Scrapbook & Cards Today Blog

Sketch Challenge Reveal...and a winner!

Happy Monday SCT friends! On January 1st we revealed our first sketch challenge for 2017 (look for them on the 1st of each month!) and what a wonderful response we had to it! Thank you for all your amazing submissions and for telling us how much you enjoyed this little nudge to create something fun. We would love to share a selection of the layout we received today and share the winner of the amazing Hero Arts prize too!

Layout by Ava Gavlovski

Layout by Bertha Madott

Layout by Cynthia Baldwin

Layout by Gina Moretti

Layout by Karen Lingel

Layout by Krisztina Reidl

Layout by Majken Pullin

Card by Maria Fischer

Layout by Shannon Yates

Thank you so much ladies for sharing your beautiful work with us and for taking part in our first challenge of 2017! We are thrilled that our friends at Hero Arts have joined us also to share this beautiful prize package...

"Celebrate 2017 in style! Our featured products from December are fun for raising a glass and toasting the celebrations in your life, planning a girls’ night, or inviting friends to happy hour. The cute little stamps and dies are also great for your scrapbook pages and planners, too!"

We've randomly selected a winner and are pleased to announce that reader June Stewart is our challenge winner with this fun layout!

Layout by June Stewart

June please send us your address and telephone number by email to [email protected] and put "sketch winner" in your reference line!

Thank you again ladies! Our Feburary sketch challenge will be posed on February 1st!

Giveaway Friday with Taylored Expressions!

Good morning and happy Friday! Some of the SCT team has headed to our industry trade show (CHA) in Phoenix so be sure to join us on Facebook and Instagram (@sctmagazine) where we will be sharing some of what we're seeing with you! We always compare it to being like kids in a candy store and we're only too happy to share all our finds. Imagine a large football field full of colour and pretty things! All kidding aside, it's always wonderful to see the hard work and innovative products that all our partners and others create for you! We hope you'll check in and follow along with us (wifi permitting!!!)

If you joined us yesterday for Card Cafe Thursday then you saw the beautiful cards the Taylored Expressions designers created with the new Magical Day and Dreamer stamps and die.

Our friends at Taylored Expressions would love to share these fun stamps and dies with one lucky reader! For an opportunity to win just leave a comment below by January 26th! Good luck! We would love you to also join Taylored Expression on their facebook page to give them a big "SCT thank you!" 

Enjoy your weekend friends...we sure will! 

Card Cafe Thursday with Taylored Expressions!

Hello from Taylored Expressions! 2017 is going to be a magical year, full of creativity! Thank you so much to our good friends at Scrapbook & Cards today for inviting us to share a few whimsical projects from our Creative Team using our recently-released stamps and dies on Card Cafe Thursday!

Designers Keia Shipp-Smith and Gayatri Murali created two sweet cards with our Dreamer Stamp & Die Combo and Stitched Cloud Duo dies to wish some friends a magical day. We love how, with a bit of sponging, sequins, unicorns, and a pinch of pixie dust, these cards are a dream come true.

 

Designer: Keia Shipp-Smith

Supplies: Stamp: Dreamer Stamp & Die Combo; Dies: Build a Scene Rolling Clouds, Sitched Circle Stacklets, Little Bits Castle, Stitched Cloud Duo; Inks: TE Matched Premium Ink in Oreo, Lavender Glaze, Pink Champagne, Cookie Monster, Sprinkles; Paper: Sugar Cube, Sprinkles, Jelly Donut, Lollipop, Plum Punch Matched Cardstock; Accessories: TE Matched Hello Happiness Patterned Paper Pack, TE Snow Flurries Sequins, Sheer Shimmer Spritz, White Gel Pen, Versamark, Ranger (black embossing powder), Copic Markers

Designer: Gayatri Murali

Supplies: Stamp: Dreamer Stamp & Die Combo; Dies: Stitched Cloud Duo; Inks: TE Matched Premium Ink in Oreo, Spun Sugar Distress Ink; Accessories: round blending tool and sponge, Copic Markers, Wink of Stella Clear shimmer pen, foam tape, TE Sequins

These two happy cards are from designers Jen Shults and Keia Shipp-Smith and feature darling winged dragons from our Magical Day Stamp & Die Combo. From Jen’s rainbow garden using our new Rainbow Cutting Plate to Keia’s rocket-rider flying high through our Cloud Nine Background-stamped sky, both are a roaring good time!

 

Designer: Jen Shults

Supplies: Stamps: Magical Day Stamp & Die Combo; Dies: Rainbow Cutting Plate, Stitched Cloud Duo Dies, Buid a Scene Rolling Clouds, Build a Scene Trees, Wispy Grass Border, Little Bits - Let's Talk Bubble 2, Stitched Rectangle Stacklets; Inks: TE Matched Premium Ink in Lollipop, Strawberry Milkshake, Pumpkin, Candy Corn, Lemon Meringue, Potato Chip, Peapod, Granny Smith, Cookie Monster, Sprinkles, Jelly Donut, Plum Punch, Oreo; Paper: TE Matched Cardstock in Sugar Cube, Sprinkles, Peapod, Granny Smith, Chocolate Truffle; Accessories: Wink of Stella - Clear, Copic Markers, foam tape, liquid adhesive, ink blending tool and foams 

 

Designer: Keia Shipp-Smith

Supplies: Stamp: Magical Days Stamp & Die Combo, Cloud Nine Background; Dies: Sky High Rocket, Little Bits - Birthday; Inks: TE Matched Premium Ink in Salt Water Taffy, Sprinkles, Blue Corn, Oreo; TE Matched Cardstock in Metallic Neutrals, Peapod, Candy Corn, Cookie Monster, Sugar Cube, Vellum; Accessories: Versamark, Ranger (black embossing powder), Stickles (orange), Wow (puff embossing powder), Copics

We hope you are feeling inspired by our Creative Team’s delightful designs! A little dragon told us that there may be a little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow right here tomorrow so be sure to join us again!

~ Taylored Expressions

Design Team Wednesday with Paige Evans!

 Hello scrappy friends! Paige Evans here and I am so excited to share my first layout with you, and this is actually the very first layout I made with my new Oh My Heart collection with Pink Paislee - available now!

I started by designing a concentric snowflakes cut file and drew it onto textured white cardstock. You can download the cut file for FREE here!

Next I poked holes about a quarter inch apart over all the pencil lines then erased the pencil lines.

I chose 7 colors of embroidery thread to match the colors of Oh My Heart and stitched away! The stitching process took a few hours, but to me it's 100% worth it - I LOVE the texture and softness it adds and it totally relaxes me.

Once the snowflakes were stitched I trimmed off a bit of the edges and adhered it onto a colorful piece of patterned paper. Then I added a trio of little square photos of my daughter Jane at the same slight angle across the center of the snowflakes.

To help draw the eye into the photos I tucked die cuts and patterned papers underneath and layered more die cuts and chipboard stickers on top. I even fussy cut a flower cluster from patterned paper since I've used most of the flower die cuts on different projects (not layouts though! This is the first legit layout!).

I finished the page up with journaling and now it's hanging on my wall for a while before it'll go inside Jane's scrapbook. If you are interested in watching the process video, you can see it below!

Have a lovely day!

~ Paige Evans

We're thrilled to have Paige joining our 2017 Creative Team for 2017!

To learn more about Paige, visit our Design Team page on our website here!

Black and white photos for the win with Virginia Nebel!

Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season and made lots of memories to scrapbook!  Have you browsed through our recent Scrapbook & Cards Today winter issue?  There are so many creative ideas to get your 2017 scrapbooking underway! 

In this issue I shared my photo tip to use black and white photos on a Christmas layout.  My initial thought about converting colour photos to black/white would be that I would lose the ‘real-life’ capture moment of the photo. I’ve changed my mind having scrapped a few pages with black/white photos.  I love the contrast of the photos with the colourful patterns of papers and embellishments in the background.  I also like to crop the photos close to capture facial expressions that are so special.

My Christmas layout as seen in the winter issue:

Here are some other layouts using black/white photos. 

I hope you give this easy photo tip a try, happy scrapbooking!

~ Virginia Nebel

Mixed Media Monday with Vicki Boutin!

Hey friends!! Vicki here with a little mixed media background technique.  I created a card as my sample but you could apply this to any of your crafting projects!

One of my favourite tools to use are stencils.  I love the versatility and endless choice in patterns that stencils offer.  Another thing I LOVE to play with are water-soluble art crayons.  Watercolour and stencils can be tricky!  Water has a mind of its own and tends to seep under a stencil.  So, today I have a little trick!  Here are a few steps to use stencils and watercolour with success!

Position a stencil on a piece of watercolour paper and scribble a little water-soluble art crayon inside.

To blend the colour, use a wet wipe that is slightly damp and push the crayon into the stencil pattern.  Do not over-work the paper to prevent pilling. Note: If the wipe is really wet, I like to squeeze some of the moisture out in a paper towel.  Too much water in the wipe will cause the water to run under the stencil.  The key is water control with this technique!

Remove the stencil when the colouring is complete.  Add a border with a complimentary colour and blend with a wet wipe.

Layer a second stencil pattern and repeat the colouring steps.

To create depth in the pattern, I used the circle stencil and outlined some of the circles with a black marker.  I used a roller stamp to add the stamped words.

Here is a closer look at the finished card. This is a quick, clean and relatively simple technique!  I hope you get a chance to try it!

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Vicki Boutin

(Just a little note! All products used to create this technique are from Vicki's brand NEW PRODUCT LINE with American Crafts which will be revealed tomorrow!!!)