New Arrivals!

October Afternoon paper arrived today.

Well, one box anyway! The delivery man only brought us one of three boxes though, so not sure when the other two will make it. Although the box we got had oodles of cute paper, the embellishments did not make it. Fingers crossed it comes in on Thursday for you. Should at least be here for Saturday!



Although we have tried to keep putting updates on facebook, you may have missed a listing, so here is a recap of the last couple weeks.

* Adorn It: Great paper lines for family, sports and some really cute magnet boards
* Anna Griffin: Calipso papers and embellishments
* Basic Grey; Kioshi and Green at Heart lines
* Bo Bunny: Mama-razzi, Roughin' It, Sophie and Jazmyne lines of paper and embellishments
* Core'dinations: the new colors and also small pads perfect for cardmakers
*Cosmo Cricket: Material Girl, Garden Variety and On the Move
* Creative Imaginations: MANY new lines including cowgirl, cowboy, ocean, travel and the one with monkeys (pictured below)
* EK Success: punches and embellishments including Jolee's
* Fancy Pants: Road Show, My Family, Girl Thing and Roasted Sun full lines with ribbon and embellishments
* Glitz: Vintage Love, Kismet and Distressed Couture lines and some new great rub-ons
* Just Rite Stamps: New stamps and restock of the basics
* Little Yellow Bicycle Clothesline papers and embellishments
* KI Memories: Wild Life and Sweet Life
* K & Company: Various embellishments, paper and a new line called Lion Sleeps Tonight
* Pink Paisleee: Bayberry Cottage, Queen Bee and 365 Degrees
* Prima: new flowers
* Tim Holtz: Metal embellishments and die cuts. Tissue tape and more items still on their way.

(I hope I didn't miss anything, but might have)

And a few pictures to look at for inspiration from CHA....there are also great ideas on the design team blog here.


New paper tape from Pink Paislee:
Pink Paislee Alphabets:

Great Album from Pink Paislee & the Bayberry Cottage line:


Creative Imaginations, Basics 101:


Glitz Distressed Couture:

Glitz Vintage Love:

Glitz Vintage Love:


Basic Grey Kioshi

Probably the biggest delivery of the week was new paper racks to hold all of this! Later...

My Springtime Church Ladies

Just wanted to share a project I worked on today for the mantel at Stolen Moments Inn.

I call these beauties my Springtime Church Ladiesl

The base is (of course) from Maya Road. Everything else is a little bit of this and some of that. I think they are all ready for Easter Sunday.

Susie

Now That Was Easy!

Oh you've seen the ads. Push the button and "poof" the situation is solved. Don't we wish!!


Although it isn't quite that easy, it is a lot easier when you have some sort of ideas and instruction.

If you can't find the inspiration you need while walking through the store, you might try one of these books. These are a few of the books and instructional DVDs in the store right now. So many ideas to work with. So many types of projects too. From cards to canvas. From layouts to altered items. Inks to beads. Soldering to sketches.

We also have a bunch of new classes for you to take. Take a look at some of them here. Soldering, Metal on Canvas and metal sawing to altering a box with papers, making a banner and a tag book with favorite quotes. There is something for all.

We have also been putting store examples out on the design team blog here. With Spring so near it is time to clear out those brains and start something fresh and new, right?

Non-Stop Inspiration

I wonder sometimes if all the ideas around the store can be overwhelming. Especially the first time someone walks into the store. There are layouts everywhere, books, purses and many other altered items. I am trying to put many of them out here so that a person doesn't have to try to remember it all, and has a spot to come to remember what they saw.



Another person who provides these great ideas for us all to view is Jennifer. Since she lives on the other side of the metroplex, we often transport items via mail. I'm not sure what thoughts might have come to mind as she opened the box and found a large stack of various mixture of papers. Thankfully, she is able to come up with some great items out of the mixed bag of goodies. I am sharing a few of the layouts here that she has done recently.



The first layout is on a diecut paper - using the circle as the full background of the layout. I love the saying she put onto this layout. Cousins are really lifelong friends when we grow up together. I also like the texture she has put onto this page as well. Ruffled ribbon, stars and more.

In the second layout, she added some great touches of texture as well. It is amazing how just a little item like this can add so much to a page. I have put a close up here of one of the sections with embroidery floss wrapped around it. See what I mean? I also like the handmade flowers. A great look and a great way to save a little cash in the process.



She has a son and a daughter and was able to make the soft colors of lavender, blue and pink work for a photo of her son as well. She pulled out the greens and blues so nicely in this paper. Such softness in the photo and the layout.



This last layout is on paper that will be showing up at the store in the next week. (Basic Grey Kioshi). Don't you like the way the photo is balanced with the large floral element? Something that is very hard to capture in the photograph of the layout is the use of little bling jewels throughout the floral portion. Click on any of the photos to enlarge them. It will especially help see the little jewels on this photo.



As always I picked up some new ideas from these layouts and I hope you have too.

(would love to hear your thoughts)

Hello Sunshine!

If you have been to the store, then you know that the front door sticks when we have had a lot of rain. Today,this was not a problem. We could keep the door open and let the sun and warmth fill the store. Wasn't it great outside today?

Perhaps you have seen this little sample at the front counter of the store.


This was made with a shadow box frame from Darcie. These come in many sizes-from 3 inches up to 8 inches across (see pic below). The can be built easily and make great shadow boxes. The examples that Darcie makes include her stamps and other items she makes. We have some of her stamps in the store too. Take a minute to check them out next time you come by the store.


Of course, you probably already know about these items. We have some still in stock.
If you had pre-ordered them, you can either pick up what has come in now or wait until all of them arrive-either way they are held back for you. The texture fades and a few of the dies were not shipped yet. Several were shipped this week to us and are now on the shelves for sale.



The sun coming out today made it more real that Spring and Summer are on their way. Creative Imaginations newest Travel line and their newest national park papers are out on the shelf as of today.


The travel line has really nice soft colors and would work for many places and types of activities.



The National Park papers are like landscape watercolor paintings on a 12 x 12 paper. The three parks included in this release are Grand Canyon (with Lake Mead), Yosemite including the falls and Great Smoky Mountains. These join in with the other camping lines we have been getting.

We also have two new birthday lines from Creative Imaginations. The first is called Birthday Bliss from Basics 101. The other is from the Old Guys Rule line. I do not have pictures of those, but they are great lines too, perfect for all the birthday scrapping you will be doing this year!

Creativity Is A Team Sport

The football season is over. The olympics are now over. Baseball season hasn't begun yet. Perhaps you think there are no team sports to watch. Good thing you popped over here to this blog.



As you walk around the store, you notice lots of layouts, projects and other items which give inspiration and show some ways to use the papers and products sold at the store. There are several folks who prepare examples for the store. It takes several people and a lot of work. I have been trying to show some of the great items out here and to showcase those people who take the time to create some items for our walls and shelves.

These five layouts are the work of a lady named Penny. Her boys fill the majority of her pages. The pictures here are of the last group of layouts she completed for us. Above, you see that the guys are her world. Don't you like the way that she used the travel type of paper for that thought? And, the brown stripe is velvet ribbon. Perfect on this masculine layout.



When the team members pick up a packet of product, they don't always know what they'll find. Usually, they have to just make a call based on a color or something showing at the top of the stack. I'm not sure if there would have been a better person to pick up this stack of product. The layout "Massey Men" is a perfect match for the Graphic 45 papers in the Perfect Gentlemen line and the Bo Bunny Mamarazzi papers she used.



Many may struggle with patterns and colors for BOY pages. In this layout, I think she really gives a great way to show off a fun photograph while providing her thoughts on the large journal section. This next layout provides the same sort of inspiration. The pride of the scrapbooker shows in the way the paper and photograph work together along with the journaled notes.



Penny does a great job on layouts and she especially pushes me to journal more. This is a strong point of all of her work.



I am sure that these layouts will inspire all of you too.

Hey Good Lookin'

For you folks who have something coookin', we received two new recipe paper lines today. Modern Market and Sweet Summertime from Cookbookin'.

The Modern Market line is bright and cheery in its colors.


The Sweet Summertime line is a soft colored line. There are bees and flowers along with other picnic type designs.



Have you seen the new diamond shaped jewels from The Robin's Nest? Very cool and all of them are in stock right now. They also have some great toon hands for Disney books or pages you might be doing.




Simply Swank items have come in. I know Several of you are waiting for those items. AND,We received another batch of Delight In The Details by Lisa Pace. If you want a copy, I would suggest you hurry. The last batch sold out in just a few days.

More coming in each day and NO, I haven't been getting it all posted, but we'll keep trying!

So Many Fun Projects!

The store received it's shipment of Jillibean Soup Papers today. The design team has been working on some samples using the lines already.

Take a look at this great layout Gena did using the New England Chowder papers. Don' you love the way the paper is used? Gives a real movement, yet uses very straight lines. Very cool.



Isla took several of the papers from Chicken Noodle Soup, Old World Cabbage Stew as well as some coordinating papers from other paper lines and made this VERY cute Recipe book.




Cute little clips hold the recipes in place, next to photos of the actual food.


The way she used other pieces such as Maya Road cupcake coasters and Crafty Secrets stamps really works well.


Of course, these are on display at the store and look SOOO much better in real life than with my photographs.

TCFW?

Too cute for words!...not sure if that is a commonly used acronym, but it fits.

Today's shipment of goodies included four Jillibean-soup lines of paper. All four are very cute, but in different ways. Each of the lines is named with a soup name and each paper's name is an ingredient in that soup--in case you wonder as you read through the names here.

Here are a couple of pictures from the lines:

Above is from the Chicken Noodle Soup line. The paper is called Peeled Carrots.

This is from the Old World Cabbage Stew collection and is called Head of Cabbage.


This paper is one of their kraft papers in the New England Chowder Collection. This paper is called Chopped Sea Clams.


The fourth line we got was Egg Drop Soup. A very Spring-y paper with chicks, bunnies, umbrellas and fun ginghams. We covered the pig and duck in the first picture with those papers.

To see more examples we made using these lines, please check out the design team blog here.