CHA - Day 3

Today was pretty quiet at CHA. We were there early this morning to get all of our order placed and make sure that we got all of you ladies the best stuff that the show had to offer!

I thought that I'd better give you the answers to all of the pictures from last night's blog. I was very impressed with all of your guesses, most of you as usual were very accurate. Here is where we were:

1. The monsters pictured are the Sassafrass monsters from the Monstrosity line.
2. April and Scarlet are with KC from My Minds Eye.
3. April and Scarlet met Christine right outside of the 7 Gypsies booth.
4. We were with Summer and Kimber at the Jillibean Soup.
5. Almost everyone got this one....yes, we are with Jenni Bowlin.

Thanks to everyone who took part in our little sleuthing excursion. It was a lot of fun to go through all the pictures of the day and put it together. Don't forget, we will have a little challenge at the end of the week for all of you that followed the blog all week.

Well, we left the show around Noon and took off for a Studio Calico team building exercise. I have been researching Air Boat tours off and on all week, and we finally decided to use a company called Spirit of the Swamp Air Boat Tours. They offer one hour tours on beautiful Lake Tohopekaliga. We saw 3 alligators, 5 bald eagles and lots of other native birds and wildlife. We had a great time and I thought that I would show you some of the photos from the day. Stephen is not only a wonderful graphic designer, he is also handy with a camera. Here are some of the pictures that he took today....they are awesome!
Here is the high powered machine that we rode in today. Captain Harold and his wife Debbie took us out in this mean machine. The boys asked lots of questions, they were really pumped up when they saw it. Air boats actually glide along the top of the water and are able to go over land if necessary. They have no reverse, so you have to be able to turn around or hop land wherever you go. We also found out that the engine is a Corvette engine...Captain Harold was really surprised when we told him that we were from Bowling Green, KY...the home of the Corvette!

One of the best things about the tour was that each of us was given a headset so that we could hear Captain Harold and each other without having to scream over the engine. Here you see me giving the thumbs up that my headset was working properly. Captain Harold and Debbie were great guides and gave lots of interesting facts about the local wildlife and water plants.
This is Stephen and Greg as we were flying across the lake. Captain Harold called it natural air-conditioning, it sure did feel good....it was about 90 degrees while we were out there.

Stephen took this picture of Greg & April when we stopped to look at some little baby birds.

Here are a couple of the beautiful landscapes that Stephen photographed this afternoon. Look at those gorgeous clouds reflected in the water!

Here we are looking at a Mama Gator protecting her nest. She was laying in the water staring at the bank making sure that we don't get too close. Captain Harold told us that based on the size of her head, she was long enough that her tail was right up to the side of the boat underwater.

Last, but not least, here is a group photo taken by Debbie. We had a wonderful time and learned a ton about the Florida flora and fauna. Thanks Greg & April for such a wonderful team building experience.

I have one more picture for you. This was taken by Stephen at CHA...take a look, what do you see?



OK ladies, I'm out of here for the night. Tomorrow morning we are headed over to the CHA Consumer Show. We wanted to check it out since it is a first time event. I'll tell you a little about it Saturday. I won't post tomorrow, we will be driving 12 hours to get home and it will likely be the wee hours of the morning. I'll also post my quiz questions on Saturday. Please check it out because I've got some great prizes for those that take the time to answer! I've picked up several cool things this week and I'd love to slip them in your shipping box next week! Thanks again for reading my long winded posts....I've enjoyed all of your comments and praise.

Goodnight,
Lorie

CHA - Day 2

This is a covert post....you have to be a special Studio Calico detective to be able to decipher the subtle images that I have placed within this message. Instead of being way, way obvious and telling you the products that we are looking at, I decided to make you work for it a little. As we traveled from booth to booth today, I took pictures of April and Scarlet with some familiar faces. Some of them are our very own subscribers, some are famous designers, some are on the design teams of some of our favorite manufacturers. Take a look at the pictures and you should be able to tell where we were visiting and then maybe guess a few of the products that you may see in future kits. The boss ladies forbid me to give you too much information, so I have to be a little sneaky!

I found these little guys hanging out people watching. I wonder what manufacturer dreamed up these little monsters.

Here is April and Scarlet with our friend KC. You may have to do a little sleuthing to find out what manufacturer signs his paycheck.

Scarlet and April met a new friend today....she came to know about Studio Calico via Stephanie Howell's blog. They met her outside of a booth that you might be interested in.

We found these designers (Summer and Kimber) working at a booth at the show. They are both big fans of Studio Calico and led us right to all of their most interesting products.

OK, I had to give you at least one really easy one....here is your softball! Here the boss ladies are featured with one of our very favorite manufacturers.

Everyone always asks for a me to post a picture of myself on the blog, so here is one of me and Melissa. She works for the supplier pictured above. She is also a kit packer, so we always get together and talk about packing and share strategies. Our new motto is "Kit Packers Unite!"

I thought that I would leave you with one last image. Stephen just took this picture of all of us sitting around the conference room table in the hotel room. Scarlet and April are sitting on one side planning add-ons, Greg is sitting at the end of the table in his hand-me-down Dr. scrubs reading the message board, Hannah (Stephen's wife) is catching up on email and facebook and I am sitting at the other end of the table blogging like crazy.

OK, that is all for tonight. Tomorrow I will have a visual puzzle for you and some pictures of our team building exercise. We are planning to take an Air Boat tour and see some local wildlife tomorrow afternoon.

See you tomorrow.....Lorie

PS - This message will self-destruct in 30 minutes!!! Hee Hee!!

CHA - Day 1

The first sentence of the blog post is always the hardest for me....I just never know where to start.

Tonight, I am going to start with bagpipes....have you ever heard bagpipes? I've heard them at parades and once at a funeral, but I don't usually associate bagpipes with a Crafter's convention. For some reason, it is a tradition to open CHA with a bagpipe serenade just before the doors are opened. Picture 300 people standing in a line, shifting from foot to foot, waiting patiently to get in the doors and see all of the goodies beyond.... Now think about the mournful sound of bagpipes.... I don't know about you, but it just doesn't go together for me...I could not wait for them to stop playing and just let us in the door!

We finally got in and found lots of goodies and some good friends too! I know that you guys don't really have any interest in seeing any sneaks of new products (hee hee, ha ha), so I decided to just show you all of the folks that we met instead.

Emily found our new friend Stacy Michaud. Some of you may remember Stacy as one of the winners of the free 6 month subscription that we gave away for National Scrapbook Day.

Later on, Scarlet and April found Laverne Boese. Laverne has been a long time subscriber and is always a joy to be around. We even talked her into joining us for dinner later (scroll down for those pics and a good story).

Here you see Scarlet with Rebecca from Sassafrass. I know that none of you will be surprised that we loved the Sassafrass release. I can say with some certainty that you will be seeing pieces of it sometime in the future.

We had so much fun at the show today. It was very laid back and we had more time than normal to browse each booth and really talk to the designers and manufacturers. We also took the time to create several of the make-and-takes. Here you see April working on a necklace at the Ranger booth featuring Claudine Hellmuth's line of paint and sticky back canvas.

We also went to a booth that will be releasing a new screen print process. They have created a sticky back screen print that can be reused up to 20 times. They are also releasing paint to go with the canvas. Stephen and his wife Hannah took a moment to make a shirt. Here are a couple of pictures of their creative process and the end result.

Finally, after a long day of treasure hunting, we decided to call it a day and go and get some dinner. We invited anyone that wanted to join us to come to Fudruckers and have a burger and a little fun! When we picked Fudruckers, we were unaware that there are two locations that are about a half hour apart. We left the hotel in two vehicles, IPhones in hand with directions at the ready. Unfortunately, our wires got crossed and Stephen, Hannah, Scarlet and I went to one location and Greg, April, Tina and Emily went to another. Ours was the right location because when we got their Cindy Liebel and Wendy Bretz were there waiting for us. We called Greg and eventually, they navigated their way over to where we were. Sometime later, Laverne and her friend Mary Lou joined us as well. They too had gone to the other location and had just missed Greg and company. Finally, we were all in the same place and we had a very enjoyable dinner.

During dinner we had a TGM....those of you that read April's blog know what TGM's are. They are Typical Greg Moments...here's how it went. Greg went through the line and ordered his meal and added a chocolate milkshake. When it was delivered to the table he was excited about his milkshake, but decided to save it until the end of his meal. In the meantime, Emily went through the line and ordered a double chocolate milkshake...a special that they have for a limited time, but not listed on the menu. She gets back to the table and her milkshake is delivered a few minutes later. Greg sees this milkshake, which is twice a dark as his and with Hershey's syrup on the top and decides that he wants one like it instead. Here is where the TGM comes in....if a normal person asked to have a brand new milkshake just because he thought that another one at the table looked better, the restaurant would say sorry, enjoy what you ordered. But Greg, being Greg, turned on the charm and the "milkshake guy" took back his regular chocolate shake and brought him a brand new double chocolate shake plus the extra that was left over in the mixing cup! He leads a charmed life. Here is a picture of "milkshake guy" bring food to our table and making sure that we had everything that we needed.

Later in the meal, Stephen decided that he wanted a milkshake too...he went up and ordered and then patiently waited for the "milkshake guy" to deliver. In the meantime, we decided to take group pictures. Greg was taking pictures and a man in a read shirt passed our table...Greg hollered, "Hey, catch the "milkshake guy!" The only problem was that is was not the "milkshake guy" passing by, it was another customer in a red shirt that looked somewhat like the milkshake guy. He was very good natured about it and ended up taking our group pictures for us so that Greg could be included. After a couple of minutes, he walked back over to our table and said, "Hey, I may need to loose a few lb's, but I do not look like the milkshake guy!" April found this all so funny that Emily caught her in a rare moment of hysterical laughter.

As we were leaving the resturant, we decided that we needed on more group picture. Believe it or not, "fake milkshake guy" was leaving with his family and offered to stop and take our picture again. After the photo op, we asked his wife if she liked to scrapbook and she said yes. We gave her a business card and told her to send us an email with her name and address and we would send her some goodies because they were such good sports! All in all, we had a fun day and it ended on a great note.

For those of you that are avid blog readers, stay tuned all week! Make sure that you pay special attention to all of the CHA posts. I'll be posting a quiz next week and will have a drawing for some great prizes for everyone that answers all of the questions about our CHA week correctly!! Trust me, this is a prize that you want to win!!

Goodnight,
Lorie

Reveal Night at CHA!

This morning at the crack of dawn, I got up and loaded my suitcase into the car and headed over to April's to leave for CHA. We all piled in and were on the road by 5:45 am. April, our own personal Garmin, planned out our trip to the last detail....she even planned at stop at Panera in Atlanta so that we could go live at Noon! Unfortunately, the Panera was owned by someone that did not care about Studio Calico and limited our online time to a measly 30 minutes and had all of the power outlets in the restaurant disabled during their peak time!! Whaaaaa??!?!?! Needless to say, we ended up across the way over at Taco Mac. We used their power outlets and WIFI and told Panera to take a hike! This worked out great for me, I had one of the best steak quesadillas ever...man, it was really good! After lunch, we hit the road again and decided to let Greg navigate for a while so that we could all take a nap.

He got us down the road and we ended up getting into Orlando around 8:00 pm. We got checked into the hotel and headed out for dinner. We ate an insane amount of food, including this Orange Creamsicle Cake that was to die for, and then we headed back to the hotel for our big reveal party!! It's now 5 min to midnight and we (April, Scarlet, Greg, Stephen, Emily, Tina and I) are sitting around a conference table in one of our rooms, most of us in PJ's. Laptops are all over the place and the sound of frantic typing is filling the room! Greg is grilling the designers asking for new ideas for products, lines, items to add to the shop and so on.... Scarlet is putting all of the last minute touches on everything, getting it all ready to go at midnight... April is monitoring the message boards and answering emails... Stephen is trying to follow all of the conversations, but he is losing...he's very tired and having a hard time keeping up... And last, but not least, here I am blogging....trying to give all of you ladies an inside glimpse of what it's like to be here in the midst of all of the chaos!

I am so happy to be here again and so excited to share all of the wonderful goodies that we will see while we are here at CHA! I hope that you will all follow the blog this week and share in the experience with us. I'll be here every night.....I'll try to give you some sneaks and tantalize you with visions of what you may see in future kits.

See you tomorrow night!
Lorie

Layout of the Week

The layout of the week is brought to you by Amy Coose, made using the May Kit, PLAYGROUND.



This layout has been added to your favorites more than any other layout in the SC community gallery for the week of 7/19-7/25.

Congratulations Amy! Because of this you have won a $10 gift card to be used on any new purchase at Studio Calico.

Want a chance to win next week? Be sure to upload your projects to the SC gallery, and support your community by adding special projects that catch your eye into your favorites! It could be YOU next week!

Please note, winners are not allowed to win more than once in a four-week period.
Winners are not limited to those using Studio Calico kits.

Reveal Night Giveaway

Just leave a comment here for a chance to win!

Fun with Claudine Hellmuth Studios

I was lucky enough to get into Claudine's class at CHA Winter. Better than that, I was smart enough to take pictures of the entire project as we were going through it. I knew someday I'd have a reason to use those pictures. But the best part of this story is I was given permission by Claudine to share with Studio Calico a tutorial of the techniques she taught us. I think you'll be surprised at how versatile these products are, I've definitely been more adventurous with them since I took the class. I hope through this tutorial you'll find yourself wanting to try some of these techniques as well.

Here's the finished project. I'll start in the upper left corner and work left to right down the canvas, each mini canvas square is a different technique.


The first mini canvas shows the gesso product. I applied a semi thick layer of gesso over the canvas and then with a toothpick i drew some funky patterns in the gesso. Try writing your name with this technique. It's of such a texture that it will hold the pattern well. I let it try, this takes a good chunk of time, so plan accordingly. For my numbers canvas created for the Playground kit, I let the gesso dry overnight.

Once the gesso was dry, I took some paint and sprayed it with water to make it thinner. I was using a craft sheet from Ranger--I have since purchased my own and highly recommend them!

I painted the watered down mix over the gesso and then wiped it off with a paper towel. Because of the bumps and valleys in the gesso, you get darker and lighter parts once you wipe the paint off. It's a very cool technique. I used this same idea on one of my projects for the Over the Rainbow kit, except with sculpey clay. The thing I love about the gesso is how much texture you can get with it. You can also stick things in it before it dries like beads and buttons and they are stuck! It's definitely pushed me and made me try more artistic techniques. I love it.


This is the dictionary page. We attached it to the mini canvas with the gel medium. It dried very quickly. Then we took a couple strips of masking tape and taped over parts of the paper then pulled them off to get this distressed look.

Again, I watered down the paint using the mini spray bottle from Ranger.


And paint a thin layer over the page. It absorbs it so nicely.

This next mini canvas shows you how differently the sticky back canvas takes paint compared to regular canvas. The heart is die cut from Claudine's sticky back canvas and then stuck to the mini canvas. I used the sprayer to water down some red paint and then did a wash over the whole thing. The sticky back canvas pulls in a lot of the paint for a rich intense color. The regular canvas takes on a lighter color of the red. I think it makes for a really nice contrast.

The next project shows you how the paint can be used as water colors. We each got a small square of Prima's Paintables paper and again using the sprayer, I watered down dabs of paint and started painting away. So much fun to see it act like a watercolor paint!

We attached the paper to the canvas with the gel medium. It's the perfect liquid glue.

Moving on to fabric. You can do some very cool things with gel medium and fabric. I was able to mold the fabric to the canvas and then trim off the excess. It is stuck solid. How fun would it be to add some pleats and tucks to a project this way? The gel medium dries clear and incredibly stiff, it's not going anywhere.
Tape with a wash over it is such a fun look, it's similar to the gesso project, just using tape to create the texture. I watered down my paint and added a thin layer.

At this point, we were supposed to stencil a flower on with the white paint. I'm not terribly good at stencils, so I had to make a small adjustment...

See how I added a layer of white paint instead? :) I dry brushed over the stenciled area and then tried the technique again with the orange.

This following canvas is one of my favorite techniques from the class. The reason you can't see anything in this picture is because the white paper is attached to the mini canvas, image side down, with gel medium. Why, you ask? Well let me first state that the white piece of paper is a photocopied image--and it must be a laser jet photocopied image or the technique won't work nearly as well.

So we took the image, painted on a thin layer of gel medium and attached the paper to the canvas, pressed out any bubbles and then let it dry. It took about 30 minutes.


Once the paper was totally dry, we sprayed water all over the paper, using the spray mister to get nice even coverage. You can see the image better now, but wait, it gets better!

We started rubbing the wet paper off with our finger, and voila, the laser printed image stayed on the canvas. How cool is that?

This is the finished product. Isn't it a fun technique? I'm not sure how it would work on paper, but it was definitely fun to do on canvas. I had prepainted the mini canvas before I started the process.

Using Versamark and clear embossing powder, you can stamp any image on a piece of cardstock and then with a head gun, emboss the image.

We then painted over the entire piece of paper and quickly wiped the paint off.
It left a layer of paint everywhere except where the embossed image was. So cool!

The last canvas shows the translucent quality of the paint. I painted over a Prima flower and you can still see the printing, but now it has an added dimension. This quality takes some getting used to, most acrylics are more opaque than Claudine's. You can obtain an opaqueness by adding a couple of layers of paint. But the translucent quality allows for a lot of fun options to try.

I glued both the flowers and the button onto the canvas with the gel medium. It dries clear, so you don't see any of the white that is in this picture. And that stuff really sticks! In fact, all of the mini canvases are glued to the main canvas with the gel medium, and 6 months later, they have not moved at all. It's very impressive.

So there you have it, nine things that you can do with the Claudine Hellmuth paints, gel medium, gesso, and sticky back canvas available in the Studio Calico Shop. I challenge you to come up with more!

Layout of the Week

The layout of the week is brought to you by Jenn, made using the June Kit, SODA FOUNTAIN.



This layout has been added to your favorites more than any other layout in the SC community gallery for the week of 7/12-7/18.

Congratulations Jenn! Because of this you have won a $10 gift card to be used on any new purchase at Studio Calico.

Want a chance to win next week? Be sure to upload your projects to the SC gallery, and support your community by adding special projects that catch your eye into your favorites! It could be YOU next week!

Please note, winners are not allowed to win more than once in a four-week period.
Winners are not limited to those using Studio Calico kits.

scrap a sketch.

here's my take on Jenn's sketch.
thanks for hanging out with us this week!

Inspiration Taken, Inspiration Given

What I really love about posting a sketch is seeing how it's been used...because the inspiration is given back to me tenfold (is that selfish?). Seriously, I love the routes you took with the sketch, and even if it ended up looking nothing like the sketch--you were (I hope) sparked.

hera

Candacehnc

micheleomega

meganklauer

Here's my layout from the sketch. Part of my 'method' when doing a sketch is to look at a couple of times and then turn away, working from memory. Most often I wind up much more pleased and with a more original layout that way.

Thanks so much for playing along this week (this is my last day on the blog hosting gig--Tina will finish up tomorrow)...I am always surprised by depth and width of your creative talents!!

so far so good!

Penny

Missy

A few layouts from Jenn's sketch. Loving how different each one is.
Our week is coming to a close....let's see some more layouts!

Not Working? Turn It On It's Ear...

LOL. Ok, so I couldn't think of a catchier title than that...don't hate me.

Sometimes, if a particular layout, sketch or plan isn't working for you--turn it 90 degrees or even 180 degrees and something just might click. Maybe the thing to do is to re-size it. Make it bigger, smaller or even smaller yet. That's exactly what I've done for you today. I've taken my original sketch, re-sized it to 8.5x11, turned it on it's side and also revised it into a card sized sketch for you.

Now, I realize this is nothing new...and you may have even done this on your own...BUT...sometimes when my mojo is in a slump, all I need is a little creative push to see something a bit differently!

Turned:

Re-Sized to 8.5x11

Re-Sized for Card

In a few days we'll be revealing how we used the sketch(es) and hopefully posting some of yours. I'd love to see how you've been inspired!

I love hunting through magazines for layout sketches. They're my go to inspiration when I'm beyond the point of pushing pictures and paper around aimlessly on a 12x12 piece of cardstock.

Are you a sketch scrapper?
Besides the various sketch blogs out there, where do you seek layout inspiration?
I hope some of you are able to join Jenn and I with the sketch below. Let's work those kits ladies!

Here are the winners of last nights give-away!

Allison Cope said...
Gotta love that Sweet Shoppe collection! Gorgeous!
July 13, 2009 3:43 PM


Kelly said...
Knave of Hearts is my favorite of the 2. Cool collection!
July 13, 2009 4:09 PM

Please email info@studiocalico to claim your prize.

Sneak Night Giveaway

And it's a good one by Collage Press.

Just leave a comment here stating which collection you like best:
Sweet Shoppe on left
Knave on right

Desperately Seeking Inspiration...

I don't know about you, but summer is wearing me out!! Don't get me wrong, I love, love, LOVE summertime...

• happy colors of the kids' swimsuits
• bright blue sky
• lush green grass
• straw bags
• yellow beach umbrellas

I just can't seem to keep it all organized. I see inspiration everywhere (have you seen the last few weeks worth of blog posts?) and somehow can't seem to harness it into my own scrapping.
It's almost as overwhelming as swim lessons, dance classes, art camp and quick weekend trips. I'm guessing many of you can relate, although judging by the member gallery lately you all aren't having any mojo problems!!

One of the best things I can do for myself when things get hectic and I need to focus is to follow a "map". My map for today is a sketch. I'm going to share it with you in hopes you feel like using it as a jumping off point for a layout of your own. Tina and I will be back throughout the week offering you more plans, maps and layouts based on today's sketch. Let us know if you end up using it so we can show your layouts off, too!!

Layout of the Week

The layout of the week is brought to you by dmbd (Donna), made using the June Kit, SODA FOUNTAIN.


This layout has been added to your favorites more than any other layout in the SC community gallery for the week of 7/5-7/11.

Congratulations Donna! Because of this you have won a $10 gift card to be used on any new purchase at Studio Calico.

Want a chance to win next week? Be sure to upload your projects to the SC gallery, and support your community by adding special projects that catch your eye into your favorites! It could be YOU next week!

Please note, winners are not allowed to win more than once in a four-week period.
Winners are not limited to those using Studio Calico kits.

Member Feature: gluestickgirl

Today, I wanted to feature an SC member who totally inspires me...the fabulous gluestickgirl aka Lisa Truesdell. Her work is amazing. I just adore all the little details she puts into each of her layouts and I'm really loving what she's been doing with the Maya Mists lately too. I asked Lisa to answer a little Q&A...here's what she says:

- When did you start scrapbooking? How did you get into it?
I started scrapping in September 2004, after many months of flipping through Creating Keepsakes at my mom's house (she started scrapbooking before I did!). I started stamping and cardmaking when I was pregnant with in 2001, so I had already stuck my toes into the world of playing with paper. - how much time do you spend scrapping in an average week?
I would guess 5-15hrs, depending on how busy i am with the kids and how many deadlines I have to meet. I try to do a little something each day, even if it's just pulling product for a project or straightening up my desk.

- What SC kit was your first?
In Session - the September 2007 kit.

- Where do you find inspiration?
I love home decor mags. Many of my favorites have ceased publication (RIP Domino, Blueprint and Cottage Living) - but there are still so many beautiful ones out there. They're such an awesome place to find new combinations of color, pattern and texture.

- What would your perfect day be like?
I'd get to sleep in. A quiet morning in my scraproom with a nice cold Diet Coke from McDonald's. A fun family outing in the afternoon. Dinner out with Matthew, and a little shopping ( at the mall with Anthro, Pottery Barn and Loft, of course). Home in time to read to my littles and tuck them in, and then catch up on TiVoed 30Rock with Matthew. If I could squeeze in a little flea marketing and a huge crop w/ all of my far flung scrap friends, it would be even more perfect. But i was going for attainable. ;)

- 3 things you can't live without? (other than family)
McD's Diet Coke, my iPhone & cardigans

- Favorite color combo?
yellow + aqua + an accent color. the possibilites are endless!

- Favorite places to shop (non-scrap related)?
Anthropologie. Target. Gap.

- If you were giving advice to a first time scrapper, what would be your #1 tip/piece of advice?
Just do it (sorry Nike). Don't worry about scrapping all of your photos, don't worry about being caught up. Tell the stories that grab you, and let them guide the words and products you put on your page.

- When/where do you scrap?
I have a teeny tiny scraproom (it's about 8x10) - it was a front porch on our old house in a former life. It's also Sam's playroom, so I have to share, AND it's open to the house (there's a huge archway between the dining room and my room), so I have to keep it respectable looking. But I love it. It has a great window looking out into the front yard and I love not being closed off from everything else going on in the house.
I scrap in bits and pieces whenever I can sneak a few moments. My boys are generally happy to putter about in the morning, so I can usually steal 30-45 min without them noticing. I like to use that time to work on a page's "bones" since it requires the most thinking!! Sam's naptime usually gives me another good stretch of time, but that's been a bit dicey with school out and Alex and Ben home. I find that I like working this way - everytime I come back to a project I look at it with fresh eyes and can generally see where it needs tweaks.

- What SC kit has been your favorite so far?
Okay, that's hard. Each new kit that comes I think - THIS is best one yet! I really loved Newstand & Bibliography, and did some of my favorite pages with Playground.

Here is a brand new layout from Lisa using July's kit and a few of my favorites that I snagged from her gallery...

Winner of the Online Photography Workshop

Sorry I am a bit late in posting the winner.... we were out of town and ended up staying longer than planned. I had two days of mini shoots scheduled that got rained out so we extended the vacation in order to get the shoots in when the weather was nice.

Anyway, without further ado, the winner is:

Andrea said...

Fantastic! I am really trying to get the hang of using my camera in manual mode. Thanks for the great offer.

June 30, 2009 3:21 PM

Congrats Andrea! Email me and I will get you registered for the workshop!! Thanks everyone! This class is just about full... a few spots still left if you want to snag one now... or you can always join in on the next one... details will be announced soon on my blog!

Summer Inspiration

Summer is in full swing around here. I can hardly believe it's July already! Why does it always have to fly by so quickly? Ah well, the good thing about summer is that it's my absolute favorite season to scrap. I just love the bright and fresh color schemes and the bold patterns of summer. Nevermind that living in Florida gives me plenty of opportunity to snap some fun summer photos! I went hopping around the web and found some awesome inspiration for summer projects.
I posted a layout on my personal blog earlier this week that was inspired by one of the fishies on this towel. LOVE those fishies! :)

This pattern would be fun to recreate on a layout...love the colors, too!

Adorable stacked ric rac trim!!

So cute for a little girl's room or use colors that match your decor and make some flowers that don't need to be watered. ;)

Loving these patchwork shorts w/fun summer patterns...Amy Butler summery fabric....amazing!

And I love this artwork from Land Of Nod....those trees are the cutest and would be great on an outdoorsy layout.

Be sure to post your summer projects in the gallery...don't forget that from now on you have more chances to win the Layout of The Month contest! Have a great day! :)

June Layout Of The Month!

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I'm here to post the winner of June's Layout Of The Month. The member layout with the most views in June was this AMAZING layout by Lisa Dickinson! Lisa is the lucky winner of a $15 SC gift card! Congrats, Lisa!!

And with equally fabulous layouts, I present your runner-ups...the fabulous Ms. Kelly Goree with her "9" layout:

And kimmithylaine's rockin' "flyleaf" layout:

And we wanted to let you know that we're changing things up a bit with the Layout Of The Month contest. To make things a little more interesting, we're giving you MORE chances to win! From July on, we will be posting the Favorite Layout each week instead of only once a month. If you win, you'll be the lucky recipient of a $10 SC gift card! We'll post the previous week's winner each Sunday. And to make it fun and fair for everyone, you can only win once in every 4 week period. Sound like fun? Well, get to the gallery and start posting! We can't wait to see what you've been up to! :)

stumbling, my way

so like I said the other day,I really am obsessed with stumbling!

Here's what I found stumbling the other day:

I am kind of obsessed with being "eco friendly" so this was a great find!

I also found this dope hobbit house, filled with people trying to live sustainably!

This cartoon was awesome, and ALMOST persuaded me to use my mustache rub ons from Hambly in a layout. I just didn't have the photos printed for this one!

I had seen these photos before, but this site has a ton of this hand art...the kids loved this one!

This is what finally inspired me to make a layout.

I loved the layout of this site (even if the site is pretty boring)

Here's the layout it inspired!

Don't forget to do some stumbling of your own.

Post your layout and inspiration links in the gallery and post to this message!

A Result of Stumbling

Remember my first stumble site on Wednesday? It was a chess board with circles in each square from the Oh Gizmo! website. With it being the holiday weekend, I thought it would be appropriate to make a card to celebrate, so here's my interpretation of the inspiration:
I love those letter stamps, almost all of them fit into a 1" circle punch. How cool! And I'm a little addicted to the balloon stamp. It has nothing to do with the 4th of July, but it works. :)

So Happy Fourth of July to all you citizens of the United States (and a belated Happy Canada Day to my Canadian friends!). I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

stumbling through the member gallery

Okay, so first off....I'm obsessed with stumbleupon.com now. Thanks Emily for encouraging us to stumble this week. Watch out this weekend for layouts inspired by stumbling!

So, secondly, I'm quite inspired by the huge amount of layouts in the member gallery using the Soda Fountain Kit!! I stumbled through it looking for inspiring bits. There are 23 pages of gallery entries, check it out :D

I love how twinzmom used the spinner!!
I loved the spinner, and love to see someone use it!

I was drawn in to valerieb's layout by the apple paper and cute title!
Notice how she added that apple to her title. Adorable!

I just love that cascade of flowers/circles that meganklauer added to this layout. The titlework is spectacular also :D

OH MY GOSH, I just discovered Lynn Ghahary's gallery. I love her style.
Notice the circle of blue pearls around the strawberry!

This layout by Houston is just perfect.
I so so love how she used the Nadiya stamps.
I don't think I've seen a better use of them :D
That little grouping of chipboard accents is brilliant!

The titlework on Erin B's layout is just fantastic. I I'm totally inspired by the way samasmom added photos to the middle of the Collage Press labels. Hmmmm, where can I use this technique?

I really love the way Astrid stacked her paper strips, and the little doodled frame just sets off the photo perfectly!

2H Design rocked the tags in this dope layout.
I love how she layered the tags and that mist work is tres gorgeous!

This is my favorite layout this week.
JustEm added too many good things: a) precious baby face b) bright colors
c) doodlebug loppy letters d) red accents and dress

How She Stumbles

So I'm going to let you peek into my brain for this post. But first, since Joy posted her Documentary favorites, I thought I'd post my favorite from her gallery too. It's only fair.

I loved how she did this shadow box, it's so unique and there's so many cool details in such a small little space. My hat is off to you Joy!

And now...

I thought it would be fun to show you how I pull inspiration from my stumbles. A peek into my thought processes.

First stumble: this page about vacuum tube chess sets and how to make them. Honestly it stumped me. Then I noticed the cool texture of the chess board. How cool would it be to make a checked background and add a circle to each one of a different paper? I also liked the ad for downloading books. A bunch of pictures at the top of your page, then cut a check mark shape out from the bottom of them. Very graphic!

Second stumble: OK, I admit this one had me puzzled as well, but then I remembered I really should do a page about how much my family, sans the mamma, loves Star Wars. I'm not sure how I will go about creating such a page, but now it's in my subconscious mind, stewing. Another thing that caught my eye was the middle picture of the Fox News Videos, the one of the top of someone's head. All those circles? That could totally be a page background--make it into a circle, even better!
Third stumble: Totally cool background effect on this page about England's musical history. I'm all about collaging lately and I loved all the texture going on here. You can click on a link and the map goes in to a greater detailed one. Reminds me of the Making Memories transparency... I could do a "You Are Here" page, must think on that one. I also loved the splattered paint look of the title in the upper left corner. Makes me want to pull out the paint and straw, remember that technique from grade school?

Fourth stumble: Self-watering rhubarb plants, nothing is coming to mind. I'm digging deep and finding nothing. The picture of Stephan Hawking reminds me of a date my husband and I went on while he was in graduate school. I used precious funds to buy him the new Stephan Hawking book, I thought he'd be so interested to read it. A few years later, I donated the book to Goodwill, it had never been opened. I didn't read the situation quite right. Not sure that it's a layout idea. Not every page you're going to find Stumbling will yield results. :)
And one last stumble for you: A page about playing with your food. Not much text. This one was hard, but then I realized how happy the colors were making me. So there you have it, if nothing else, go with the colors! But now that I'm thinking about it, I do have a picture that would totally work with the idea of playing with your food... See? Stumbling can get your creative juices flowing!