Dear Jen

so i have decided to change up mondays.
i am going to start a weekly post to
answer any scrappy questions you may have.
it doesn't matter how weird or bizarre..
just pm me and i will answer it on the
following monday.
....so get those questions in....
having troubles with a title? matching
paper? oraganizing? i'm here to help!!

watch for the first questions next monday!

Some sneaks

I thought I'd share some sneaks of the MSS July kit. I've gotten three layouts made with it so far, but plan on making more this weekend.









Do you have scrappy plans for the weekend?

New Arrivals

For those of you who don't know, I've been super sick since June 1st with a kidney disease. Fun times. So, with that I haven't been at the shoppe a lot.
But I'm slowly getting better (they're guessing another 2.5 weeks till I'm 100%), but today I managed to put out some new stuff for you all.

- new Studio Calico Documentary
- new Jenni Bowlin
- new Maya Road (and restocked the turquoise mist)
- Webster Pages trim
- new Echo Park
- American Crafts This and That adhesive
- restocked American Crafts page protectors
- new Martha Stewart punches

enjoy.

The love of the game

I made this layout using mostly products from the May kit, with some extra Crate Paper products thrown in. I chose my favourite photo of my son from his soccer season and had it printed as a 4x6. Then I chose six other shots and made a collage in Picasa. I cut up the collage and alternated the photos with squares of patterned paper, added some stickers (and stitching, of course!) and voilà, a layout to forever document my son's love of the game, without having to use "sports themed" supplies (of which I'm not a fan).

Thanks for looking!

brownies in a jar?

oh yes, you read that right! if you're wondering what i'm talking about, check it out over here.

here's a little teaser:

Colour all around me

By now its no secret.
i love colour. the more the merrier...
i love lots of colour in my scrapbooks,
and in my scrap space.
i find that seeing all the colours keeps
me inspired, but also simply happy.
so the next few photos are some examples
of the "happy" in my house

well first you've all seen my scrap space.
but i love it so i'm showing it again.
i love buttons, and have my big jar at the
centre of my table, but i wanted to see my faves.
so i but them in a frame.



i got this shadowbox at a yardsale,
and wanted to put something colourful in it..
these beads are only temporary, once i find the
perfect thing i'll switch it up.

the next couple shots are of my mm rack...i love it so much!
i love seeing all the little "things"



can't forget my paper rack..
i always put my favourite papers on the
top of each shelf, so i always have lots
of lovely to look at!

these 3 canvasses i painted awhile back, before i
started scrapbooking. you can switch up the order
and they will still blend together! i was clever eh?

some pretty flowers above my bed!

a little colourful art peppers the whole apartment.

...and i couldn't forget my girls' room!
they have their share of colourful stuff.


hmmm..i even had a photo of my bathroom
with the colourful shower curtain...doesn't want
to load..oh well...

i guess my point to this post is,
surround yourself with the colours you love most!
it'll boost up your happy!!!
happy monday!
jen

June Online Crop

Do you need some scrappy inspiration? Looking for some challenges to get your mojo going? Want to win a prize?

Then look no further than our June online crop.

It's easy and fun. Click on the link above to check out the challenges posted by our DT. Complete a challenge and post your layout in the MSS gallery. Then link that to the appropriate challenge in the forum before Sunday, June 13th, at midnight CST. From all the people who enter, names will be drawn to win prizes from the Shoppe.

It's as easy as that.

Happy scrapping!

summer journals

the end of school is coming quickly, as is summer, so i thought for today's post i would show you some examples of great ways to capture your summer moments.

first off, i posted this over on the boards, but i just love this list of summer photo ideas over at studio calico. i figure you need great photos before you can even think about scrapping!

{this photo has no relevance to me at all, other than it being a really cute summer picture. ha!}

second, here are some great ideas for summer journals/minis:

i love the concept behind this mini from kelly purkey - taking all the little bits of paper from the month, punching a hole and putting into a little binder. take that, with some fave pics + washi tape for journaling and you have a great, easy mini.

this mini by joy madison is easy and super cute. it's predone, so all you have to do is add your pictures and journaling and you're done! (to see the rest of the album, check here). even better? most of these products can be found in the june mss kit.

this moleskin journal mini by stephanie wheeler is perfect to document vacations. i love the way moleskin journals look - they totally scream james bond to me - lol.

i always love marcy's minis. they're simple and bright and just lovely. lucky for you, the above mini comes in a kit that you can purchase from marcy's etsy site. it doesn't get much easier than that!

how are you planning on documenting your summer? do you and the kids do anything together?

My favourite colour

My kids ask me all the time what my favourite colour is.
my answer is always the same....the rainbow!!! i love all
the colours together..i think lots of colour looks awesome
on layouts too...
now the colours all together don't officially have a
significance, other than looking pretty darn good. i think
that is why i love colours wheels...crazy, i know. i never
really needed a colour wheel, i just liked the way they looked..

so i am going to include my favourite layouts using a rainbow
of colours.






i find the easiest way to do rainbow on layouts is in strips..
this is a great way to use up scraps and incorporate lots of colour.
sometimes i do the colours random, but i mostly start at one spot and move
around the spectrum.

these last 2 have to be my favourite rainbow layouts..i love using ribbon
for this purpose, i think i may do another layout like this ribbon one
right away.




...and as always, i'd love to see what kind of rainbow layouts you can
make!!! post them in the gallery!! let us all see!!!
have a rainbow day!!!

Jen

Camouflage with journaling cards

One of the great things about digital cameras is the option to edit photos before you print them. And one of the things I almost use to edit my photos is the crop feature. It's super.

However, sometimes the crop feature still isn't enough to get rid of things in your photo that you'd like to leave out.

Enter in scrapbooking and the art of camouflage.

Example #1:

In these photos of my son and I at the Teddy Bear picnic, there was a pink bicycle parked beneath the tree he was climbing. I used a diecut journaling card and placed it over the bike in the photo and voilà! No more bike!



Example #2:

In this next picture, I liked the composition of my daughter and son practising soccer together, but once I had it developped, I found the people sitting around them distracting. So I used my paper trimmer to cut off part of the left side of the photo and another journaling diecut to cover up some of the people on the right. This way, the focus is more on my daughter.



Example 3:

In this layout, I had taken a picture of two of my kids at camp and wanted the sign with the name of the Bible Camp in the photo with them. However, in doing so, I also got a parking sign in the shot. Once again, I used a journaling card to cover the item in the photo that I wanted to eliminate.



Do you have any tips to share about using camouflage techniques on your layouts?

june kit

the june kit was revealed today and should be in store and online soon, if it's not already! i loved working with this month's kit and its fun, summer colours. to see what the dt made, click here. here's my fave layout that i made:

also, remember that today is the first tuesday of the month, which means 20% off for members in store. great deal!