Weekly Warm-Up: Spring is in the Air

04/12/2010 at 1:12 pm | Posted in Uncategorized, weekly warm up | Leave a comment
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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

Weekly Warm-Up: Scrapbook Your Story

04/05/2010 at 5:00 am | Posted in General Inspiration, weekly warm up | 4 Comments
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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

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 Comments
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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

Weekly Warm-Up: A Scrapbooker’s Springtime Welcome

03/22/2010 at 1:59 pm | Posted in technique, weekly warm up | 112 Comments
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At last, springtime is upon us. Can I get a “hip hip hooray”? This is the season for new beginnings and colorful moments. Let’s celebrate with a few new and vibrant techniques for creating egg accents, since Easter is also a part of early springtime. If you’ve had a chance to check out the March/April issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine, then you know that we have an entire feature dedicated to this happy topic, complete with a dozen unique ideas (and an additional dozen online). If you haven’t yet seen the issue, consider this your sneak peek. We’re going to crack open the creative carton and take a look at a few of the egg ideas inside.

Egg Technique #1: Create a Center Attraction
Remember those hollow sugar eggs that used to be so popular? Erin Lincoln took that sweet approach to create this paper-pieced cutie. She used dimensional adhesive to give it depth.

"Easter Wishes Egg" by Erin Lincoln, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 88.

Egg Technique #2: Try It with Chocolate
Okay, so maybe this isn’t a real chocolate egg, but it sure does look like one. Erin Lincoln dry-embossed dark-brown cardstock for a look that’s simply mouthwatering!

"Chocolate Egg" by Erin Lincoln, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 88.

Egg Technique #3: Tie on Some Texture
On this layout, I colored my eggs with bits of tied yarn. Here’s how to create your own:

1. Cut an egg shape from patterned paper or cardstock.

2. Punch holes throughout the egg.

3. Tie yarn through the holes, and trim the ends for a fuzzy finish.

"Easter '09" by Megan Hoeppner, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 87.

Free Stuff
Now that you have a few creative ideas for adding spring to your pages, how about some springtime giveaways to celebrate this joyous season? Since spring cleaning is another item that usually comes with spring, we have a few projects we want to clean out of the CK office and send to new homes. The first is the darling egg-accent flip book created by our own Joannie McBride. In it, she’s created a dozen unique eggs, each with a fun texture (like the pom-pom egg shown here). See the full project on the Creating Keepsakes website. What kid wouldn’t love to keep entertained with this tactile treasure?

"Egg Flip Book" by Joannie McBride, as seen in the March/April 2010 online issue of Creating Keepsakes.

And these flowers are looking for a new windowsill on which to rest. I created them for my March/April “Tips & Tricks” column as a way to organize smaller scrapbooking supplies. (Thanks to reader Laura Stoller for the fresh idea!) Whether you use them to decorate your craft space or you disassemble them for parts, I’d love to have this spring bouquet of buttons, brads, and flower accents delivered to you.

"Flower Organization" by Megan Hoeppner, as seen in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 52.

How to Enter
Simply leave a comment on this post and state your favorite aspect of spring. From the comments received on or before Monday, March 29, 2010, we’ll randomly select two winners—one for the book, and one for the flowers. The winners will be posted under our “Giveaways” tab on Thursday, April 1 (no foolin’).

Happy spring!
Megan Hoeppner, CK creative editor

P.S. We’d love to know what you want to see in CK’s 2010 “Top 10 issue”! Leave your ideas here. (Note: You will need to sign in to Club CK to comment. Registration is free.)

Weekly Warm-Up: Melt the Ice

03/01/2010 at 1:00 am | Posted in Holidays, How-Tos, technique, weekly warm up | 1 Comment
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Kim JacksonWelcome to March, everyone! You know what they say: if March comes in like a lion, it’ll go out like a lamb. Since most of us are still digging out from February’s snowstorms, we can certainly hope that warm, sunny days are right around the corner. In today’s weekly warm-up, we’re going to focus on techniques that are sure to heat up the last of your winter layouts and coax all that ice to melt.

Heat Emboss Accents

Turn up the heat on that last bit of wintertime fun by adding heat-embossed accents to a sledding, skiing, or snowboarding layout. Wendy Sue Anderson embossed her stamped title in addition to her accents on this adorable layout.

Sledding by Wendy Sue Anderson

“Sledding” by Wendy Sue Anderson, as seen in the January 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 27.

Iron on Designs

Next, fire up (okay, plug in) your iron! If you’ve ever ironed on patches to clothing or bags, then this technique is for you. Mou Saha applied an iron-on rhinestone-heart design to canvas to accent her darling “Valentines” page. Look for iron-on flower designs to add a little spring to your layouts.

Valentines by Mou Saha

“Valentines” by Mou Saha, as seen in the February 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 78.

Create Hot-Glue Art

You’ll want to reach for your hot-glue gun for this next irresistible idea. On her “Forever Friends” layout, Mou Saha drew a simple shape using a low-temperature hot-glue gun, and then she painted over it. Try drawing some fluffy clouds or four-leaf clovers for a March-inspired look.

Forever Friends by Mou Saha

“Forever Friends” by Mou Saha, as seen in the February 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes, page 79.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get warmed up with some ice-melting techniques! Try one of these ideas this week, and upload your completed layout to our gallery. We can’t wait to see what you create.

— Kim Jackson, senior editor

P.S. For step-by-step instructions on these layouts, check out the January 2010 and February 2010 issues of Creating Keepsakes.

Weekly Warm-Up: A Quick Valentine & a Free Download

02/08/2010 at 11:01 am | Posted in Holidays, technique, weekly warm up | 6 Comments
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With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, love is definitely in the air this week. Why limit your Cupid creativity to one special someone when it’s easy to spread a little sweetheart-joy to the masses? This project idea is quick to create and requires only a few scraps and a bag of chocolates to complete. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Prepare your scraps.

Use a heart punch, stencil, or die cut to cut hearts from scraps of patterned paper. Fold 6″ x 3″ scraps of cardstock in half to create card bases, and cut scraps of ribbon to go across the front of the cards.

Step 2: Add ribbon.

Adhere assorted ribbon strips to the center of your card front.

Step 3: Add the heart.

Adhere the heart to the card. Note: A little bling addition is optional.

Step 4: Put a surprise inside.

Adhere a small chocolate bar to the inside of the card to complete your treat.

Giving Ideas
Share your little chocolate delights in any of the following ways:

  • Put them in your neighbors’ mailboxes.
  • Send them to school with your kids.
  • Give them to co-workers at the office.
  • Share them with your church companions this week.
  • Hand them out to people you come in contact with this week—clerks, letter carriers, newspaper deliverers, and more.

There’s nothing like a little random act of kindness to make you and your recipient feel great!

Free Download
For an even faster love-note option, download our free Valentine’s Day design on our website. With it, you can either print and create heartfelt greetings, or you can prepare an e-sentiment to send and share with those you love across the World Wide Web.

Happy Valentine’s Day Week!
Megan Hoeppner, creative editor

Weekly Warm-Up: Why Do You Love Scrapbooking?

02/01/2010 at 1:08 pm | Posted in Onine Event, weekly warm up | 6 Comments
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The CK Scrapper Bowl has begun! Each day this week, you’ll find articles at the CK Scrapper Bowl site featuring scrapbooking tips from the coach’s playbook, recipes for the big game, creative challenges, and more. Here’s the starting lineup of the articles:

* Monday: The “Are You Ready for Some Football?” article provides a blitz of great ideas for sports pages.
* Tuesday: Our “Get a Quarter Back” article teaches money-saving ideas for your scrapbooks.
* Wednesday: Move down the field one yard at a time–our “Yard Lines” article shares five ways to incorporate fabric into your albums.
* Thursday: Run the X and O plays from the coach’s playbook using ideas for scrapbooking relationships with loved ones in our “XOXO” article.
* Friday: Check out the “Red Zone” article for color tips to help you add a touch of red to your scrapbook pages.
* Saturday: Use the ideas in our “Touchdown” article help you scrapbook your successes.
* Sunday: Wrap up the week by catching the post-game action in our “On the Sidelines” article for great border ideas for your pages.

Create Your Commercial about Why You Love Scrapbooking

In conjunction with the CK Scrapper Bowl festivities, we’re hosting a commercial contest. After all, I’m sure most of us are as excited about the commercials during the Super Bowl as we are about the game itself. In that spirit of the love of commercials, we hope you’ll participate by creating your own video for a weekly warm-up!

Submitting is easy—and it’s sure to be fun! Here’s how:

1. Create a 60-second commercial about why you love scrapbooking.

2. Upload your video to YouTube.

3. Provide the URL link for your YouTube video in the comments section of this article.

Our CK team will select favorites throughout the week to highlight in the following categories:
* Best Comedy
* Most Heart-Warming
* Most Dramatic
* Best Documentary
* Best Romantic Comedy
* Best Action
* Most Professional Execution

We’d love to have you join the festivities for the CK Scrapper Bowl! To get started, you can even download two free blinkies and the CK Scrapper Bowl logo to use on your projects.

We can’t wait to see your commercials about why you love scrapbooking!

—Brittany Beattie, online senior editor

Weekly Warm-Up: Holiday Traditions

12/28/2009 at 4:00 am | Posted in weekly warm up | 7 Comments
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What’s a holiday without its traditions? From blowing out birthday candles to hanging up pretty socks, we all have things we repeat year after year in celebration of an occasion or event. As the following talented ladies have illustrated, designing layouts around traditions is an awesome tradition in its own right. Rather than tackle all your holiday traditions in one year, scrap a single traditions page each year and you’ll eventually have an entire album of family memories to relive. Or, scrapbook the same tradition year after year and watch how the people involved and the activity evolve over time.

Mou Saha makes time to bake with her tiny tots each holiday season. What a sweet way to celebrate time together!

"Sweet Holiday Tradition" by Mou Saha, as seen in the December 2009 issue of Creating Keepsakes

It’s a trip to see Santa that makes Mandy Douglass’s jolly list of traditions.

"Meeting St. Nick" by Mandy Douglass, as seen in the December 2009 issue of Creating Keepsakes

Wouldn’t a “Traditions” mini album make a great addition to your holiday decor? Simply fill it with pictures and brief descriptions of your favorite holiday activities, and place it on the coffee table for all to enjoy. Soon, flipping through the album will become its own tradition!

One of My Favorite Traditions (and a Little Office Prank)
Now, I’d like to share a favorite tradition of mine at the expense of my wonderful coworkers. (Notice how I slip “wonderful” in there to try and butter them up.) I find this little activity impossible to resist and do it year after year. My holiday tradition: ElfYourself (and your friends)! 😉

Check out my elf-tastic videos below. You won’t be sorry.

Video #1: I join Lori Anderson, Joannie McBride, Dorathy Gilchrist, and Lara Penrod for some holiday caroling.

Video #2: Jennafer Martin, Lori Fairbanks, and Brittany Beattie catch a little disco fever!

Now that you know one of my favorite (and admittedly silly) traditions, I’d love it if you’d share one of your holiday traditions with us. What do you insist on doing year after year? Maybe it’s silly, maybe it’s sentimental, or maybe it’s spiritual. We’re, ahem, all ears! 😉

Cheers!
Megan Hoeppner, creative editor

Weekly Warm-Up: Last-Minute Gifts with a Handmade Touch

12/21/2009 at 4:00 am | Posted in Holidays, weekly warm up | 5 Comments
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With only a few days until Christmas, there’s not much time left to finish up your last-minute gifts. Rather than face the crowd of mall shoppers, consider one of these fabulous gift ideas you can create at home (although you may need to run to the photo developer if you don’t have a printer at home). The best part is that each gift offers an element made by hand—a touch that makes every gift a little sweeter.

Page Planners

For a free and fantastic option, check out the incredible 2010 page planner set for download shown below that’s created by Brenda Arnall. Click here as well if you want to bind it with Brenda’s calendar format.

Paper Wreath

Wreathes don’t need to be reserved for just the holidays. This beauty would look fabulous on a door or a wall in your crafty friend’s home. Plus, it’s a great excuse to pull out the stash of paper scraps lying around your home. Thanks to Wendy Smedley for recommending it.

Personalized Photo Collage

And who wouldn’t love a specialized photo collage like this one from Laura Vegas? This gift is perfect for even those hard-to-buy-for-so-I-still-have-no-idea-what-to-get-them recipients on your list. [Cough, cough, dad.] Whether you create one digitally and print it like Laura did (check out the step-by-step instructions on her blog) or you create one with squares punched from photos you’ve already printed, this gift doesn’t have to take as long as you may think it will. It sounds like the perfect gift solution for a loved one who has everything!

If you’ve created a last-minute gift from your scrapbooking supplies, feel free to share a link to your project in the comments section below. I’m sure we could all use the extra inspiration.

—Brittany Beattie, online senior editor

Weekly Warm-Up: Fonts for Holiday Pages and Cards

12/07/2009 at 4:00 am | Posted in fonts, Holidays, weekly warm up | 11 Comments
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Have you seen the January issue of Creating Keepsakes? Our new “Scrappetizers” column in the printed magazine is so fun! If you’re a font fan, you’re going to love the CK Font Find. Each issue, we’ll show you a cool font that’s inexpensive or—better yet—free. In the January issue, we featured the darling Glengary font by Nick Curtis, available from MyFonts.com for $7.95. Be sure to download this cute accent our design team created for you using the Glengary font!

If you’re looking for more great fonts for your holiday pages and cards, I’ve selected a few of my favorite free finds for you. Just click on the links to download these beauties. I’ve typed out a greeting in each one so you can see how fantastic these fonts will look on your projects.

This Renaissance font is available from FontSquirrel.com.

Here’s Ballpark, also from FontSquirrel.com.

Thaleia is available from Dafont.com.

Quentin Caps is from Dafont.com, too.

You’ll find Kingthings Christmas at Dafont.com as well.

Gloucester MT Extra Condensed might already be on your computer. If not, you can get it from FontYukle.com.

While we’re talking about great holiday fonts, be sure to consider stickers, stamps, and rub-ons—there are many wonderful options! Here are some that will look super on your holiday pages.

Doodlebug Design offers the Crushed Velvet Shin-Dig Alphabet stickers in Ladybug.

Making Memories sets the holiday mood with the Mistletoe Glitter Alphas.

Cosmo Cricket brings joy with the Jolly By Golly Alpha Rub Ons.

American Crafts spreads holiday cheer with the Ginger clear acrylics stamp set.

What lettering products and fonts are you using on holiday pages? Leave us a comment so I can check out your favorites, too!

—Lori Fairbanks, product editor

P.S. Check out the Giveaways tab to see if you were one of three lucky winners to receive an autographed copy of 52 More Scrapbooking Challenges by Elizabeth Kartchner.

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