Day One of CHA Preview and Giveaway!

Hello friends! I am back from beautiful Southern California and I'm so excited to share with you all of the new things I saw and all of the wonderful people I met. Speaking of wonderful people, look who I saw:

Yup, that's me and Nikki Sivils! She is so nice to talk to in person, I just love her!

And I just love this girl:
Elizabeth Kartchner is the bomb! Such a sweetie and I love her sense of style!

And of course, who could forget this lovely lady!
Taryn and I attended a dinner with some of our online Willow Trader friends and look who showed up! Teresa Collins was so fun to sit with and talk to...and i just love her accent!

So... I know all of you really want to see some of the goodies coming out very soon. I'm going to start with two of my all time favorites! I am never disappointed by these two companies.

First we have Fancy Pants:

Rusted Sun:

My Family:

Road Show:

About a Girl:

Pink Paislee has several new collections coming out but somehow I only managed to get pics of two of them. Check out some of the layout examples at their booth:

BayBerry:

365 Degrees:

That's all for Day 1 of our sneaks! Now for a GIVEAWAY!!! Who doesn't love prizes, right? Well, this one is for a Making Memories journal book and I'm going to make it super easy to enter! All you have to do is make a comment to this post and you'll have a chance to win. You have until midnight EST on Sunday, January 31st and then I will announce the winner on Monday along with our next giveaway! Good luck!

Heartfelt Journaling List Style

Hi! Betsy again, guest blogger for January!  Hope you're all having a great day!

On most of my layouts, the journaling is the most important part of the page. Especially lately,  I seem to have a lot to say!  Sometimes, the journaling comes to mind in a list form.  When that happens, I don't fight it! I go with the list!

When my boys were young I had in mind the kind of life I wanted to for them. Sort of a Tom Sawyer-esque type of life.  I put a lot of the thoughts I had in list form, and combined them with small black and white photos of  my boys and a birthday cake for this layout:

Here's a little detail:

The list journaling was printed right onto the Collage Press labels.

Lots of Collage Press patterned paper used on this layout along with their punch out labels and letter stickers, Maya Road acrylic "mom", Pink Paisley Captivating Press Ons, and some trim and a heart sequin.

Have a great day and see you over at Its Scraptacular!

And say hey to me on my blog, too - www.justapharmgirl.blogspot.com

betsy :)

 

Winter quotes for your projects

Here are some ideas for quotes to add to your winter projects!

*One kind word can warm three winter months - Japanese proverb

*Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart - Victor Hugo

*Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius - Pietro Aretino

*Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours." - Robert Byrne

*When the bold branches bid farewell to rainbow leaves welcome wool sweaters - B. Cybrill

*The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination - Ward Elliot Hour

*Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they do when they stick together - Verna M. Kelly

*Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow - Ralph Waldo Emerson

*Snowmen fall from Heaven, Some assembly required

*O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? - Percy Bysshe Shelley

BIGGEST SALE EVER!!!!!

This is SO exciting!!!!!!
Here is what Beth had to say....

We are so excited to let you know of our biggest sale EVER! That's right, we've never had a sale like this before. Starting today, January 21st until tomorrow January 22nd at midnight EST, Scraptacular will be offering....{drumroll!}.... 30% off EVERYTHING in our store! This offer is good online and in our actual store! We will be leaving for sunny California on Sunday to attend the CHA Winter Trade Show and that means we need to clear out our inventory. This sale applies to everything, even the brand new Sports and Maya Road goodies we just got in! But don't wait, hurry over to the store now. Quantities are limited and there will be no rainchecks.

And don't forget we offer FREE shipping on all orders over $50! Not ordering that much? Your shipping fee is a flat $5.99 to anywhere in the U.S.

You better run over to the store and shop til you drop!!!!

More From the January Kit!

Hi! This is Betsy - guest designer for this month's kit and here's project number NINE that I've made from the great January kit!

My son saw this picture of himself sledding with friends, their sleds linked together, and he said "Oh, that is so CLASSIC!"   Hence the title "Classic Sledding!"

Everything is from the kit except the red gems I found in my stash.  I layered them on the sweet silver snowflake trim in the kit.

I love taking a ready-made product and making it my own.  I took the "Let's Play" sticker in the kit and embellished it. The sticker was mounted on a plain chipboard circle, and the sweet snowflake images on the sticker were accented with tiny red beads in the center.  A scalloped circle cut from patterned paper in the kit using my Cricut finished it off:

It's mounted using pop dots to give it some dimension.

Something else I like to share is how to match your font color to your photo.  There may be other ways to do this, but this is how I do it using Adobe Photoshop Elements:

1. Scan your photo using PSE.

2. Click on the background/foreground squares on the lower left corner and an eyedropper will pop up. Use this eyedropper to pick the area of the photo you'd like to copy the color code of.

3. You have just "picked the color" and it code will show up in the color picker box shown below.

4. Open up your journaling or title document and click on the "T" for text function.
5. Click on the text color box and click on "more colors" as shown below.

 6. Enter the color code right into the box as shown and your font color will match the color you picked from the photo!

In my Classic Sledding layout, I picked a color from my son's jacket for the title and journaling.

The CHA talk is so exciting! Can't wait to see what Beth will be bringing in from CHA!

Have a creative day!

CHA Sneak Peaks!

CHA is almost here. For us scrappers, that's like the Superbowl, Winter Olympics and Oscar Night all rolled into one :)

For those of us that can't actually get to the show, getting a sneak peak at some of the new releases is the next best thing.

"My Little Shoebox" is coming out with 6, count 'em SIX new collections! Staying true to their style, all of the collections are bright and whimsical, great for making really fun pages that stand out. Here's a sneaky peak at 3 of my personal favorites...

Flying High



Just Add Butter



Imaginary Friends



Pink Paislee is introducing us to 4 new collections with products that will start shipping in March 2010.









So start using up your stash friends! You'll want to make some room for the new goodies heading our way ;)

Marci
Scraptacular Design Team

Winter Photo Ops

Baby, it's cold outside!!

I don't know about all of you, but I don't take nearly as many pictures in winter as I do in spring, summer and fall. It's just too cold to get out there and do it!!

Manufacturers come out with such gorgeous winter papers and embellishments that are just begging to be used though!

Here's a list of some ideas that will definitely justify the NEED to buy those products!!

*Kids (or adults) sledding down hills
*Ice frozen on the tree branches
*Icicles hanging from a roof line
*Kids catching snowflakes with their tongues
*Snowmen
*Winter boots all ligned up in a row
*Close up of a mug of hot chocolate
*Kids sipping their hot chocolate
*Close up of someone in their winter hats with their rosy cheeks
*People making snow angels
*Moonlight on the snow
*A lone cardinal in the snow
*Untouched snow scene
*Snow on plants
*Kids carrying their sleds up a hill, caught from the back
*A frozen pond
*Ice skating
*A pile of snow clothes on the floor after a full day of playing in the snow

Hope this gets you started!! Please post if you get any shots of these ideas!

New Stuff

well, the snow is coming down today and i thought it would be sunny so i could post some of my favorite new pages, but it has to snow....again. you will just have to look on my blog later for better photos with close ups and for the other pages i have been working on. the new Scraptacular Store is full of fun new goodies and i have just been having a blast creating some special pages highlighting some of my favorite photos of my children.

isn't this October Afternoon Farm Fresh line TOO cute???


here is a new page made with Basic Grey Nook and Pantry...


and my new favorite Pink Paislee Cupid...look for more of this (including close ups of the journaling of this page) on my blog.....


check out the store and see what you can find to make your pages shine :)

January Guest Designer

Please welcome our January Guest Designer... Betsy Sammarco!

We are so excited to have her with us for the whole month of January!

We asked her to share a little about herself and here's what she had to say:

I'm Betsy Sammarco and was so happy to be a guest designer for the January kit! I am a mom to two wonderful boys, two pet ducks, a sweet dog, and wife to a great husband. I work part time as a pharmacist at a local hospital and love my job.

Scrapbooking has been an incredible hobby for me. I've met the greatest people through scrapbooking and have so enjoyed the creative outlet. I don't think I have a particular style, and I tend to try different styles of scrapping at my moods strikes, but I would have to say that most of my pages tend to be classic or graphic in nature. I'd love for you to visit me at my blog sometime: www.justapharmgirl.blogspot.com
and I'd love to visit yours!

I really loved working with this kit, and I hope you have a blast creating with it also!

You can get to know her better by stopping over at our Forums and chatting with her or check out her scrappy work in the Gallery.

Happy new year everyone! I hope 2010 is a healthy, happy year for you!