Make It In Minutes

Feel like you're often just too busy to find the time to sit down and scrap?  I know I do! 

We get it!  And so we have a new tutorial series geared toward just this scenario.  Renea Harrison will be showing you how to make beautiful projects in just minutes, and she'll post these tutorials on our forum.

Here's what Renea says about her first tutorial in this series:

" As a busy woman, who is constantly on the go, I can sympathize with those of you who say," I just don't have enough time to do all the things that I love! " But, I also know how important doing something creative and for yourself is to your overall mental health. It is so important that we take a few minutes here and there to do the things that we love. That is why I am going to try to do a segment with either the Scraps Of Darkness or the Scraps Of Elegance kit (both if time permits) to show you how you can "Make It In Minutes." Please feel free to lift this card in it's completion, to make it even less time consuming."

And here's the card she's created for the first episode:

You can find Renea's tutorial on our forum, she even includes the photo for you to use on your card!

Make It In Minutes

Feel like you're often just too busy to find the time to sit down and scrap?  I know I do! 

We get it!  And so we have a new tutorial series geared toward just this scenario.  Renea Harrison will be showing you how to make beautiful projects in just minutes, and she'll post these tutorials on our forum.

Here's what Renea says about her first tutorial in this series:

" As a busy woman, who is constantly on the go, I can sympathize with those of you who say," I just don't have enough time to do all the things that I love! " But, I also know how important doing something creative and for yourself is to your overall mental health. It is so important that we take a few minutes here and there to do the things that we love. That is why I am going to try to do a segment with either the Scraps Of Darkness or the Scraps Of Elegance kit (both if time permits) to show you how you can "Make It In Minutes." Please feel free to lift this card in it's completion, to make it even less time consuming."

And here's the card she's created for the first episode:

You can find Renea's tutorial on our forum, she even includes the photo for you to use on your card!

DT Reveal for our Destinations kit!

Happy Thursday, my fellow scrappers, the weekend is almost here, and we have some fabulous inspiration to get your weekend scrapping kick started!  Today is our Design Team Reveal for our Destinations kit...

In case you haven't seen our May kit yet, I'll share a pic of that, so you can see what the ladies on our DT were working with - and with a little note that we still have a few kits left in our store, but they are going fast...

I thought I'd share one project from each designer, and if you click on the designer's name, you'll be taken to her blog, where you can see more of her work with the kit, so here we go!

Mandy Harrell

Karen Zueger

Renea Harrison

Drycha

Marianne Johansson

Kim Arledge

And as usual, Customs wants to play with our kits, too!  So they aren't letting Solange Marques play with her kit yet, but as soon as they do, we'll share her gorgeous projects with you, too.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing a few of the things our Design Team ladies have made with the kit, and will add a little note that if you'd like to join in on any of our ongoing challenges, just stop by our forum - we love having new people join in, and you don't need one of our kits to participate, you can scrap with the goodies you already have, if you like!

~Melinda

Look who's guest designing for us in June!

Our June kit is almost here, just a few more days, and I have to tell you, we are so excited to announce that we have an amazing artist guest designing for us in June!  She's super talented and super sweet, and I know we'll all be inspired by her work with the June kit...

Gabrielle Pollacco

Hi!  My name is Gabrielle Pollacco, I'm a mom of 2 sweet girls, happily married to my husband Steve and we have one big fluffy Labradoodle named Zoe, that sometimes makes her way into our family photos!  Many of you may know me from some of my past and present design teams which include, Bo Bunny, Webster's Pages, Maja Design, Dusty Attic and Scrap365 Magazine (Some of my past design teams being, Daisy D's, The Color Room and Zva Creative).  I've been scrapping for many years now and would say that my style would be described as Vintage/shabby-chic.  I love trying out new techniques and love to share my tutorials with my blog readers!  I've had the privilege of being a Guest Designer for Scraps of Elegance in the past year and was delighted to be asked back to scrap with this year's June kit!

In the event you are unfamiliar with Gabi's work (meaning you must have been on vacation with no internet for years now!), you'll find lots of inspiration if you visit her blog! 

Be sure to stop back on June 1st to see the kit and some of Gabi's work with it!

Karen's Lift A Designer Challenge and a sale!

I thought I'd post a fun challenge Karen Zueger has started on our forum:

Lift A Designer Challenge

This is "Lift A Designer" Challenge.  You can lift a favorite designer of yours or someone's work that you've always wanted to try!!

Try to stay true to the design of the layout you are lifting.  You can add your own touchs and embellish with your own style if you wish.

It's always a good idea to contact the designer and get their permission to use their work and always reference their work back to their blog.  You do not need to use our kits, you can use any supplies you like.

This challenge May-June and at the end of June I will pick a winner who will receive a great box of goodies from my stash!!

So, here we go, I'm so excited to be hosting this and can't wait to see your work!!!

I have always loved Heather Jacob's work, I had the pleasure of designing with her at Imaginarium Designs and she is a lovely lady with tons of talent.  I just love the rustic and earthy colors she uses in her work.

The link to her blog is: http://heatherartandlife.blogspot.com.au

So here's Heather's beautiful "YOU" layout and my lift of it.  I hope you enjoy and I can't wait to see what you create lifting a favorite designer!!

Heather's layout:

And Karen's lift of it:

And here is a link to the challenge:  Lift A Designer Challenge

I hope you'll consider playing along, we'd love to see what you do with the challenge!

And don't miss the Memorial Day Weekend sale going on in our store - 20% off the first kit in a new kit subscription, and 25% off everything else!

~Melinda

June Round Robin...

Just a little note to let you know that the sign ups for our June Round Robin challenge are happening now.

In case you didn't already know, you DO NOT have to use our kits or products to participate in our Round Robin Challenge (or any of our challenges, for that matter), so if you'd like to join in, we'd love to have you play!

Here's a link to the sign up thread on our forum (you will need to register on the forum first, but that's a pretty easy thing to do!):  June Round Robin Sign Ups

And if you've never participated in a Round Robin challenge, you don't know what you're missing - they're a lot of fun, and you never know, you could win a prize, as well.

Here's how ours works:

1. There are several teams.  When you sign up, you'll be put on one of the teams.
2. The first person on each team comes up with a layout. All on their own. What ever they want to do - no rules, no need to use any of our products, just any layout with any supplies and any design they would like to do.
3. They post this layout on "Week One" reveal day. So we now have several different layouts posted - one from each team.
4. The person who is next in line on the team does a lift of the layout the person before them did.
(For example: If I am the first person on team one, I create a layout and post on reveal day. If Nancy is the next person in line on my team she then lifts my layout and posts it on the following reveal day.)
Each week the next person on YOUR team is lifting the person before them. This continues until everyone has had their week. There are usually 4 weeks in a challenge.
5. After the 4th week we vote on our favorite layout. We do not vote for ourselves or the design team.

That's it!

I hope you'll consider joining us for the June challenge, the more, the merrier!

~Melinda

June Round Robin

Just a little note to let you know that the sign ups for our June Round Robin challenge are happening now.

In case you didn't already know, you DO NOT have to use our kits or products to participate in our Round Robin Challenge (or any of our challenges, for that matter), so if you'd like to join in, we'd love to have you play!

Here's a link to the sign up thread on our forum (you will need to register on the forum first, but that's a pretty easy thing to do!):  June Round Robin Sign Ups

And if you've never participated in a Round Robin challenge, you don't know what you're missing - they're a lot of fun, and you never know, you could win a prize, as well.

Here's how ours works:

1. There are several teams.  When you sign up, you'll be put on one of the teams.
2. The first person on each team comes up with a layout. All on their own. What ever they want to do - no rules, no need to use any of our products, just any layout with any supplies and any design they would like to do.
3. They post this layout on "Week One" reveal day. So we now have several different layouts posted - one from each team.
4. The person who is next in line on the team does a lift of the layout the person before them did.
(For example: If I am the first person on team one, I create a layout and post on reveal day. If Nancy is the next person in line on my team she then lifts my layout and posts it on the following reveal day.)
Each week the next person on YOUR team is lifting the person before them. This continues until everyone has had their week. There are usually 4 weeks in a challenge.
5. After the 4th week we vote on our favorite layout. We do not vote for ourselves or the design team.

That's it!

I hope you'll consider joining us for the June challenge, the more, the merrier!

~Melinda

May Kit Reveal

Our May kit is here!  It was a little delayed, but we think it was worth the wait!

Destinations

This kit is such a versatile kit, and can take you to so many different destinations (pun intended! lol).  You can go in a Steampunk direction - masculine - travel - dramatic - elegant - the possibilities are endless!

We like to give you a close-up with the kit picture, but realize it's a little hard to see the papers included in those pics, so here's a pic of our Patterned Paper Add On.  The Patterned Paper add on always includes one extra sheet of the papers that are in the main kit, which gives you so many more options for your projects, it's not just two sheets of each paper, it allows you to use both sides, or if there's one design you really love, you now have a second/backup sheet of that paper!

If you'd like to see the full list of what's included in the kit, and all of the available add ons (we give you lots of options!), please stop by our website or store 

.

And as always, Suepup has created an awesome new sketch to coordinate with the kit.  Please feel free to use it for inspiration - and if you do, be sure to enter the May Destinations Sketch Challenge on our forum for a chance to win a prize!  You don't have to use our kit to enter the challenge, just the sketch!

I hope you'll find inspiration in both our new kit and sketch, and that you'll consider entering our sketch challenge!

Thank you for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

~Melinda

Introducing our May Guest Designer!

It's with much excitement that I announce Solange Marques will be guest designing for us with our upcoming May kit (stay tuned - the kit will premiere on May 18th)!

 

I am Solange Marques, and I live in Curitiba, Brazil, with my husband, João, and some of my children. I have five children:  Camila, Alexandre, Bruno, Gabriela, Miguel and two  grandchildren: Clara and  Samuel. They are always present in my creations.
I am graduated in architecture and fine arts, but I have been working in a Bank for 24 years as an appraiser of jewelry. 

I have been in  love with Arts and Crafts since I was a child . I discovered Scrapbooking in 2004 and today I am totally crazy about it.
I love to use paints and texture in my layouts and I melt the photos with the background. I love mixing  a lot of techniques  and products in my pages, such as acrylic paints, watercolor, stamps, modeling paste and acrylic gesso.  
I love the artsy style! 

You can see some of Solange's work on her blog.

Solange's work is always amazing, and we can't wait to see what she does with our May kit!

Design Team Call Results!

The results are in!  Before I announce who will be joining our Design Team, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to apply, we received so many wonderful submissions, and really enjoyed seeing your work - it was hard to narrow it down!

In the end, we think the two ladies joining our team are fabulous, and will provide us all with endless inspiration over the coming months.

Please help me in welcoming them to our team!

Mandy Zimmerman

My name is Amanda.  Family and friends call me Mandy.  Some of you may know me by my scrap name (Kasha Gray). I am currently a stay at home mom living in Northeast Pennsylvania.  I'm having the time of my life creating scrapbook pages, beading, painting, mixed media on a daily basis! I LOVE DESIGN:  Landscaping, beading, painting, scrapbooking, mosaic's, home decor, altered art and floral design.  I have been artistic since childhood and finally have a little more time to put my passion to good use.  I started scrapbooking before my son was born "2004" and haven't stopped since.  I love creating layout's, altered projects, mixed media and much more.  I enjoy making each design unique, whimsical with a touch of vintage and romance.  I want to make each person find something new each time they look at my projects.  Scrapbooking and art is a passion and an addiction.  I LOVE IT!!  

And with the excitement of new members joining the team also comes with some goodbyes, sadly.

I want to give a heartfelt thank you to Evgenia Petzer and Sarah Bargo - they've both done such beautiful work for us, and were a joy to have on the team.  We'll miss having you on the team, but I am sure we'll still be seeing the beautiful work you do!

Kim's NSD Challenge and a layout from Aida!

I wanted to share another layout with you today.  Aida Domisiewicz is guest designing for us this month, and she has just been rocking our Remember When kit!  Check out this fantastic layout she's done:

 Doesn't it just make you want to pull out your paints, mists, and mediums and work on a layout?!  Such an inspiration!

And the next thing I'd like to share is that Kim Arledge is hosting a wonderful challenge on our forum for NSD!  You do not have to be a kit club member or use any of our products to participate in the challenge, and we have a nice little RAK valued at over $65.00 fot the winner:

Playing along is fun and easy, stop by our forum to play!  NSD Challenge

Ayeeda's work with our Remember When kit!

I am beyond thrilled to let you know that Customs finally thought it was time to let Aida play with our April kit!

We're so excited that Aida Domisiewicz is guest designing for us with this month's kit, and let me tell you, waiting for Customs to release it to her was worth it!

This is the first layout she did that we'll be sharing with you, she based it on the sketch we included with the kit, and what a stunner it is!

Aida's layouts are always such an inspiration, and we'll have more of her work to share in the coming days, so please be sure to stop back!

May Kit Reveal and Round Robin Final Round

Today I'm doing two, yes two, posts in one!  Our May kit is here, and yesterday was the final reveal for our April Round Robin Challenge.

"Yesterdays" Kit

Our May kit will bring you back to those beautiful childhood summer days.  We've assembled the perfect collection of papers and embellishments to create your Mother's Day projects, scrap those treasured vintage and childhood photos, or just create something beautiful...  The kit includes items from Pink Paislee's gorgeous Hope Chest collection, Prima's sweet Fairy Rhymes collection, incredibly intricate and beautiful laser cut cardstock doilies from Gina's designs, and so much more!  Stop by our store or website to see the full list of what's included.

I usually don't include the kit add ons to our blog posts, since they are on the website, but the papers in this month's kit are just so gorgeous, I couldn't resist... so here are the papers you will find in both our Main kit above, and our Patterned Paper Add On:

 

The ladies on our design team are currently working their magic with the kit, and will begin sharing their work on May 5th, so stay tuned!

And on to the Round Robin... Yesterday was the reveal of the final round of our April Round Robin, so I thought rather than just posting the final round, I'd post them in succession for each team, so that you can see how each artist was inspired by the earlier rounds.

Team One

This was my entry:

And I was inspired by Monica's layout:

And Monica was inspired by Renea's layout:

Team Two

This is Lisa's layout:

And Lisa was inspired by  Lee's layout:

And Lee was inspired by Pat's layout:

Team Three

This is Maja's layout:

And Maja was inspired by Cathi's layout:

And Cathi was inspired by Kim's layout:

Our May Round Robin sign up is happening now, please consider joining us - it's a lot of fun, and we do not require that you use any of our products in the challenge - it's open to everyone!

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you've enjoyed seeing the new kit and our Round Robin entries, and I hope we've inspired you to Create Something Beautiful Today!

~Melinda