Scrapbook & Cards Today Blog

"Make a statement" challenge with Courtney Walsh!

What’s the most important part of your scrapbook page? If we surveyed ten scrapbookers, everyone would likely have a different answer to that question. Me? I think it’s nice to change it up a little. On some layouts, it’s about an amazing photo. On others, it’s about the journaling of a story I can’t wait to tell (and never want to forget). And on others, it’s about the overall sentiment.

Take this page, for instance, created by Jaime Warren  (click this link to see her fabulous blog!) and using the brand new Sunday Picnic Collection from Webster's Pages. First of all, isn’t it adorable?

Jaime’s layout made me smile the second I saw it, not just because of the fun, bright colors, but because of the whole idea behind it. “You Make Me Happy” pops right off the page…and what a great thing to tell your child, spouse or best friend.

So, here’s the challenge today…create a layout with a supersized title, one that jumps off the page. Allow yourself to forget the rules of what your focal point SHOULD be and have fun with it. After all, this is art…and that means you can make it whatever you want!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• “I have a confession…” Create a layout about a funny guilty pleasure or something no one knows about you.
• “My purse tells a story…” Create a page about the contents of your purse. It’ll be like a peek into your brain—how fun is that?
• “Friends are Forever…” A layout showcasing your special friendships—or those of your kids—will become an instant classic.

Let your imagination run wild…what is it that you’re feeling right this second? Sit down and create a page about it, letting that sentiment be the star!

~ Courtney Walsh

Thank you Courtney for a great challenge!  The Sunday Picnic collection is so beautiful (and already shipping!), we just had to share more...

Courtney is back on Wednesday with a great project and you may just want to mark your calendars to be here on Friday  ;)

Have a great day!  Just a reminder that Crop & Create Moncton registration opens tonight at 7:00 pm. EST. 

~ Catherine

We have pictures from Crop & Create Markham!

Just a little suprise post on a Sunday!  With Moncton Crop & Create registration opening tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. EST we thought we would share a few photos and give updates on Crop & Create Markham last weekend!  With great classes, fabulous food and a really fun group of ladies...well, it was the best!  Here is just a little peek at the fun...

Before opening...

Let the fun begin...

Lori, Leica and Hannah hamming it up!

And here are some of our guests...

(cutest Mom & Daughter duo!)

Wonderful ladies these two are! 

(Ms. Debbie Williams...what can we say...you were so much fun!)

(Vicki and Dee...fun happens whereever these two ladies go!)

Best of luck at the upcoming wedding!  (Our friend on the right is getting married soon!)

(Love this Leica girl!)

Becky announcing the 50/50 draw for Breast Cancer!  $425 was raised!  Well done Markham ladies!  But really, doesn't Becky look divine???!  Pretty in pink!

And then well, there was the FOOD!

and to end our photo tour, we had to put this one in...

Let's just say these two had a LOT of fun in the photo booth  ;)

Of course, there was more fun to be had.  Our blindfold card challenge and the ugly sweater contest offered up some fun times!  So ladies, if you are thinking about joining us in Winnipeg on March 23 and 24 (only 20 spaces left!) or Moncton in April 20 and 21st (registration opens tomorrow!) or even in BC (location and date to be announced Wednesday!) then don't delay.  More fun than you have had in a long time!  For more information, check out our website at www.scrapbookandcards.com!

~ Catherine

pssst...if any of our attendees are reading this post and have some images from Crop & Create Markham, please send them to us at create@scrapbookandcards.com to add to our Crop & Create facebook album.

 

Big news! Very exciting!

We can finally share some really big news!  Our wonderful and incredibly talented Editor-in-Chief extraordinaire Becky Fleck has partnered with one of our favourite companies, Spellbinders, to launch a monthly line of coordinated dies!  Woot, woot!  How exciting is that?!  Here is the official word...

"The PageMaps Designer Collection by Becky Fleck will open a whole new world of scrapbooking possibilities. She is the founder of the highly popular and successful sketch site, www.pagemaps.com and author of the best-selling sketch books, Scrapbook PageMaps 1 and 2. This ever popular book series is further enhanced by a monthly release of coordinated Spellbinders die templates. Office Supplies, a Spellbinders Shapeabilities die template, will be the first to launch at 2012 Winter CHA."

Becky's new dies will be available on February 1st!  I know exactly what your thinking, it's Friday, and we should be having a giveaway right?  I agree!  As soon as these dies become available we'll pick a favourite and send it to you!  Just leave a comment below (or a congrats to Becky!) and we'll choose one lucky winner on February 1st!  We'll also get images as soon as we can to share!  Good luck!

Be sure to join us next week as we have the ever wonderful Courtney Walsh joining us here on the blog.  Wait until you see what she has in store!  So delightful!  And don't forget that registration for Crop & Create Moncton opens at 7:00 p.m. EST on Monday night.  Classes are listed here, so be sure to check them out before registration as they will sell out quickly!  Moncton friends, we are so excited to come to town on April 20/21st!

Have a great weekend and we'll see you Monday!

Catherine

Oh, and don't forget we are giving this away here!

 

Our 1,000th blog post...and a surprise!

Where does the time go?  1,000 blog posts already?  WOW!  When we started the SCT blog in 2008 we had no idea if anyone would even stop by and now each day thousands stop by from all over the world.  It has been an amazing tool to reach you and to hear you.  Each of you.  Because YOU are what it's all about.  And YOU are why we love doing what we do.  So today we thought we would like to offer an amazing present to say thank YOU! 

Yes friends, that is an Ipod Touch!  This way, no matter where you are, you can keep in touch with us each day.  We could not think of a better way to say thank YOU then to give someone the opportunity to be on the go with us and not miss a thing!

Would you like the opportunity to win this?  All you have to do is leave a comment below and maybe tell us what the SCT blog means to YOU!  You have until Thursday, January 26th at 6:00 p.m. to leave a comment below.  GOOD LUCK!

And, we will also be giving away 10 copies of the brand new signed copy of CardMaps Vol. 2 set to be available for preorder on February 1st!!!  Just think, you'll have a reserved copy of your very own!  14 designers have been hard at work and Becky Fleck has outdone herself with 50 beautiful CardMaps!

Thank YOU for being the best blog readers and for inspiring us to do our best each and every day!

~ Catherine
Publisher, Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine
www.scrapbookandcards.com

Adding textural elements to your page with Lisa!

Happy Tuesday everyone-- it is absolutely freezing here in Toronto, but not 48 hours ago I was on a beach in Mexico with my hubby, and I can still feel the sand between my toes! We were lucky enough to have a few kid-free days of one one time, and I feel so fortunate to have been able to do that. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

On our trip, I documented the details with both my phone, and my Canon 40D. There is something I love about Instagram-- not least of which is I don't have to worry about getting sand in my camera! When I picked a few favourite shots for the week, I decided to let the textures of our Mexican beach vacation inform my design choices:

 

Firstly, I picked a kraft background and cork accents to get the texture of the sand. I used hits of blue, translucent teal buttons, and silver glittered letters to represent the sparkly blue waters of the ocean.

 

More subtle textural elements included white stitching (like on the brim of my sunhat), and a bit of yellow lace ribbon (inspired by the sundresses I wore all week).  Although I labeled some of the photos, I tucked a journaling card under the photos to add a few details (like about the guacamole we lived on all week, and the pelicans who roosted on poles in the water all day).

 

Overall, I think the textural elements of this design really convey the feel of our Mexican getaway!  So, my challenge to you is add textural elements to a layout that are inspired by your photos. I'd love to see what you come up with!  Link your layout back here so that we can see what you've come up with! 

~ Lisa Kisch

Thank you Lisa!  Great challenge this week!  We also just wanted to let you know that Crop & Create Moncton classes are up!  Mark your calendars as registration opens next Monday, January 23rd!  And for those looking at Crop & Create Winnipeg, we only have 20 spaces left and some classes are almost sold out!  If you would like to know how Crop & Create Markham was, be sure to check out our Crop & Create facebook page.  We'll also share some pictures and tell you more about it right here on Thursday! 

It's here! Project 12 in 2012!

Project 12 in 2012.  I know many of you are anxious to hear about the new challenge for 2012, and today is the day!! 

Project 12 has always been about capturing the moments of our everyday life, to use the less than perfect photos that capture our stories, and to tell those stories in our journaling.  One of my favorite thing about all the sketches Becky Fleck has created for this challenge was the great BIG journaling box.  I’m addicted to that large space and love using a large journaling block on most two page layouts I create.

Life has a way of changing, and with the new challenge in this new year, it was time to make that change.  The first one is a change to the 15^th of the month instead of the first.  That’s doable.  That change is easy enough to adhere to.  The new challenge is easy as well.

Scrapbook your life.  Whether you take 1 photo, 100 photos, or no photos, get it down on paper.  But this year, let’s include our memorabilia as well.  Let’s declutter our world of those things we save but don’t have a place for, tickets and receipts and programs and race running bibs, and lets incorporate them into our work.

Taking a photo a day has always been an overwhelming task for me to take on.  There are 365 days in a year (366 this time).  I could never do it.  But I do like the concept of Project Life, developed by Becky Higgins to incorporate your daily life in page protectors and journaling cards.  I’ve taken on that challenge for 2012.  I like the idea.  I also think it’ll be fun to involve my husband and my kids and have them tell their story with their own words.

But I still think an album like this has a place for art on a larger canvas.  So I think it’s perfectly fine to mix the two.  I also don’t think it’s necessary to do something to document every single day.  That’s too much pressure for many of us.

For Project 12 in 2012 we don’t have a new sketch to work from every month.  In fact, Becky has created 24 fabulous sketches for this challenge the last two years, and SCT has done a great job capturing all of them in one place on the website and YOU can choose the sketch that speaks to you each month!  You can see them all here:

http://www.scrapbookandcards.com/project-12-sketches  (2010)

http://www.scrapbookandcards.com/project-12-sketches-2011

For my layout this month, which incorporates memorabilia and random photos from my January, I chose to work with the August 2010 sketch:

 

Oh, and did we mention there is another twist too?  We're going to use a colour palette!  Also revealed on the 15^th every month on the Scrapbook & Cards Today website is Summer Fullerton's Colour Suite challenge.  Paired with Project 12 in 2012 you have a perfect challenge to creatively inspire you.  Here is January's Colour Suite challenge:

So with the sketch I chose and the January Colour Suite in mind, this is what I came up with:

 

 

As you can see, I included receipts, coupons, my racing bib from a 5k I did that weekend, and even a snippet of a letter I got in the mail regarding Orientation for grad school.  All of these are elements that will be fun to look back on down the road, as part of my history.  There will be a time when loading your Starbucks card for $20 will barely cover the cost of a latte...lol!

You’ll also notice more random photos, like the one of my husband’s suitcase.  This is part of the new challenge to myself to document even MORE of the everyday than I usually do.  By the way, did you see how we mark our luggage?  I have a fabrip wrapped around the handle. 

TIP:  See the “splatter marks?”   If you are like me and want more control on where the mist splatters, especially when your photos are already adhered, try this:  dip a pencil eraser into a bottle of mist or stamp it on an ink pad, and stamp the splatter onto your page.   I also used the end of a Basic Grey file.  There are a lot of tools in your stash that would double as a quick and easy stamp.  Try it! 

The new Project 12 challenge is to document more of YOUR every day on a layout.  Because some days we take more photos than the last, you can choose your own sketch among all the fun sketches that Becky has created for this challenge.  Utilize The Colour Suite as an additional challenge for yourself, and enter that monthly challenge for a subscription to the magazine, the best and most inspiring craft publication available, if I do say so myself!!

The Project 12 in 2012 challenge is supposed to be easy to incorporate into your life and your albums.  I wanted to be able to share an inspiration piece each month when I list the new challenge, and I love that I can do that with this new format.

The amount of time you choose to document is up to you.  For this layout, I chose a week in our life.  Maybe next month it’ll be just a few days, or maybe 10 of them.  The point is to grab a piece of time in YOUR life and get it down on paper for future generations to get a glimpse of your life, one layout a month.

I hope you will be inspired and play along and of course we would love to see your Project 12 in 2012 layouts to inspire others!  Just link up your January layouts to today's post and we'll randomly choose one layout to feature each month and a subscription giveaway too! 

I’ll see you back here on February 15^th!  Have a great month!

Davinie