Weekly Warm-Up: Spring is in the Air
04/12/2010 at 1:12 pm | Posted in Uncategorized, weekly warm up | Leave a commentTags: Adorn It - Carolee's Creations, CK, CK March/April 2010, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, creativity, giveaway, Lori Fairbanks, March/April 2010, Mou Saha, My Mind's Eye, Sassafras, Scrapbook, scrapbook pages, Scrapbooking, weekly warm up
Good morning! I hope you’re enjoying some beautiful spring weather and have had the opportunity to get out and take some terrific photos of your springtime activities and happenings.
Looking for fun ideas for scrapbooking them? You’ll love our March/April 2010 issue particularly Mou Saha’s “Spring is in the Air” article. She shows you how to use pre-made products like stickers and patterned paper to create seasonal accents like rainbows, kites, and clouds for your spring-themed scrapbook layouts. Here’s a sneak preview of two of the darling pages featured in this article.
I love how Mou used patterned paper featuring clouds as the background for this page, and it’s so clever how she used photo corners to create the kite.
"Let's Fly a Kite" by Mou Saha, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes
Look how cute the buttons make this rainbow patterned paper. If you want to recreate this look but don’t have this particular patterned paper, don’t fret! Use a circle cutter or a dinner plate to cut concentric circles or rings in several colors of cardstock. Then just ink the edges of each piece, arrange them to look like a rainbow and adhere your buttons.
"You Are My Rainbow" by Mou Saha, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes
How about some fun products to scrapbook your photos with? Check out the cute bees and flowers on the Bee Happy line from AdornIt – Carolee’s Creations:
Another cute line you won’t want to miss is Quite Contrary from My Mind’s Eye:
And, if you’re feeling spunky, you’ll want to check out this energetic line from Sassafras called Nerdy Bird:
Want to win one a sampling of one of these great spring lines? Leave us a comment by this Friday, April 16, 2010 and let us know what you like to take photos of in the spring. We’ll choose three lucky winners from the comments to win one of these three great lines.
–Lori Fairbanks, editor
Guest Blogger: Dream Team Member Cindy Tobey
04/09/2010 at 5:00 am | Posted in fonts, guest blogger, How-Tos, product, technique | 16 CommentsTags: bird nest, Cindy Tobey, CK, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, font, fonts, Free Font Friday, free fonts, guest blogger, How-Tos, Paper flower, product, spring, technique
Hello! It’s Cindy Tobey here, a member of the 2010 Creating Keepsakes Dream Team. Don’t you just love spring? I sure do! There are tiny buds forming and starting to bloom, bunnies are hopping from yard to yard, and my favorite, the chatter of birds outside. I’ve stopped by today to share a layout and spring themed accent that I hope you’ll enjoy!
Handmade paper flowers are all the rage right now, and I’ve used the same technique used to make spiral flowers to create a sweet little bird’s nest for my page below.
Climb by Cindy Tobey. Supplies: Patterned paper: American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, Crate Paper, Hambly, Jenni Bowlin Studio, Jillibean Soup, and My Mind’s Eye; Stickers and paper border srtip: Doodlebug Design; Journal tag: Jillibean Soup; Ribbon: SEI; Felt: Prima; Leaves: Bazzill Basics Paper; Font: Century Gothic; Adhesive: Beacon and Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L; Other: pom poms.
Step 1: Cut a 4″ circle from patterned paper. With a pencil, sketch a spiral onto the back of the circle. Cut along the sketched line.
Step 2: Roll the paper to form a nest shape, securing with adhesive in just two or three spots as you go.
Step 3: Use liquid glue along the bottom edge of the spiral to secure it to the base. Note: The base is the center of the paper circle that you cut into a spiral.
Step 4: When the glue is dry, take the palm of your hand and push down on the nest gently, to slightly flatten it. Work the edges of the nest with your fingers to get the desired shape.
Step 5: Finally, glue pom poms into the bottom of nest.
Tip: Use whatever you have on hand for the bird eggs. Buttons or beads would work great too! You could even add dots with a marker to buttons or beads for speckled eggs!
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning this technique and will give it a try! Thanks for reading, and happy spring!
Cindy
P.S. Don’t forget to download today’s font as part of Free Font Friday! This weeks’ font is CK Weez. Download it today at Creating Keepsakes.
You Be The Judge (April 2010)
04/07/2010 at 7:58 am | Posted in General Inspiration, Uncategorized, You Be the Judge | 3 CommentsTags: CK, Club CK, Club CK Idea Galleries, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, Fresh Face, inspiration, Joannie McBride, Layout, reader gallery, Reader Pick, reader poll, Reader's Pick, submissions, You Be the Judge
Happy April! I can’t believe how chilly it still is here in Utah. What I can believe, however, is the unbelievable talent all of our readers have! It’s such a pleasure being able to view your layouts in the Club CK idea galleries. Your layouts are always fun and inspiring, and they always brighten my day when I’m browsing for layouts or looking for inspiration when creating my own projects.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out all of the beautiful layouts in the Club CK gallery, make sure you do! You won’t be disappointed!
Today, I need your help picking the layout in this month’s Readers’ Pick Poll that will be featured in the October 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. It’s as easy as going to our You Be the Judge voting page, voting for your favorite, and doing it as many times that you want—there is no limit to how many times you can vote! Check back later this month to see if your favorite layout won.
Joannie McBride, assistant editor
Weekly Warm-Up: Scrapbook Your Story
04/05/2010 at 5:00 am | Posted in General Inspiration, weekly warm up | 4 CommentsTags: Ann-Marie Morris, Brenda Hurd, CK, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, creative editor, Funnest Scrapbooker Ever, Grace Tolman, Jing-Jing Nickel, Layout, March/April 2010, Megan Hoeppner, Scrapbook, scrapbook layouts, Scrapbooking, scrapbooking your story, Terri Davenport, weekly warm up
Take a minute and think about how you’d answer the following questions:
* What do you do each day?
* What traditions do you embrace?
* Which relationships do you treasure?
* What milestones have you celebrated?
* What fun things can’t you resist?
The answers to these various questions are the things that make up who you are. They’re part of your story. In other words, they’re your life!
Sadly, it’s often our lives as scrapbookers that we leave out of our albums, instead dedicating that time to scrapbooking about those around us. Take the kiddos for example. Sure, they’ll love seeing their lives on paper years from now, but it’s your life story that they’ll truly cherish. Trust me on this one.
So, in the spirit of scrapbooking our own lives, we have a few beautiful pages to share with you, each taken from a section of the mondo Creating Keepsakes “Scrapbook Your Life” idea gallery, which we featured in our March/April 2010 issue.
The Everyday
Part of Grace Tolman’s everyday belongs to her position at a local retail store, so she created this cute page. We love how she turned her employee badge into a home for her journaling. Even though so many of us spend a large percentage of life in the workforce, it can be an easy thing to overlook when scrapbooking. Keep your 9-to-5 in mind as you’re scrapbooking your life.
"My Night Job" by Grace Tolman, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 63.
Traditions
Traditions don’t have to be holiday or event based. Scrapbooking a tradition can be as easy as telling the story of a repeat event, big or small, that brings you joy. In Brenda Hurd’s case, this event is making lemonade at Grandma Cole’s—a sweet moment indeed!
- “Lemonade @ Grandma’s” by Brenda Hurd, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 69.
Relationships
You’re reading this blog post, which means you likely spend at least some of your time online. From that time, have you built relationships with others? Celebrate those e-connections with a scrapbook layout, just as Jing-Jing Nickel did with this happy page.
- “Panda” by Jing-Jing Nickle, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 72.
Milestones
You scrapbook the milestones reached by others in your life, so don’t overlook your own achievements. Whether you scrapbook those smaller, personal milestones (certifying in something, finishing a novel, etc.) or life’s larger moments (weddings, graduation, first home, etc.), milestones are an important piece of any scrapbook. For Ann-Marie Morris, it was her graduation from art school that made its way into a album.
- “Graduation” by Ann-Marie Morris, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 79.
Fun Times
How do you spend your fun time? Don’t worry, nobody’s going to judge you here. Even if you call housework “fun,” it counts as an interest worthy of a scrapbook layout. As our reigning “Funnest Scrapbooker Ever,” Terri Davenport certainly knows what fun is. So she created this heeelarious scrapbook layout about a game of Scrabble she played with her youngsters.
- “Ifoon” by Terri Davenport, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 83.
Inspired yet? Great, because it’s your turn to scrapbook about . . . yes, you guessed it, you! What will your next “me” page be about? We’d love it if you’d share and inspire us with your ideas.
Cheers!
Megan Hoeppner, CK creative editor
Happy Easter!
04/04/2010 at 8:17 am | Posted in Holidays, Uncategorized | 151 CommentsTags: CK, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, deocrating Easter eggs, Easter, Easter accents, Easter crafts, Easter eggs, Easter layouts, erin lincoln, holiday, holiday layouts, holiday traditions, Holidays, Lara Penrod, Martha Stewart, Susan Weinroth
Happy Easter, and thanks for stopping by the Creating Keepsakes blog today. We hope the day is bringing you at least some semblance of spring weather.
No matter how old my siblings and I get, we still get together every year to color Easter eggs. For some reason this activity has never lost its appeal for us. Maybe because we’re always a bit goofy while we do it.
One of the (many) great things about the March/April issue of Creating Keepsakes, is the article, “The Good, the Fab, and the Spectacular” in which we show you how to take an event you celebrate every year and mix it up to create some spectacular Easter layouts.
I especially like this layout from Susan Weinroth. I love how she created the grass and highlighted her photos within egg-shaped frames.
"Easter Egg Clean-Up” by Susan Weinroth, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 87.
I also love the various textures Erin Lincoln used for her egg accents on her layout.
“Easter for Grown Ups” by Erin Lincoln, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 86.
Leave us a comment and let us know how you add “egg-tra” special touches to your Easter layouts. I’ll choose two lucky comments to win this great Easter product from Jillibean Soup. Winners will be chosen on Friday, April 9, 2010.
And if you haven’t actually gotten around to coloring those eggs yet, check out this video from Martha Stewart Living on how to use a fun masking technique to create some pretty amazing eggs. (The video will play on the lower-right side of the screen after a quick ad.)
Happy Easter!
Lara Penrod, managing editor
Special Guest Blogger: Mandy Douglass
04/02/2010 at 8:10 am | Posted in fonts, General Inspiration, guest blogger, Holidays, How-Tos, product, technique, Uncategorized | 5 CommentsTags: American Crafts, CK, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, Dear Lizzy, Easter eggs, eggs, Fiskars Americas, free font, Free Font Friday, gift bag, guest blogger, holiday, how-to, Mandy Douglass, photo tips, photography tips, ribbon, ribbon technique, technique
Hey all my favorite CK Readers! It is me, Mandy Douglass! I don’t know about you, but I am so excited for this upcoming Easter holiday weekend. Now that I have two little boys, it just keeps getting more and more fun each year. I love easter egg hunts, easter baskets, easter bunnies, and those little peeks from the tulips that will soon turn into beautiful flowers.
Last year was the first year my son, Bryson, could start to understand the whole easter egg hunt idea. So today, I thought I would share a photo tip and a ribbon tip with you from this fun new page I created about his first hunt!
The Race is On by Mandy Douglass. Supplies: American Crafts.
Photo Tip:
Bryson was just learning to walk, and he really didn’t have enough balance to pick up eggs, so crawling was his only way to get those funny looking round things! I thought this photo was perfect to use on my layout, because it captures his perspective on the easter egg hunt. There weren’t a lot of kids around to “race” him for the eggs, but the faster he got them, the more excited he was. I challenge all you CK readers to get down in the grass this weekend and get some true perspective photographs!
Ribbon Tip:
Next is a fun tip a friend taught me a while back. I often find it hard to punch through a page or get a knotted ribbon to stay in place without gargantuan amounts of glue! So here are a few steps to show you how to get that cute ribbon knot to stay in place and avoid getting sticky.
First cut a piece of ribbon about 3″ long. Then staple it to the area of the page you would like the ribbon to be.
Then simply tie the knot (I usually only tie one knot and it stays in place).
Then cut off the remaining ribbon.
Simple, huh!
Bonus Gift-Bag Topper Tip:
I decided to use the same technique on some cute treat bags for Easter. (Not only did I get a cute bag out of it, but it also gave me a great excuse to open those Cadbury Mini Eggs that have been staring at me for a week!)
To make the bag topper, I made a simple flap using Sizzix’s scallop square die cut, then I folded it in half. I added some darling egg paper from the Dear Lizzy line by American Crafts and stapled the decorated flap to close the bag and keep the ribbon in place.
Last, I made a cute little tag using a Quickutz oval die, some scallop scissors by Fiskars, and Dear Lizzy Dimensional Sticker. Then knotted it all in place!
Such an easy way to do lots of Easter treat bags.
“Hop” that you all have a great holiday weekend!
Mandy Douglass, CK contributing writer
P.S. Don’t forget to download today’s font as part of Free Font Friday! This weeks’ font is CK Day Dream. Download it today at Creating Keepsakes.
Happy April Fool’s Day!
04/01/2010 at 11:12 am | Posted in Holidays, Uncategorized | 54 CommentsTags: April Fools, Creating Keepsakes, Flock, giveaway, holiday, Holidays, Lara Penrod, scrap, Scrapbook, scrapbook techniques
April Fool’s Day is traditionally marked by committing practical jokes or sending friends, family, or co-workers on fools’ errands. But there’s no jokes or fools’ errands on the CK blog today. Instead, we’re giving you a couple of quick, fun, practical techniques, plus a chance to win a fabulous prize.
To start, did you know that you can mix flock colors to come up with completely new custom-made flock colors? No joke! Watch this great tutorial from Stampendous on how it’s done. (Note: Watching the video will take longer than creating great new colors.)
After you’ve checked out that great technique, take a look at this one. It’s probably the best thing we’ve seen in a long time!
Now, before you go off to create some fantastic layouts using these fun new techniques, leave us a comment about your favorite part of April Fool’s Day, the best joke you’ve ever played, or how you plan to use one of these great techniques. Next Monday, April 5, I’ll randomly pick five readers from the comments we receive to win the book “Snippets: Mostly True Tales from the Lighter Side of Scrapbooking.”
Happy April 1st!
Lara Penrod, managing editor
Trend Talk: Ruffles
03/31/2010 at 5:00 am | Posted in General Inspiration, Hot Trends | 7 CommentsTags: CK, CK March/April 2010, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, creative editor, creativity, Lori Fairbanks, Megan Hoeppner, Mou Saha, Ruffles, Scrapbook, scrapbook pages, Scrapbooking, Stacy Cohen, Trend Talk, trends
-Megan Hoeppner, creative editor, and Lori Fairbanks, editor
Latest & Greatest Products: March/April 2010
03/30/2010 at 5:00 am | Posted in Hot Trends, latest & Greatest, product, Uncategorized | 268 CommentsTags: BasicGrey, CK, Claudine Hellmuth Studio, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, EK Success, giveaway, Jillibean Soup, Kim Jackson, latest & Greatest, patterned paper, products, Punches, Ranger Industries, Scrapbook, scrapbook supplies, Scrapbooking, stickers, TaDa Creative Studios
While creating every issue of Creating Keepsakes, we have a blast looking through all of the new scrapbooking products, trying to decide which ones will make our Latest & Greatest column. Of course, we never have enough space for all of the goodies we’d love to share with you. So we’ve decided share a few more of the producs that sparked our imaginations from each issue here on our blog—and we’ll give you the chance to win some of the fabulous products. Let’s get rolling!
Claudine Hellmuth Studios – Ranger Industries
We discovered the amazing line of Claudine Hellmuth Studio products from Ranger Industries at CHA back in January, and shared a couple of videos of sweet Claudine demonstrating just a few of the fun things you can do with her Sticky Back Canvas. You’ll love adding texture and color to your pages with this wonderful, on-trend line of products.
Eggdrop Soup – Jillibean Soup
With Easter right around the corner, our eyes are open for bunnies hopping down the bunny trail. The adorable Eggdrop Soup line from Jillibean Soup is a perfect addition to your stash, whether you’re looking for something to jazz up your Easter pages or a simple, cute new way to add a splash of springtime to your pages.
Double-Sided Edger Punches – EK Success
A sweet daisy chain will add just the right touch of springtime charm to your layouts—and with EK Success’ new Daisy Chain punch, you’ll have a true daisy chain, punched out on both sides. You’ll love this new punch design, as well as the others in the EK Success’ new line.
Green at Heart – BasicGrey
Earth Day is on April 22, and you’ll love adding a touch of “green” to your layouts with BasicGrey’s bright and fabulous new Green at Heart line. Printed on FSC-certified paper with soy-based inks, you can have a wonderful time creating a scrapbooking layout and feel good knowing that your paper is eco-conscious.
Wow, that’s a lot of scrapbooking goodness! How would you like to win some of these products for yourself? (Silly question—of course you would.) In addition to giving away the products above, you’ll also have a chance to win the E-I-E-I-O Collection from TaDa Creative Studios, as seen on page 48 of our March/April 2010 issue.
All you have to do to win one of these outstanding products is leave a comment telling us which of our Latest & Greatest products from the March/April 2010 issue of CK (or from this post) is your favorite and why you love it by Monday, April 5. We’ll draw five random winners (one for each product shown here) on or around April 6 and announce the winners on the giveaways tab located at the top of our blog.
Have a wonderful day!
Kim Jackson, senior editor
Weekly Warm-Up: Incredible (not so edible) eggs using your scrapbooking supplies!
03/29/2010 at 1:25 pm | Posted in General Inspiration, How-Tos, product, Uncategorized, weekly warm up | 11 CommentsTags: CK, Club CK, Club CK idea gallery, Creating Keepsakes, Creating Keepsakes magazine, decorated eggs, Earth Day, Easter, eggs, flocking, flowers, Glitter, glitter glue, Glue Dots, incredible, ink, Joannie McBride, Megan Hoeppner, paper crafting, ribbon, rub-ons, Scrapbook, scrapbook supplies, Scrapbooking, spring, technique, weekly warm up
Wait a minute! Do you realize Easter is less than a week away? Hopefully you’ve got that extra bit of spring in your step and you’re ready for an egg-xtra fun project! Megan Hoeppner and I had a blast using our scrapbooking supplies to decorate these adorable eggs. The possibilities are endless, and the results are super-way-dang (that’s like the ultimate in cuteness)! We opted not to dye our eggs before decorating them, but remember this is your creative time and you can do whatever you want!
Spot-on
These happy polka-dot eggs were easier to create than you might think. Megan first started by placing a glue dot onto her egg. She then dipped the egg into a small pile of flock, used her finger to make sure it was pressed in well to each glue dot, then gently brushed off the excess and repeated the process.
Absolutely Frilling
Ribbon is one of my favorite supplies, and ribbon scraps are perfect for decorating eggs. My orange egg was dyed using spray ink. Once dried, I adhered a large layer of ribbon around it, then a thin sheer ribbon over the top of the large ribbon. For the green and purple egg, I simply used Smooch ink, from Clearsnap, to create my green horizontal lines. Then I placed strips of ribbon in-between the lines. Finally, I tied a bow with the ribbon and adhered that to the top of my egg.
Rubbing me the right way
You can do so much with rub-ons! Megan created this fun spring scene using these yummy rub-ons from Hambly Screen Prints. The grass on Megan’s egg was created by painting small blades with Smooch ink. This same technique would be super cute on an Earth Day project, which just happens to be celebrating it’s 40 anniversary on April 22, 2010.
Speckles of happiness
This egg just makes me smile. When colors like these work so well together, it’s almost like they were two birds of a feather! Megan sprayed the egg with one color and allowed it to dry completely. Then she lightly sprayed the second color. Remember, sometimes less is more. Create a light mist affect by spraying from a distance rather than too closely.
Blooming with color
Oh my gosh! This egg is cuter than cute and definitely sprouting to the occasion. Nothing says spring like bright vibrant flowers. Add a little sparkle and the world couldn’t get any sweeter! Start by applying ink to create your petals. using a small foam square, dip one side into glitter and adhere the other side to the center of your flower. Hippity, hoppity for sure!
The write stuff
Everything’s better when it’s personalized! You can create these one-of-a-kind eggs for yourself and all your flock too. All you need is glitter glue and a little imagination.
I hope these techniques give you at least a dozen of your own incredible ideas. We’d love to see what you come up with. Share your projects with us in the Club CK idea gallery.
Joannie McBride, assistant editor
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