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

If you’ve been partying with us since Friday night, you’ll know that we actually started on a challenge but the details only got so far as getting you to choose some photos and some free digital elements.

But of course, the challenge is not to create a digital page—but to use your printer to put the digital kits to work on a paper page!

Even though I like digital projects for certain things, I have absolutely no intention of giving up my paper and glue. There are times that I look at a digital element and I had it in paper form—and truly that’s just a stupid thing to be sad about, because digital elements can be printed as easy as pie! Actually, I’ve never run pie through my printer, but I hazard a guess that printing digital elements is actually easier than printing on a pie. Agreed?

So challenge one: use a free digital kit on a paper page. Just download the kit, click on the zipped folder to unzip and open it, then look inside the folder for all the pieces of the kit. Most digital elements can be opened without any special software – they can even be opened in your web browser. The two exceptions to this is a .psd file used for a layered page template – that’s a document that needs Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, and an .abr which installs a brush in Photoshop/PSE. Most brush sets come with a set of regular .jpg or .png images that you can use without PS/PSE.

Print your chosen image(s) on cardstock, photo paper, patterned paper, acetate, vellum or anything else you feel like running through your printer. (I don’t suggest pie.) Then cut it out, punch it out, ink it, distress it, bling it—use it like you would any other sheet of patterned paper or page accents.

To enter to win challenge one, go to this post and leave a link in the comments to your finished project. You can upload it to your blog, a page gallery, flickr – whatever you fancy. From all the links, one will be drawn at random to win a gift certificate to shop for scrapping supplies- your choice of paper, digital or a mix.

Challenge two is an easy one you may have already been doing: answering the trivia questions about each party guest. At the end of the weekend, all the correct trivia answers will be entered into a prize drawing. All you have to do to enter is to comment on any of the posts with the correct trivia answer. You can have a maximum of one entry per guest—so your name will be in the draw more times if you answer more questions!

Challenge three is also from an early post: create something with the split-circle design inspired by Lisette’s page. You can use the free template to help or ignore the template and cut the circles using a circle cutter, a compass or trace a few plates! To enter challenge three, go to this post and leave a link in the comments. Of all the links posted, one will be chosen to win a gift certificate to spend on scrapping supplies!

And finally, challenge four is a bit more creative! Take inspiration from any of the projects posted by our special party guests—scraplift one directly or use ideas from several to make something completely different—it’s up to you, but put the inspiration to work! To enter challenge four, leave a link right here in the comments. Be sure to say which project(s) inspired yours! From all the links, one will be chosen and win a gift certificate.

All the prize drawings are open until 11:59pm MONDAY night (3rd August 2009), UK time. Because it is always better when Monday is part of the weekend, right? Winners will be posted on Tuesday.

Of course there is something else that is happening tomorrow—it’s the first day of my new online scrapbooking class Go To Press and I really hope you’ll join us! The class is four weeks long and includes twenty pages of printables—you’ve seen just a few over the course of this weekend. The projects you’ll see in the class are not what you’ve seen here this weekend—in class we’ll be making a complete album with a Simple Pleasures theme. But the printables are yours to continue to use on other projects – just like the ideas you’ve seen all weekend long. So in four weeks you’re getting 20 prompts, 20 pages of printables and all the notes you need to complete a full-size 20 page album. What are you waiting for? Click to sign up now if you haven’t already.

Okay – back to the partying—there are more guests to come! Cheers!

xlovesx

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Time to party on—and Amanda is our very next guest. This girl has been seriously partying: she’s made three projects for you to see! See them all at her blog, Invites by Amanda and check out how she added her own doodles to the printables for a look that is extra happy!

Of all the party guests, Amanda has the privilege of the very funniest ‘how we met’ story, because we actually met without knowing we had met. We grew up in the same town but went to different elementary schools, and in the fourth grade we were both winners in a scary-story-writing competition with a local newspaper. The prize was a tour of the newspaper offices, and I remember getting extra dressed up for this occasion and being in awe of all the printing presses, and just to make me feel old, that paper was still hand-placing type for headlines. Then they took our picture and printed our stories in the paper on Halloween and off we went on our own merry ways, never to think we would see those other kids (all from different schools) ever again.

Except it turned out that a year later, we went to the same school. And we had almost all the same classes. So we met properly and became proper middle school friends. In the seventh grade, this girl officially had the patience of a SAINT because she was my locker partner for an entire year and well, I never developed any skills in the ‘keeping your locker tidy’ department. Plus hello? Seventh grade? Is there a girl in the world who has gone through seventh grade without an average of six world-ending dramas a day? So yes, she was a rather patient girl to still speak to me after the seventh grade.

And eventually somewhere between then and the end of high school, we talk about embarrassing childhood moments and one of us mentions a story we had published in the Olathe Daily News in the fourth grade. Wait. You had a story published then? I had a story published then. So we dug out the picture of all of the winners printed in the paper and by gosh: there we both were. I have never stopped finding this funny.

Anyway, she is a super cool girl and you should start reading her blog, of course!

Amanda trivia time: what store did Amanda get to visit on the way to Branson?

Find the answer on her blog and post it in the comments here for a chance to win at the end of the weekend!

Thanks so much for partying with us Amanda! Party on!

xlovesx

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Our next special guest is Sarah and she has been busybusybusy making projects to share with you! Check them out at her blog, I scrap, you scrap, we scrap.

Sarah has taken several of my classes now and I think she was born to be a cheerleader—she is always Miss Positive, ready with a new idea to try if something didn’t work as planned and quick to congratulate everyone on their good work too. Plus she loves to think of a way to do something just a little bit differently, add a little something new. She’s great crafting fun!

Some Sarah trivia for you: What is hiding in the tree on a recent Sarah layout?

Thank you for partying with us this weekend, Sarah!

xlovesx

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Our next guest is the glamorous Lory—welcome to the party! Lory used the photography printables on this project in a way that was unique I had trouble finding them for the longest time, then it hit me! She printed them large on transparency and used the negative frames for the actual background to her page. Very cool idea. See more on her blog, Love Scrap Life.

Lory is from Italy and is big into stamping, as she designs projects for both Banana Frog and Magenta! Much of her blog is in Italian, but her projects still translate to beautiful!

Some Lory trivia for you, without making you break out your traveller’s essential Italian: at what event will you find Lory from the 26th to the 28th of March, 2010?

Thank you for partying with us Lory! Ci vediamo!

xlovesx

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This sneak peek is so sneaky that I am extra curious about the rest of the project! I spy butterflies punched from dotted cardstock – hello, oh yes. It must be good. Check out Leanne’s blog for the full project!

Leanne is one of the most crop-productive scrappers I think I have ever met. She has the uncanny ability to keep right on rocking the pages while talking, unlike some lesser humans like me who have to pause one to activate the other. I love her super-cute, chillaxed style. {And you must know I just can’t get away with saying ‘chillaxing’ but Leanne? She owns that word, I tell you.}

Here’s your Leanne trivia: Who did Leanne want to win The Apprentice final?

The answer is somewhere on her blog—leave your guess in the comments here!

xlovesx

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Welcome to the lovely Emeline, our next party guest! She’s made a very pretty minibook you can see on her blog here.

Emeline lives in Singapore, a place that struck me for how you can find scrapbooking stores without even trying! We had a few days in Singapore during our honeymoon last autumn and I had never been somewhere so tropical—I quickly found my lungs were not fans of the hot, thickly humid air! What a lovely excuse to often duck into an air-conditioned shopping centre as we were walking! (And if you’ve never been, there are plenty of places to stop and shop.) On three different occasions we were walking along just to be out of the sun for a bit and what’s this?! A scrapbook store! So there must be a great crowd of happy scrappers nearby, and I love their unique style. Definitely check out Emeline’s blog to see more of her artsy projects.

A bit of Emeline trivia for you: what will Emeline bribe you to say? (I don’t think she would really have to bribe you, for the record!)

Thank you for coming to the party, Emeline!

xlovesx

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A quick break from the prettty projects for this consumer awareness message.

Did you know that we put a free gift in every order we send from the shop? We do. And that’s just on an ordinary day. The free gift could be reels of ribbons, bundles of flowers, packets of chipboard—but always a little something extra to surprise you!

Today is not an ordinary day. It’s a party day! So here’s the deal: all orders placed today will be filled to the brim with extras. So your £10 kit may come with another £10 of goodies. And you can’t beat that, can you?

Right this way to get shopping!

xlovesx

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Well, hello there Trish! Thanks for coming to the party! You can see this full project over on Trish’s blog, Doodles and Swirls.

Super sweetheart Trish is on the design team for Banana Frog and she has her hands full with a teeny little one born earlier this year, so I was extra excited that she could join us. Head over to her blog to see lots of cuteness!

Trish trivia for you: How much did her son weigh when he was born?

Find the answer on her blog and post it here in the comments!

Thanks for waking up early to party with us, Trish!

xlovesx

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