pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

So excited to see this line in person — and excited to share too! It’s the new Dear Lizzy collection from American Crafts, designed by the always adorable Elizabeth Kartchner in beautiful tones of pink, aqua, yellow and brown. With bicycles, handwriting and bunting galore!

Chipboard and glittered Thickers. Yum!

Plus Flair, clear stamps, layered stickers, rub-ons, ribbons, papers, die cuts, chipboard…oh my, oh my. There’s even fabric paper in there, with a beautiful printed canvas texture. It’s so perfectly spring and very happy. It’s definitely girly, but it will work with lots of family pages too, just to get started. I think it’s a line cardmakers and compulsive-party-decorators will also love.

My Must-Have: this gorgeous, gorgeous ribbon. Words fail me. I am in love! Sigh!

Here’s a look around Lizzy’s tea party at the American Crafts booth…

Dear Lizzy will be in stores very soon.

Click here to shop for scrapbooking supplies from American Crafts!

xlovesx

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When someone asked what it was that I did, Technique Tuesday said “she makes cool stuff”, which made me smile and giggle. But more importantly, Technique Tuesday? They make really cool stuff. Especially if you love to stamp. Cool stamps and cool stuff on which to stamp. Cool stuff abounds!

The vintage camera image in the set above by Ali Edwards definitely qualifies as cool. Excited to stamp with that set!

Another new set by Ali, with a love theme. Also cool.

The tiles are a very cool white material that is like chipboard and yet not like chipboard. Similar thickness and weight, but it does very pretty things with ink and stamps. There are several new additions to the existing line up, including a set of all different border strips, a set with scalloped circles and squares and some very cute sets that are the size of a card. Another cool thing: the die-cut shapes are all nested so every piece is part of the design and there’s no waste like you often get with a sheet of chipboard shapes.

This wins the clever idea of the day award: a set of polka dot stamps is cool enough on its own, but there is something purely genius about this set: a separate extra dot in each size that appears in the pattern. So you know when you stamp and the pressure isn’t quite even and you end up with a dot or two that’s faded and you’re really nervous to put the entire stamp right over the top again because what if you move by the tiniest smidgen and it ruins everything? No more of that, because you have a single, individual dot! So you can just stamp the dot that didn’t appear rather than the entire design again. I love this idea so very, very much! Super simple and yet super…cool.

Here are some other goodies around the very cool Technique Tuesday display:











These last two are from a range of class kits available to stores so you can make these pages with step-by-step instructions and some of them include stamps you can’t buy outside the kit too.

All the new additions are shipping soon after the show.

Click here to shop for cool things from Technique Tuesday!

xlovesx

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Starting off the CHA report, there are heaps of beautiful things from the ever-classy Jenni Bowlin Studio. So much pretty!

My must-have: these Embellished Butterflies. So very pretty with pattern and just a bit of bling in the classic butterfly silhouette.

The Homespun collection mixes florals with farm prints. The polka dot die cut paper is supercute and the journaling card set is my favourite in this collection. This line will be in stores soon.

The Red/Black Line Extension II collection has more butterflies plus small vines and large floral prints, plus a gorgeous red damask circle paper. This line is available now.

New stickers include the classic labels given a cute twist with plenty of colourful polka dots and bunting sticker sets that include the bunting banner pieces in different colours to coordinate with the collections and an alphabet that sticks right onto the flag, all on the same sheet. Love these!

Also gorgeous reproductions of Jenni’s favourite vintage buttons. Is it wrong that I actually want to sew plenty of them on my clothes as well as my scrapbook pages?

The buttons, stickers, butterflies and also pretty stick pins will be in stores very soon.

And here’s a look around Jenni’s inspiring booth, with projects from the Jenni Bowlin Studio design team.

Click here to shop for Jenni Bowlin Studio products!

More CHA photos to come, of course!

xlovesx

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Greetings from beautiful downtown Anaheim! (Well, not quite downtown. Convention/Disney town is more like it. Apparently downtown Anaheim is on the other side of the motorway. But this is much closer to beautiful downtown Burbank than I usually happen to be, so I am just going to go with the beautiful downtown thing and let it be.)

Over the last two days I’ve said the same few sentences over and over again as a few hundred ladies made monogrammed luggage tags with me and my favourite butterfly punch. We’ve talked about all sorts of projects they’ve been working on and we’ve shared pages and all sorts of fabulously good crafty energy. And apparently I’ve also decided to wear gigantic necklaces.

Tomorrow everything shifts gears as the public show is now closed and the trade show opens in the morning. That’s when all the new releases will be seen and all the super exciting stuff happens! Watch for lots of blog posts over the next few days as I’ll be posting pictures and sharing my new favourites from the show!

xlovesx

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You’ve had your weekend to think and now it’s time for some action. It’s time to tell the world why we scrapbook!

Come up with a creative way to explain why you scrapbook and post it online — on your blog, in a page gallery, on youtube, twitter, or wherever is right for you. Just two guidelines: title your blog entry, the title in your gallery, etc should be This is Why I Scrapbook and somewhere include a link to this post. Everything else is completely up to you and your creativity! You can find more contest details here.

To enter, leave a link to your post in the comments on this post. Entries close on the 31st of January, and in the first week of February, everyone will be welcomed to vote to help choose the winners!

Good luck!

xlovesx

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What a crazy day it has been here! But all good in the end. I hope your Friday was a fabulous one! So excited to share all the details today about how you can get involved in this creative adventure.

Whenever I make a project that is very ‘of the moment’ and I’m writing my opinions as they are right now even though they will likely change, I love to echo that with products and techniques I’m currently loving. You know how we all love to save that special paper for something so special it never comes along? Embellishments too. I’m not even letting that idea settle one bit: I started by picking out a big stack of papers I really love and then a basket of things I always mean to use but don’t.

I also made a huge mess of my table but surely that’s its purpose, right?

I like starting even small albums with some sort of explanation. Like admitting that yes, this is a scrapbook about scrapbooking. I am not at all unaware of how over the top that may be. (And well, it’s even worse than that since I made an mini on this exact topic a few years back and feel the need to create an updated version!)

My pages are made of a mix of printed transparencies, chipboard and cardboard, which makes this book feel far more substantial than minis with cardstock pages. I’m toying with some odd-shaped pages here and there, but for the moment, everything is rectangular and 5 by 6.5 inches. I haven’t punched any holes yet because I like to do that at the very end so I don’t make any mistakes I later regret! So I’m just keeping the journaling away from that edge of the page for now.

Yes, perhaps there is a bit of contradiction that on one hand I say I scrapbook for me and then the first reason highlighted in my book is ‘us’ rather than ‘me’! But all in good time. This is where I wanted to start: with the fact that I scrapbooked long before I met The Boy and in all honesty he sometimes doesn’t get my fascination with pretty paper, but he likes it because I like it. Which is lovely. And I also like that he doesn’t automatically compliment every page I make. Then when he does, I know that page is a real winner.

Anyway, you’ll see more of this book as the month rolls on!

Now it’s your turn to start your own adventure… your own This Is Why.

Here’s how to play along…
…Get your thinking cap on and decide how you can best (and most creatively) sum up the reasons why you scrapbook.
…Share your reasons with the power of the internet. You might post a scrapbook page or a minibook to an online gallery. You might write a blog post. You might put a movie on youtube. You might stand in a crowd scene on television with a poster with a website address. You might show off your intarsia skills by knitting your reasons into a multi-coloured hat, complete with pom pom and ear covers. Seriously: the sky is the limit. Heck, launch your reasons up to the space station and get them on NASA’s picture of the day.
…You have until the end of the month to post your project.
…Title your post “This is why I scrapbook” and if possible, link to this page so others can find out about this adventure.
…This coming Monday, you’ll find an official entry blog post. That is where you will leave your link to enter the contest.
…If you have any questions, you can just leave a comment below or email me.

In the first week of February, you’ll be able to vote for your favourites to pick the winners. I know your projects will be fabulous and I don’t want to choose! So this will be all power to the people!

The grand prize is a $100 gift certificate to Two Peas in a Bucket and there will be more prizes announced throughout the month to make sure there is plenty of fab stuff to share out amongst lots of runners-up.

So this weekend is your planning time. Think of something wonderful; think of something so very much you. Try to keep it under your hat until at least Monday, when we’ll start shouting to the world just how much we love photos and memories and punches and pretty paper.

But for right now, you can grab an image for your blog sidebar or an image for your message board signature to show you’re planning on playing along!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

xlovesx

PS: If you click the facebook button here, you can share this creative adventure with all your crafty friends. Thanks!

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Just a quick little note to let you know the next post in the This is Why series will be up very soon!

In the mean time, I have three new layouts in the garden today! You can find them here, here and my favourite is here.

Back in a bit!

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Thank you so much for all your sweet comments yesterday — both your reassurance about my video worries and your amazing answers to the big question of why you scrapbook had me elated and so excited for what’s to come in this project. Today is just one tiny part of the adventure!

So after all that thinking yesterday, today I’m getting started with putting this onto paper, and I’m starting with the cover. You can follow along if you want, but you’ll probably want to take some ideas and twist them to your own style. Don’t get too ahead of yourself before you find out all the contest details tomorrow night — because you have until the end of the month to figure out how to make your project just perfectly you. Plus I’ll let you in on a little secret: I always like everyone else’s projects better than mine! So I have to go first or I’ll never stop changing things around once I see all the fabulous things you lovelies will start posting… so today, this is my cover.

I’m using 7gypsies Vintage Book Covers and I love them — they are totally the kind of item I gloss over when I’m shopping, but when I saw Sande’s minibook, I knew they were going to be fabulous! (Also, they are one of the most affordable ways to make a mini with a thick, solid cover, which is always a plus.) It doesn’t come with holes, so you can punch your own with a Bind-It-All, Cropadile or Binderie punch.

The embellishment starts with four strips: part of a Hambly woodgrain transparency, some BasicGrey patterned paper with one edge punched to add a bit of variety, a scrap of fabric and part of a border sticker. These are all glued together first, then stitched together on the sewing machine. Stitching is definitely worthwhile for cover embellishments, as it makes all those little layers more secure.

Then a small cluster stitched togther to layer over the strips. There’s a tag, a label sticker, a flower die cut plus a tiny photo, printed as part of a contact sheet. All of that was glued together, then I used double-sided tape to attach two squares of tulle behind the tag, then stitched all that together on the sewing machine. All of that gets stuck to the cover with the strongest double-sided tape to make sure it doesn’t move.

Some Thickers letters for the title and a bit of bling just to safe!

That’s my cover finished, but I also want something to go around the book and hold it closed, and I want to make that to match up with the embellishment on the cover, so they work togther… or at least not against one another!

Here’s everything that goes into that: a length of ribbon that will be long enough to go around the entire book (with all the pages), a pretty fabric flower, a piece of elastic that won’t be wider than the flower when it’s stretched and a separate piece of ribbon to fold in half at a aesthetically pleasing angle! (You can use fraycheck on your ribbon ends or hem them if you like, but I actually like the way it looks when it gets a bit ruffled so I just leave it as a raw edge.)

Make a stack like the picture: long ribbon on the bottom, folded ribbon in the middle and elastic on the top — with the elastic heading in the other direction. Sew through all three layers so it’s definitely going to stay in place. Elastic loves to jump under the presser foot, so you may want to pin this or hand sew it if you prefer. It’s not going to show so it’s okay if it’s messy! Better to be strong and messy than weak but pretty in this case.

Loop the long ribbon around and sew it to the other end of the elastic. Here you can see — definitely not the tidiest of stitches, but I’ve stretched and stretched it and it’s not going to come loose!

Now attach the ribbon to the flower in just one place, so the elastic will still be able to stretch. You can attach the flower with velcro or hot glue or by carefully handsewing through the backing felt — whatever works seems easiest.

And here’s the bit that I love — the flower covers up all the details on the cover, so it’s a bit like having two covers in one, with layers that have to be moved to see everything that’s there… and that’s a theme that will run throughout my little book!

Tomorrow night, stop by to see the pages and the exciting part: all the details for joining in and getting a chance to win.

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