Pink Paislee is here!

Hocus Pocus

Great colors and graphics.

Parisian Anthology
Beautiful colors and soft designs.

Old School
Vintage school papers and products that would make adorable banners!

7 Gypsies Displays

We have also recently posted many new classes on the Events section of the website.

Ann Denise Anderson (the Crepe Paper Queen) will be here October 9th.

Dee Dee's adorable altered fall Picket Fence Album is the on October 9th.

Sparkle Birdhouse

Metal Blast

A new Soldering Project

and lots more to come.

See you soon!

Receipt Holder

I'm sure you have seen these at the store and thought they were really cool. I know I did. I had to have it! Of course, I wanted it covered in paper. So I figured out a way to do it that was easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!

The secret to how it was covered is over on my blog. I loved altering this so much I made one for my classroom at school as well.

Now for some fun. I love playing with Maya Road goodies. So leave a comment here with all the Maya Goodies you think were used in this project and next Monday, Sam will have a drawing for a little gift certificate to The Crafty Scrapper from me to you.

It's That Time of Year!

Next week we will have a booth at the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington. We have been busy ordering and preparing samples to show you! Some of the lines may be familiar to you if you shop at our store. But even for you frequent shoppers, we will have some NEW items. This is our fifth year at the convention and each year we search for some fun things to bring.

Our store is only about 30 minutes from the convention center in Arlington, so if you are visiting the convention and haven't been to the store, we hope you will add it to your sightseeing while you are in the area. Directions are here.

We have teamed up with Ten Seconds Studios for some classes at the convention too. We have four full classes and have worked to get the kits completed for all of those too.

On Friday evening, Sally Lynn MacDonald is teaching a class at the store. She is doing some classes at the convention too, so we were lucky to get her for a special class here.

It is sure to be a busy time. We are hoping to see you in the hustle of the event, whether at the booth, in class or at the store!

PS: We have a facebook page and post frequently out there about the activities at the shop, so check us out there too.

Beach Book

A couple of us have had some fun with this new album from Maya Road. This is one of the completed albums. It is a beach theme, but perhaps isn't one you have seen before. The wavy book brought beach to mind and these papers were just so pretty-I had to use them!



We used the Anna Griffin Calypso paper along with some of the Inspired Traveler line. Embellishments include real seashells and Mudd Puddles. The Mudd Puddles are fun to play with. It is a sand and adhesive mixture. It dries pretty quick and is a nice texture when dry.

The flowers & button centers on the front are from Bazzill. We also used some of the little Kraft tickets and ruffled ribbon from Maya Road to trim things out.

Isn't it fun to play with texture combinations?

Artistic Journey

Are You Ready To Take The Artistic Journey?

We are pleased to announce the first ever Artistic Journey brought to you by The Crafty Scrapper. This event features 3 of Maya Road's talented design team members who are set to inspire you to try new techniques and learn new things on your Artistic Journey.

We want you all to share with us a weekend of fun, laughter and learning. Join us on this Artistic Journey October 1st - 3rd, 2010. Read on to learn more about the Journey!

The Artistic Journey will begin on October 1st (around 4 pm) and end on October 3rd (around 4 pm), 2010 at the home of The Crafty Scrapper in Waxahachie, TX (approximately 30 minutes south of downtown Dallas). The cost of the Artistic Journey is $235.00.

Meet the teachers.......

Aubrey Rives
Aubrey lives in Lockhart Texas with her husband Nolan and their two beautiful daughters, Taylor and Morgan. She is a career educator currently working on her master's degree. In her spare time she is a scrapbooker and hobby enthusiast (quilting, stamping, pen and ink art, sewing - just to name a few). She has been a member of the Maya Road design team for over three years. Although she is very busy between teaching, going to school and raising two active daughters, Aubrey has managed to be published a couple of times in magazines such as Scrapbook Trends and Paper Trends.

Sample of Aubrey's work

Katie Watson
Katie lives in San Diego California with her husband, three children and two cats. She is a design team member for Maya Road, October Afternoon and Creative Therapy. Her work can be found in Scrapbook Trends and Simply Handmade including their special edition issues.

Katie has been scrapbooking for 7 years and crafting since she was a child. She teaches at her local scrapbook store and at scrapbooking events. Her work has also been featured on her local news, QVC and on a PBS scrapbooking show. You can find more of her work and tales of her day-to-day life on her blog www.katiebeecreative.com.

Sample of Katie's work

Lisa Pace
Lisa lives in Frisco Texas with her husband and two daughters. She is the Special Projects Coordinator for Maya Road and a Certified Fiskars Demonstrator. Her first book "Delight In The Details" was published in January 2010 by North Light Books.

In May 2007, Lisa was picked as one of 5 master scrapbookers in Martha Stewart's scrapbooking contest and in August 2007 was chosen as a 2008 Memory Makers Master.

Her work has been published in magazines such as Memory Makes, Scrapbooks etc., Better Homes and Gardens, and Scrapbooking & Cards Today as well as numerous idea books like Holiday Home, Scrapbook Trends, Paper Trends, Paper Creations and Scrapbooking & Beyond.

Sample of Lisa's work

Sign ups do not start until Wednesday April 21st at 10am. Please do not call before Wednesday. To view the newsletter about the event, Q & A, hotel info and much more, click on newsletter.

Happy Easter

Whether with family, friends or on your own this weekend, we hope you have some fun plans for this weekend. Maybe you got an extra day off for the holiday

I have a couple of good things to tell you about today. The first is the new binding machine called the CINCH. It is made by We R Memory Keepers. We tried this out at CHA and loved it. We received some in the store now. For this shipment, we only received four of them. We are keeping one for ourselves to demo and make things for classes. That leaves three for sale.

If you haven't heard about it yet, you will. It really does a nice job and seems to punch through things easily, including acrylic.


Another new line of paper is out in the store too. Iron Orchid Designs, who did some papers for Prima in the past, now designs for Creative Imaginations. The line called Beloved is what came in to the store. Beautiful toile type designs with soft colors and loving words. It seems to me that it would be good for wedding, but if you take a look at the CI blog here, you will see that they used it for a baby layout. Another multi-functional line I guess.

As we mentioned in the last post, a lot of new stuff has come in. Ask us when you come in and we will do our best to point it all out. We know it can be hard to see it all.

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.