Spotlight on CHA
I just spent the weekend at the Craft and Hobby Association’s summer show in Chicago checking out the new designs from scrapbook manufacturers. And I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see some of the new lines designed by our very own Studio Girls! Meredith Fenwick, Doris Castle and Dianne Rigdon had their new releases on display at the Prima booth.
This is Meredith’s Youth Collection. As her inspiration, Meredith says, "I wanted to do something that was my style, but more graphic and funky and not frilly at all. I wanted it to be versatile so it could be used for boys, girls, teens or adults. I hope that I achieved that, we’ll see!”
She also designed a line of stamps featuring her doodles, journaling boxes and frames! If you like Meredith’s collection, you’ll love her Sweetness kit at SBG.
And these are collections by Doris Castle, left, and Dianne Ridgon.
Dianne’s new line is called Christmas Fancy. Here’s how she describes the collection: “The Christmas Fancy Collection is ornate and unique, vibrant and versatile…the perfect mix of traditional holiday imagery and delightful colors and patterns to backdrop all of your special moments, memories, and smiles.”
This may be a holiday collection, but Dianne says the bright non-seasonal colors, along with the red and green, “can be used for traditional Christmas, winter, kids, and feminine/romance layouts. We were going for versatile!”
She was “very inspired by all of the damask and floral patterns that continue to be beautifully represented in today’s popular patterns in fabrics and paper.” If you’re looking for some coordinating digital embellishments, check out Dianne’s Letters from the Patio and Flit and Flutter Alphas!
Doris Castle’s collection is called “Little Boo” a Halloween collection named after her youngest daughter, whom she loving calls “My Little Boo.” Doris says, “ If you’ve seen the Disney movie Monsters, Inc. you might remember the little girl’s name was Boo. My little girl has the same spunk and charm of that Boo and even looks like her when I put her hair in pigtails, so I call her My Little Boo. I thought this would be a cute name for the Halloween collection.”
This kit definitely has spunk! I also spotted some work by our Studio Crew gals and Studio Girls team members at the Prima booth using Doris’s collection! The page on the left features our own Kait Gonzalez’s daughter and the page on the right was created by our own Denise Doupnik.
And these cute frames were created by Melinda Staley.
If you’re looking for some digital papers to coordinate with the collection, check out Doris’s Color Storms Papers and Quick Pages!
And soon you¹ll be able to find companion CDs for these kits at your local scrapbooking store! The discs will have hybrid and digital components, quick pages and more. I really give kudos to Prima for thinking ahead when it comes to digi and hybrid scrapping!
Here are a few of my other favorite finds at CHA. Some of these may not be new releases, but I do think they would be great tools for digital or hybrid scrappers! You should be able to find these in stores soon!
1. We R Memory Keepers’ Raw Goods. They have a lot of chipboard products – including top-loading mini-album binders in a few different sizes. Be sure to check out their great tools, including the Crop-A-Dile, magnetic cutting mats and magnetic circle cutter.
2. Tattered Angels’ Glimmer Mist. We saw a super cool hybrid project in which a scrapper sprayed this glittery ink on paper and let it dry before printing! The mist gave the printed page some extra sparkle!
3. Create and Treasure’s Ready-To-Go! Blank Canvas Books, chipboard albums and shadowboxes would be great for hybrid projects.
4. EK Sucsess’s new chipboard albums in holiday themes are just adorable! I loved the ghost, spider web, snowman and gingerbread house shapes!
5. In addition to checking out their new fabulous line of papers and rub ons, we got to try some of Basic Grey’s tools while putting together a make & take. Loved the Precision File Set and Rub-On Roller. It made crafting so easy for someone who usually doesn’t paper scrap!
Mix It Up Tuesday: Acrylic Album
Today’s special hybrid project is brought to you by Studio Crew member, LauraKaye!
SUPPLIES
Natali Design’s Smells of Summer Quick Pages No. 2
These quick pages were created by Diana, Jindra, Hana and Vendula
Font is CK Ali
Matte Photo Paper
Filigree Acrylic Album
3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive (love this stuff1)
Cherished Memories Rub Ons by Stampin Up
X-Acto knife
Self-Healing Mat
Assorted Ribbon
INSTRUCTIONS
If you have been wanting to make an acrylic album, but didn’t know where to start, this project could not be any easier!
1. Download quick page album, add your favorite photos, and a bit of journaling. Resize the pages to fit on your album. In this case, I resized the pages to 3 inch x 3 inch, 300 dpi.
2. Create a photo matte for the last page of your album. In this case, I used a 4 inch x 6 inch rectangle filled with a patterned paper.
3. Create a new 8 ½ x 11 inch document and arrange your pages on it leaving a bit of blank space in between them for trimming.
4. Print out the pages on matte photo paper and trim.
5. Use spray adhesive to coat the front side of the matte and adhere to the bottom side of the album’s back cover. Note that you could also place it on the inside of the cover, but I preferred the effect of having the patterned paper beneath this thick acrylic sheet. Trim edges with X-Acto knife using the acrylic cover as your guide.
6. Use spray adhesive to coat the back sides of your mini pages and adhere to the inside album pages. I stacked the pages on my table, using the bottom most page as a guide to ensure that the mini pages were aligned.
7. Now for the fun – embellish with rub ons. Use a popsicle stick to adhere the rub ons to the acrylic sheet. Play with layering the rub ons, taking care to how they will overlap each other in the final stack. I chose to place each letter of ‘cherish’ on a different layer because I liked the depth that it gave to the title in the finished stack. You could also place one word on each page that join together as a single thought for the final product.
8. Join pages with a loose leaf binder ring. Cut a few lengths of ribbon and tie around the ring.
Enjoy!
50 for 50 in Studio Janet
You read that right…50 for 50! Janet is cleaning out the virtual shelves and retiring 50 of her products. Before she does, you have the chance to HAVE THEM ALL for just $50. Template packs, alpha sets, ABC mini-album, the original FAT PACK and so much more! Available July 21-28 only! Check out the detailed images for a list of all the included products!
**Please note that due to the incredibly low price, all coupons will be disabled for the duration of this sale. Thanks for understanding!
See you tonight!
Hope you’ll be able to make it to our chat with our July Studio Guest Designer, Hollie Haradon! Tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern!
Raven’s Ramblings
GUEST RAMBLER: Ramona Vaughn
Trust. The word conjures up broken relationships and injured friendships. But that is not the kind of trust I am talking about. I am speaking about the relationship between my computer and me.
My first crash was with my LaCie 2T (2000 gigs). When it was acting funky, I called my IT guy. (How cool to have your own IT guy. He was a teacher at Alexander’s school who was willing to help me out. Originally, I believe it was because he needed the money. Since then, he changed jobs and has an extremely well-paying job, but is still willing to help. Not sure whether it is because we have become friends, or that he feels really sorry for me. In either case, I consider myself very lucky.) David told me to go out and get another hard drive as soon as I could. I bought a Maxtor and David came over to my house to back-up my LaCie. When he got here, no data could be found, and I was devastated. It had every picture, layout and scrapbook item I ever had. David took them both home, and was eventually able to find and copy my data. I was so relieved that I cried on his shoulder. The LaCie went back to the factory for repair.
I bought a Western Digital 2T to replace the LaCie while it was away. We backed up my data from the Maxtor to the Western Digital and set it to backup weekly. The program failed and when the Maxtor’s fan broke and fried one of its drives, I lost data from September 07 till December 07. Doesn’t sound like much, but I had some really great layouts on there. And photos of my friend’s wedding that I had taken. My photos were better than the photographers, for the most part. I had about sixteen pages of a book done for her and only 5 survived because they were on my laptop. I was crushed. I contacted several data retrieval places and the prices were exorbitant. I can’t afford $2,500 for a couple months worth of photos. No matter how good they are.
By then my LaCie was back and my Western Digital was backed up there. Then I had the error message that one of the drives on the LaCie had failed. So bought another Western Digital and have them daisy-chained and set to mirror each other, with a complete back-up done weekly. David logs onto my computer from home and oversees that operation. My LaCie sits in box downstairs waiting for me to send it back to the factory for repair AGAIN. My Maxtor is at David’s house, with him scanning all the sectors and trying to rebuild the index. Without the index, your data could be sitting there, but if you don’t know where to look, it is virtually no good.
Where does that leave me? Pretty much in a constant state of waiting for the next hard drive to fail. Paranoid of losing data and fearful of dumping pics off my camera or downloading too much stuff. This state of distrust has me nearly paralyzed. Afraid of creating anything wonderful to have it vanish before my eyes.
I guess when trust is lost in any relationship, it takes time to rebuild. I just wish I could carry on as if nothing happened or was about to happen. Maybe it is going to take a great leap of faith on my part, to get this party rolling again.
Studio Michelle Weekend Sale
Michelle is having an impromptu sale in her
Studio this weekend! The sale runs from now until Monday at midnight EST and it includes two types of products:
1) Products that are retiring! So this is your last chance to get these, and they are marked down to rock-bottom prices!
2) A few of Michelle’s favourite things marked down just for fun
You will have to snoop around
Michelle’s Studio to see all that is on sale! But here are a few of the highlights (images head straight to that item in the store)!
RETIREMENT
Get this one for $1!
Or this whole collection for $5.00!
And these are just a few of MICHELLE’S FAVOURITE THINGS marked down . . .(there’s tons more so be sure to check the store!)
Studio Starts #103: List It–Favorite Summer Foods
This week’s Studio Start is pretty cut and dried…what are your favorite summertime foods? You can do this challenge in all sorts of ways. I chose to do a pictorial "list," but you could just pick a great summer photo to represent the theme and do your list of faves. You might pick one favorite food or a recent BBQ to scrap. The choice is yours…we like to be flexible around here because, after all…it’s YOUR scrapbook!
Here are some ideas to get you started. Make sure you post your pages in the Studio Starts Gallery!
KAIT
Love the way Kait used the gingham fabric/ribbon under her title which is so perfectly dimensionalized!
CREDITS: Summer Sweetness Collaborative kit by Rachel Young and Anne De Jong; Frames and fire swirl from Impressions of Laughter Collaborative Kit by The Studio Girls; Staple by Edeline Marta; Font: AvantGarde BK;
ROBIN
Summer cupcakes in the park! What could be sweeter?
CREDITS: Rachel Young’s All We Need; Flower from Rachel Young’s Sweet Escape.
DENISE
Love the way Denise has one photo framed, and her list is in a great handwriting font.
CREDITS: Impressions of Laughter by the SBG Studio Girls; Popsicle Pop by the SBG Studio Girls a Scrap N’ Art ezine exclusive (yellow button, Alpha, ribbon). Janet Phillips Brace Yourself 3 Templates; Amy Pearson All Kinds of Hungry (watermelon); Fonts LD Note Pad and Pea Carrie Script
BECKY
I used stock photos to "list" my favorite summer treats, and then did some extensive journaling as well. We usually consider the list for the List It challenge to be all the journaling that’s needed, but you can see that you don’t have to be limited that way! I selected only stock photos on white backgrounds so that I could easily blend it into this wonderful white floral background.
CREDITS: Traci Sims’ Renewal (paper strip, chipboard alpha)–a freebie; Baers Garten Designs White Papers; Stock Xchng and Stock Xpert (stock photos); Century Gothic; Wendyzine’s Shadows & Borders Black (recolored)
Have fun scrapping your favorite summer foods…it’s a good excuse for a photo shoot, after which you eat the displays! And hey, if you’re southern hemisphere and want to scrap your favorite winter foods…you go right ahead!
Chat with Hollie Haradon!
There’s still time to pick up Holliewood Studio’s My Happy Place…now through July 31st.
Natali Design Birthday Sale!
Happy Birthday to Vendula!
Join in the celebration by taking 25% off Studio Natali from July 18th-21st.
Get those Wish Lists ready!
Happy Birthday Meredith!
Today is Studio Girl Meredith Fenwick’s birthday and to celebrate, she’s offering a special coupon code through July 17th only. It’s…
mbday31
and that will take 31% off anything your order in Studio Meredith!
Enjoy!
