of my pages were unworthy and didn't want to use those special embellishments, BUT I realized a few things:
* photos can be reprinted and you CAN re-do a page.
* embellishments CAN be removed from one page and put onto another -- stickers can not be removed, but you can cut around them and add that cut out piece as an embellishment on another page.
* a "mistake" is not really a mistake if you can cover it with an embellishment, or remove it!
So I am NOT waiting for the perfect page anymore. I have gone through some older albums and re-done pages. I have taken some photos that I dearly love and enlarged to 5x7 or even 8x10 and put in an album JUST FOR ME! Since these photos were already in books for each of the girls, I wanted some special photos in an album that was all mine.
Hope you will enjoy your stash of scrapbooking stuff -- use those papers, brads, stickers, rhinestones and more that you have collected. There will always be more items on the market.
ENJOY the art of scrapbooking, ENJOY your stash, ENJOY your time spent with friends & family.
I LOVE embellishments in my scrapbooks ... brads, eyelets, flowers, ribbons ... I could go on (almost) forever. I've really been hoarding my stash and not using it. Why? Various reasons. I look back at my first scrapbook pages (over 12 years ago) and I cringe. I see improvement (at least to my eyes), and I don't want to "waste" my precious embellishments on a less than super great page.
But I realized something. My style will always be evolving. I may like something now, and think "why did I do that" a few years later. I'm coming to the conclusion that you need to embrace EACH and EVERY scrapbook page you make. I put a lot of time into my pages, I'm not a quick scrapper. Sometimes I think a page is complete, and 6 months later I find just the right embellishment. I've removed items and replaced them with the perfect find. Sometimes the perfect find is just an addition to the page -- you know when you look at the page and say "there is something missing".
I found this totally cute paper from Doodlebug Designs called BIRTHDAY BOY. Love the Doodlebug Design colors -- bright, happy and fresh. This paper collection is a mix of turquoise blue, lapis blue (close to navy blue) and lime green. Although this paper is called BIRTHDAY BOY it can be used for any party, celebration with cake & presents. And it doesn't have to be just for boys!
How about 8th Grade Graduation Celebration? The school colors are turquoise blue and black, but that's not why I used this paper. I used it because my daugher LOVES blue, and it just fit her. Fun. Plain & simple.
A very simple sketch combines three different printed papers from Doodlebug Designs' BIRTHDAY BOY paper collection. Used some Bazzill Bling paper behind the photos. Added ribbon around one photo and tied the t-shirt on with funky fibers.
One of our favorite embellishments is FELT. It reminds me of being a kid. We did so many crafts with felt. It is so versatile and really lasts a long time. I made some Christmas ornaments for my mother 30+ years ago and look brand new.
Have some fun with Queen & Company's FELT FUSION. Felt "ribbon" that can be used as is, or cut into individual shapes. This green FLOWER pattern felt embellishment really matched the paper well and added a little bit of "girly" style.
Carry the funky fibers to the second page and use for ties on a tag. This adds more girly feel, but certainly could be used for boy pages too!
The felt ribbon is great as is. It is self-adhesive, which makes adhering to paper and chipboard and more SO EASY.
Since I really love embellishments, had to add some to the felt. We added a variety of items. Some Doodlebug Design JEWELS were added as centers to flowers. The Jewels come in 4 different sizes -- you can find one to fit any of these flowers.
Then we added some Queen & Company large BON BON brads from the "Make Waves" Collection. In addition to the large brads, we added some of Queen & Company's FAB FLOWERS and SASSY SEQUINS flowers. These are great embellishments to add to your scrapbook pages or other paper crafts. The Fab Flowers and Sassy Sequins are thin sequin-like flower shapes. Layer these with other flowers and brads.
See the close-up of the felt ribbon where we layered floral sequins & brads, and also the self-stick jewels.
Have some fun using these fun embellishments!
Queen & Company FAB FLOWERS & SASSY SEQUINS, BON BON BRADS; Doodlebug Design, Inc. patterned papers from BIRTHDAY BOY collection and add some BLING with JEWELS from Queen & Company or Doodlebug Design.
We're getting ready for National Scrapbooking Day ... and we'll be celebrating all weekend from May 2-4th. We're making a list of all that have made comments on our blog and will be posting names in a few days. Still a week left to post comments!
Yea, we're sad to hear Arctic Frog is out of business, but glad that we had some of their goodies in stock. Making up a nice package of BLOG CANDY for our winner. And we'll be posting our special KIT for National Scrapbooking Day. We'll be having an ON-LINE tutorial and class for our kit.
I don't know about you, but I LOVE the mountains. I like the beach, but I really LOVE the mountains. This weekend my younger daughter and I went to Boone, NC to visit Appalachian State University. It is a very beautiful place. A mix of old and new. A mid-size university with a very small town feel.
We even had nice enough weather to put the top down and ride on Saturday afternoon with wind in our hair! Drive up 421 North out of Boone and you'll soon be in Tennesee! Coming into Boone from Wilkesboro, NC you cross the "Eastern Continental Divide" at 3,100 feet above sea level. You can jump on the Blue Ridge Parkway, go skiing (or any winter mountain sport) and so much more.
Back home now, and we found out that Boone (and higher elevations) had snow! So glad we didn't run into the snow. The Mustang (convertible) is not really a "snow" worthy car.
If you are in this area and looking for a nice small town to spend a weekend or vacation, Boone is great.
We certainly had a good time.
We've had a number of readers with some nice comments about our site! We're searching for the right BLOG CANDY to give our winner. Looks like it will be something with ARCTIC FROG. I love their stuff, and went to their website and found that they are out of business. Only can get what is already in stock!
If you like ARCTIC FROG (beach theme), then you'll love the BLOG CANDY.
Don't forget ... all this is leading up to National Scrapbooking Day in May!!! Can't believe it's almost here.
I'll be taking a mini-vacation to the mountains to visit a "potential" University for my younger daughter. Looks like the weather will be cool, and it's even supposed to SNOW next week. Can you believe it!!??
You read the blog, like the photos ... the tutorial is helpful. Leave me a comment!
If you leave a comment you have a chance to win some scrapbook supplies. National Scrapbooking Day is coming up soon -- and we'd like to give something special to our readers.
Starting TODAY (Thursday April 10), all people posting (nice comments only, please) to my blog will be added to my BLOG CANDY list.
May 1st -- we'll choose the winner.
You never know what you may win -- stamp sets, papers, embellishments?
I've seen these "Explosion Boxes" on websites and magazines. But never made one because the directions seemed too complicated! But a wonderful scrapping friend showed me an easy way to make this box -- and I'm so excited to give it to my mother as a gift.
The box assembly is SO easy!!! The most difficult part was choosing the papers -- I found these papers that I fell in love with. They have embossed areas (flowers) on them. How cool is that? It's like you stamped & embossed on the papers, but no work involved in my part.
This is the box all put together. If you present it as a gift, make sure to hold it by the bottom or have some ribbon tied all the way around so that the bottom doesn't just fall away. I've added photos and lots of embellishments so the explosion box part is rather heavy. I also used high quality cardstock (Bazzill) to add stability when adding photos and "stuff" on the pages. I rounded the corners of the inside "flaps" because I just really didn't like the square corners / tips after I was working with it. It's just preference, you don't have to round the corners, you could even use a decorative corner punch to hold the photos in place!
This project takes one 12x12 sheet of cardstock for the bottom of the box, a 7 1/2 (square) piece for the box top, and one to two pieces of 12x12 cardstock for the inside pages/flaps. Depends on how many layers you want. A rather inexpensive project, but it packs a LOT of WOW! power.
Lift off the top and you have a surprise inside -- scrapbook in a box?!
The contents begin to reveal themselves ... the side flaps will tend to fold out, although not completely flat. The more thick embellishments you add to your pages (flaps) the quicker it will "pop" open.
We added photos to every flap on front & back. You can add just a few photos and add journaling on the other side. There really are no rules for decorating.
You could punch a hole in one page (flap) and have it peek through to the next one!?
Here are several of the pages as you can fold and unfold the different sides:
1) First set of photos you see when you open the box. 
2) fold over one flap you have more photos.
3) Had fun using two photos about 5 years apart ... my daughter has same pose. Peace!
4) Add as many embellishments as you can fit on a page!
5) Put a large photo on 2 flaps. Measured where I wanted to put this photo on the page, cut the photo so that it could fold.
