Scrapbook & Cards Today Blog

Birthday photo tips with Kathy Thompson!

Hello friends!  Can you believe it's Thursday already?  Are you having fun following our 5th birthday bash?  Well I can tell you we have had such *FUN* reading your comments!  WOW what a week!  We had our design team participate in a blog hop here, Becky showed us how to make those great pennants that have become so popular here and yesterday we announced two new design team members who showed two beautiful projects here. 

Did you also leave a comment for our grand prize of an Ipod Touch right HERE?  You have until 6:00 pm EST tonight.  Good luck!

Of course, we could not end the week without design team member and photographer extraordinare Kathy Thompson who shares some great photo tips for capturing a great birthday (and of course you know what is at the end of today's post right???!  wink, wink!) 

"Happy Birthday SCT!!  Congratulations on 5 amazing years!  Speaking of birthdays, birthday parties, much like Christmas and other ‘big events’, can present the family photographer with a number of different challenges. By employing a few basic tips and remembering to be in the moment, you can capture some great shots!

1. Check your white balance: often, birthdays are celebrated indoors, with poor lighting. Shoot a few pictures before the action begins, and correct that yellow (or pink or blue) cast accordingly.

2. No natural light? Work with what you’ve got! Candles provide beautiful light, so open up that aperture and focus on the flame – either with a group or with the birthday girl/boy themselves!

 

 

3. Shoot candidly: birthdays can be filled with emotion – happiness, surprise, and in the case of my daughter’s 18th birthday last year, the realization that she and her best friends would be away at different schools when their next birthdays rolled around:

 

4. Shoot in continuous or burst mode and up that shutter speed!  Children can move faster than the speed of light, especially when fueled up on a little bit of birthday cake!

5. Don’t forget the details: Capture some before and after detail shots.

 

6. Move around – shoot from different angles and with different focal lengths, and make sure you capture all of the party guests!

7. Don’t be afraid to hand over the camera and enjoy the day: never forget why you’re there and what you’re celebrating!

 

Here's to another 5 years SCT!  Congratulations!" ~ Kathy

Of course, the fun part about celebrating our birthday with us is the chance to win great prizes like this...

 

and these...

   

 

Oh yes, one lucky winner will receive the Pink Paisee Soiree collection which as you can see just screams HAPPY!  And today's winner will also receive these Spellbinders Dies because what would a party be without icre cream and party banners?!  Woot woot!  Just leave a comment below and we will choose one random winner today at 6:00 p.m. to win these great prizes! 

In case no one else tells you today, you're the best!  Have a good one and join us tomorrow as we end our birthday week with...another giveaway of course!

~ Catherine

A surprise to share...ok, two suprises!

 
We are so glad you joined us today as we get ready to announce two wonderful surprises!  Go and grab a coffee, tea, latte or juice and get comfortable, we have surprises, projects and a giveaway...OH MY!  Let's get started!

It is with pleasure that we announce the Scrapbook & Cards Today team is growing!  We are so pleased to announce that Sarah Hodgkinson and Sheri Reguly have joined our design team!  We have worked with both of these amazing designers for a while and could not be more excited to share their creativity with you in upcoming issues and right here on the blog.  You can also see their work in our new special issue, CardMaps Today!  To continue with our celebrations this week we asked these ladies to share a birthday project with us and were not disappointed.

"Happy birthday, Scrapbook and Cards Today! I can’t believe it was five years ago that I first discovered you at my local scrapbooking store. Your pages - so crisp and clean. Your projects - so beautiful and stylish. You inspire me. You motivate me. And, just when I think you couldn’t get any better, you come out with special issues like calendars and card books to get me even more fired up! I can’t wait to see what you bring us in the next five years.

 

In honour of your fifth birthday, I created a very special mini-album with some new products from one of my favourite companies – Jillibean Soup. Spotted Owl Soup is a perfect birthday line which includes patterned paper, diecut shapes, journaling sprouts and cardstock stickers. The patterned paper comes in both 12 x 12 and a new 6 x 6 mini paper pad which is perfect for mini-albums and cards.

For the front and back covers of this album I used two pieces of flat LEGO (2 1/5” by 5”).  My son, now 9, is a huge fan of LEGO and for his ninth birthday we celebrated with LEGO party games and a LEGO cake. In order to punch the holes into the LEGO you will need a Crop-a-Dile by We R Memory Keepers. The largest hole punch cuts perfectly though the plastic and 1” binder rings then slide through nicely. With this technique under your belt you could also make address books, notebooks, and project books for your own LEGO fans. Another idea for your LEGO fans is to help them create their own blog where they can post images of their creations. My son has a blog so that he has a permanent reminder of his fantastic creations.  Here is a look at the inside:

 
 
 
Supplies: Jillibean Soup patterned paper, cardstock stickers and diecuts, Fiskars paper crimper and layering tape, We R’ Memory Keepers Crop-a-Dile, We R Memory Keeper Corner Chomper, Glue Dots (to adhere stars to the pins), Helmar 450 glue (to adhere paper to plastic), other: 1” binder rings, pins, LEGO flat pieces (2 ½” x 5”).

Here’s some great party ideas for your LEGO loving birthday kid (or spouse):

• Martha Stewart’s mini-loaf pan makes a wonderful LEGO brick cake. Decorate with red, yellow, blue and green icing and top with Smarties of the same colour. ½ a brick per guest is sufficient with ice cream.
• Have your LEGO lover take apart a Bionicle or LEGO creation and put all pieces into one Zip-loc bag for each party goer or team of party goers. Put an image of the final project into the bag, if necessary. Have a race to see who can recreate the project the fastest!
• Hide LEGO pieces throughout your home or outside and have a LEGO scavenger hunt. The party goer who finds the most pieces wins!
• Provide each party goer with a supply of LEGO pieces. Have a race to see who can build the tallest free-standing LEGO tower in 5 minutes.
• Build LEGO cars and race them down a slope to find a winner.
• Fill a large jar with LEGO and have the party goers guess the number of pieces inside. The closest to the correct answer wins! (You will need to count them off ahead of time AND record the number show where so you don’t have to recount them during the party. Trust me - it’s a good idea)

On a final note, it is an absolute honour to be joining the Scrapbook & Cards Today design team. I am beyond excited about the direction that Catherine and Becky are headed with this wonderfully inspiring magazine!"  ~ Sarah Hodgkinson

Thank you Sarah for the fabulous party ideas!  I think many of us can say we have stepped on more than one piece of Lego in our lifetime.  Did you also notice that the Jillibean Soup Spotted Owl Collection Sarah used is the same collection you can win on yesterday's post?  Be sure to leave your comment!

Next, we would like to introduce Sheri Reguly.  Sheri has an incredible eye for colour and the ability to create perfect harmony on her pages while unifying her fabulous photos, journaling and beautiful details.  You can see Sheri's most recent work in our spring issue where she completed the Easy, Detailed, Expert layouts which can be seen here.  For this week, Sheri created another stunning birthday layout...

"First I would like to say how excited I AM to be a part of this great team!  I have enjoyed watching Scrapbook & Cards Today these past 5 years and have many great ideas to share with you.  I was very happy to be asked to join in this week's birthday celebration too!  Happy Birthday Scrapbook & Cards Today! 

We all take photos at our children's birthday parties, however, very rarely are these photos taken in ideal lighting conditions. In addition to poor lighting,  they also tend to be taken in the midst of all the excitement, where we don't always have the time to pay attention to cluttered backgrounds, or even our camera settings for that matter.

That was the exact case with the photos that I had taken on the day of my daughter's sixth birthday party. With the exception of the two photos that I had taken just prior to leaving our home, the remainder of the photos were taken with a flash in a dark bowling alley.

 

Supplies:  Cardstock - Bazzill Basics, Patterned Paper - Jillibean Soup, Crate Paper, October Afternoon, Bo Bunny; Brads - Doodlebug Designs, Basic Grey; Photo Turn - 7 Gypsies; Sculpted Flower Accent - Prima; Rub On Stitches - Die Cuts With A View; Flower Punch - Martha Stewart Crafts; Corner Rounder - EK Success; Font - Century Gothic, Arial, Discipuli Britannica

My favorite tip for scrapbooking situations just like this, is to pick that one favorite photo, the best of the bunch, and enlarge it so that it quickly becomes the focal point of the page. Next, I like to select a few supporting photos that are essential in telling the story. By converting these photos to B & W, boosting the contrast, and resizing them to a much smaller scale, they instantly become uniform, look sharper, not to mention, the busy backgrounds (and red eyes) are instantly eliminated. These tiny photos quickly become the perfect scrapbooking embellishment...they can be arranged or grouped as desired, and work wonderfully with any design or color scheme.

 

 
Because of the busy patterned papers that I chose for my layout, I decided to keep the actual design very simple and streamlined, with minimal embellishing. I used reversed text  to achieve a clean look for not only my journaling, but for my title as well. This was the perfect solution to avoid having my title compete with the bold text on my daughter's shirt.  And, speaking of my daughter's shirt...

 
T-Shirt Supplies:  Little Tea House Kit by Mindy Terasawa (www.designerdigitals.com); Twirl Kit by The Shabby Princess (www.theshabbyshoppe.com); Iron On Transfer - Avery

I created the design using a combination of two digital scrapbooking kits, and my image editing software.  I simply printed it out onto an iron on transfer, and applied it to a plain white cotton tee. A single gemstone accent applied to the top of each cupcake makes for the perfect finishing touch, and adds that hint of sparkle that every little girl loves.

Again, Happy Birthday SCT!  Here is to many more years of fabulous issues!" ~ Sheri

Now to top off this day it's time to giveaway another birthday collection!  One lucky winner will win the brand new Nikki Sivils It's Your Day collection!  This fun collection is all about the party and could not be more perfect for your celebration pages!  You will also receive our favourite cardstock sticker sheet that is full of options for titles and embellishments.  You will LOVE this collection! 

 

and wait, that's not all!  We also have a birthday prize package from Maya Road too!  How generous are our sponsors?  Your prize will include all that is birthday from Maya Road!  We've got products from their brand new catalogue which includes canvas, stamps, mists, flowers and more!  This is a box of scrappy goodness you will love to create birthday projects with.

       

 

Just leave us a comment on this post before Thursday, March 31st at 6:00 p.m. and we will choose a random winner to be announced on Friday's post!  We are going to have many happy winners on Friday.  Did I mention that all winners will receive a copy of the Spring issue too? 

Thank you for joining us today and celebrating not only our birthday but the addition of two new amazing designers to our team.  Please take a moment to welcome them - we feel fortunate to have them!

Have a wonderful day and we will see you tomorrow.  You don't want to miss it  ;)

~ Catherine

 

Birthday pennant emblems with Becky Fleck!

 

Hi everyone...it's Becky! Thank you so much for joining us for SCT's birthday celebration this week.  We have thoroughly enjoyed reading all your comments and have more in store for you all week so don't miss joining us each day!

Did you see that little gift bag on page 9 of the spring issue?  You know the one housing the Ipod Touch we are giving away HERE?  Pennant emblems are all the rage right now in scrapbooking and even though the ready-made ones are quick and easy to use, there may be times when you can't find one to match your project. That's when making your own is just the ticket. I'd like to share with you a step-by-step on how to make these embellishments, with a special twist. As you can see from the one I've made above, the emblem is made up of four colours for a really cool look. So grab your scraps, ruler, scoring stylus and some wet adhesive and let's get started.

To create a four-colour emblem, trim four pieces of paper to 1½"x3". Score at every 1/2" and fold each piece up like an accordion.

 

To connect the four pieces together into one long accordion, overlap one end onto the end of the next folded piece and glue in place. You may need to trim off 1/2" from the end of one to keep the folds going in the right direction. You should now have a long accordion-folded piece that looks something like this.

 

Finally, connect the two open ends to one another and you'll have a funky, round folded tube that looks a bit like this:

 

Punch out a 2" circle from a piece of scrap cardstock. Apply a generous amount of quick-dry wet adhesive to the center of the circle. Flatten the accordion folded circle so that the hills and valleys of the folds are facing up and press it in place onto the glue. You may need to hold it there until the glue grabs, or place something heavy on top of the emblem while the glue sets.

 

To dress my emblem up a bit, I added a tulle ruffle to the backside. To do this, trim a 4" circle from some green tulle.

Turn the emblem over and apply a few glue dots to the center of the cardstock circle. Lay the tulle circle over the middle and scrunch it up over the glue dots until the tulle ruffles and pleats.

 

Turn it back over and attach it to the front of your card (5"x5") and finish it off with another round circle, a pretty button and some baker's twine! There you have it ... your custom-made emblem in four colors! 

Now, wouldn't it be fun to make a pennent emblem with this...

Our friends at Jillibean Soup thought this would be a wonderful giveaway in honour of our birthday and we could not agree more!  This fun collection could have you creating birthday themed projects for quite some time.  Just leave us a comment below before Thursday at 6:00 p.m. and we'll announce the winner our post on Friday, April 1st! 

There's lots more in store during our week of celebration including a surprise announcement so be sure to pop back in tomorrow.  Also, if you have not joined our facebook fan page, you may want to do that today...just sayin'!  Join us here! 

~ Becky

 

Birthday Blog Hop!

 
Good Monday morning!  WOW, WOW, WOW!  Thank you so much for your amazing comments on our spring issue!  (read about our spring release HERE!).  We enjoyed celebrating the launch of the spring issue with you and truly appreciated all your kind comments.  We can't wait to see who wins the Ipod Touch!  We will be continuing the celebrations all week...and of course a daily prize too! 

 
Today we are celebrating the launch of our special issue "CardMaps Today" with a birthday card blog hop with the Scrapbook & Cards Today design team!!!  Be sure to hop to each blog to find a fun birthday card designed from one of the bonus sketches found in CardMaps Today and...two of our designer's will be giving away a copy of CardMaps Today to a lucky winner on their blog!  You will have to visit each blog to find out who is giving a copy away.  You are going to start today's blog hop by hopping over to Kimber's blog at  http://kimbermcgray.blogspot.com/.  (To order a copy of CardMaps Today click here!)

Of course an SCT celebration would not be complete without a present right?  Today we have the "Life of the Party" collection from BasicGrey to give to one lucky winner!  (we can hear your squeals from here!)

 

To win this collection, just leave us comment below before Thursday, March 31st at 6:00 pm!  All birthday winners will be announced on April 1st.  Good luck!   

So go ahead and visit Kimber's blog for the start of our birthday card blog hop!  You are sure to be inspired along the way.  Have a great day!

~ Catherine

(ps - today is the last day to send us your Project 12 February layouts to play for our prize from Fancy Pants.  Send them to ideas@scrapbookandcards.com or link them in your comment on THIS post!  The April sketch will be released on Friday!)

 

The Spring issue is here...let's get the party started!!

 

(download/view HERE)

Good morning everyone!  First, before we even get started, we would like to say a huge THANK YOU to each and every one of you for joining us today to celebrate our FIFTH birthday!  It seems like yesterday we launched our first issue in March, 2006 and just five years later, we are thrilled to present issue 21!  It is because of you and some amazing advertising sponsors that we have reached this milestone today.  This spring issue was so much fun to put together - from the beautiful cover by Christine Middlecamp to the fabulous reader's gallery, and everything in between!  A great issue to celebrate our birthday!

And, for those of you that know us, you know that not only do we LOVE rewarding our readers every Friday but we love a celebration (remember our annual "12 days of holiday giving"?)  Keep reading friends...it only gets better  ;)

One of the great parts of Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine is that it's free.   Free in the stores and free to download anywhere in the world - 122 countries and counting!  When the magazine first launched many asked "why free?"  My answer was very simple - because I LOVE my local scrapbook store and I truly wanted to give them something special that they could share with their customers four times a year.  While I initially loved my local large craft store, I never felt better than when I stepped into my local store where they educated me, celebrated with me and enhanced my creativity (and caused me to learn to hide some receipts!)  While I know many do not have a local store near them, I can also say that I came to love an online store who had a message board that was a wonderful source of inspiration.  There are so many that share our passion for scrapbooking and card making, so thank you for sharing yours with us.

Over the years we have built a great team of editors, designers and staff who passionately love this craft and work extraordinarily hard (and sometimes on some pretty tight deadlines!) to bring you the latest and greatest in trends, techniques and design principles in a clean, well-design, approachable way.  I am blessed to have such an amazing team of talented people and by you being here today, you have shown us that we have done a great job.  A huge round of applause for the Scrapbook & Cards Today team!

So now for some fun on a Friday!  One of the companies that have supported us since the very beginning is doodlebug designs.  I don’t think I could ever get enough of their sugar coated cardstock or their new adorable buttons (and have you seen their brand new cards?  OH MY!).  Of course when they heard it was our birthday, our friends immediately offered us a fabulous birthday prize to give away!  Just look at this all this doodlebug prize!

 
But wait there’s more friends!  Are you wondering what is in the adorable bag our editor extraordinaire Becky Fleck created on page 7?  Well, over the past year we have worked hard to reach out to you not only with our magazine but also online through this blog, our website, our facebook page and twitter.  We designed our online magazine so that you can read it right from home but we would like to go a step further.  We would like to keep in touch so that you’re in touch with your very own .....“ipod touch”! 

 

That’s right, one lucky winner will receive an Apple ipod-touch so that you can keep up to date with us no matter where you are!!  (and btw...you will all need to have the Bazzill App!) To win the ipod touch and the doodlebug giveaway, just leave a comment below telling us what you enjoyed most about our spring issue!  Easy!  Leave your comment before 6:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, March 31st and we will randomly choose a winner that will be announced on Friday, April 1st.

We hope you enjoy our spring issue (download/view HERE!) and once again we want to thank you for being such AMAZING supporters of Scrapbook & Cards Today.  Join us on Monday for a very fun blog hop with our design team celebrating the launch of our brand new CardMaps Today special issue, on Tuesday with a great tutorial from Becky and some surprise announcements on Wednesday and Thursday.  And did we mention that we will have a prize giveaway every day next week?  Make sure you join us every day!

~ Catherine

Publisher, Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine
 

One more sleep!

 

Hello friends!  You are remembering what tomorrow is right?  That you are joining us right here for a big kick off of the spring issue and to celebrate our fifth birthday right?  Great...thought so!  We are very, very, VERY excited for tomorrow!  (can you tell?!)  And when you see what is here tomorrow...you will be too!  (practice singing Happy Birthday ok?!)  I could not be prouder of what the SCT team has put together for you in not one, but two issues! 

See you in the morning!

~ Catherine

(you have another couple of hours to leave a comment for the Pebbles prize package on THIS post!)