There's only 26 more days until Valentine's Day! I'm so excited! I love this holiday. The colors, the sentiments, the treats ~ they are all so much fun.

This year, I've gotten in the Valentine Day spirit a bit early. This partly because I'm taking part in Lisa Pace's (Master 08) Cupid's Workshop.   It's great! I did her Christmas workshop and loved it, too. Each day, she posts something fun. It may be directions for a project, a cute download, decorating idea or recipe. It's like have a peek into her creative mind!

Here is the first project that I did. I've seen these birds in the craft store a million times, but never thought to do anything with them. Well, our first project was to decorate one for Valentine's Day and I love how he turned out.

 

I decided to use him to decorate a gift box for Ryan's teacher. I used a clear gable box and tucked in a cute pair of Valentine's Day socks. Then I tied it up with tulle, added a little tag and clipped the bird to the front.

 

It was really quick and easy and I think it makes such a unique gift.

There is still time to sign up for Lisa's class if you're interested.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day~Anabelle

Like most of you I love to peruse various message boards, it's a fun way to see what's happening in the scrappy world, keep up with on-line friends and find some great inspiration. On-line galleries are great for some visual inspiration but why not use the message boards as jumping off points for your journaling.

I post the question of the day at Cocoa Daisy and that is where the idea for this layout came from. My question was "what is your favorite time of day", my answer was, "when I scrap early in the morning" and I already had a photo of my desk from one early morning scrap session. All I did was combine that photo and the journaling inspired by the message board question and I had a great idea for a layout.

So the next time you are looking for a little journaling inspiration visit a message board - you can start right here at the Memory Makers forums. I will be at CHA this coming weekend so if you happen to be there please bump into me and say hi! I will bring back some photos and post them next week! Have a great week everyone!

Supplies: Patterned paper, Creative Cafe. Letter stickers, Making Memories, EK Success, doodlebug designs. Die cut, Making Memories. Clip, Making Memories. Punch, Stampin' Up. Stamp, Tim Holtz. Stamping ink, Colorbox.

Another master adding to the love  of Claudine Hellmuth's The Scrapbooker's Creativity Kit. It is a great book to jumpstart your creativity, the layouts from the contributors are amazing! I love how the book it divided into colors. I selected the following cards:

I rarely scrap with blue even though I have a son! Some colors I love more than others, using the kit helped me to step outside my comfort zone! Next, I picked a color to compliment the blue that I love: yellow! I am reading the following books at the moment so the subject card was perfect for this layout!

If you need a subject, journaling or color boost this book is perfect for you!

Supplies used: Cardstock: Bazzill;Embellishments: American Crafts;Paint: Making Memories; Pattern Paper: Basic Grey,K & Company Rubons: October Afternoon; Stickers: Jenni Bowlin; Misc: Paper Source Scallop paper,Ribbon and typewriter

So I was stuck the other day needing to make a card for a friend at work who was taking some time off for a surgery.
Of course I had waited until the last minute to make the card and when I finally sat down to make it I got nowhere.
I needed some inspiration big time!

Let me go ahead and admit to being totally lazy at the time. Instead of getting up from the computer to find Claudine's The Scrapbookers Creativity Kit, I merely came over to this blog, scrolled down to see which cards everybody else had drawn, and picked a set to use myself.

I was drawn to the cards that Amy drew (probably because of the red, my favorite color!)
This is what she drew:

And this is the card that I came up with using her cards:

Supplies: Cardstock (Scenic Route-kraft), Patterned paper (October Afternoon), Glitter alpha stickers (Making Memories), Chipboard heart (Heidi Swapp)

The color cards made it super easy to at least get started with my card.
I grabbed some October Afternoon patterned papers with those similar colors and got to work.
I did not use "Shine" as the sentiment for my card.
Instead, it made me think more of glitter and bling. That, in turn, made me remember that I have these cute Making Memories glitter letters in my stash. Of course I just had to use them & I like the way they look against the "vintage-y" music note paper. 
I love how Claudine's book gives me that needed jumpstart and can lead me in so many different directions in order to create a project!
So if you get stuck, see if you can get some inspiration from the cards that we have all been playing with!

Have a great weekend!
gretchen

While I love creating cards, tags and ATC's for friends, I really enjoy giving handmade gifts that my friends can use on their  cards and layouts.  Recently I have loved customizing simple die cuts to give. It is so much fun to punch out hearts, butterflies, scalloped circles and even simple squares and custom decorate them.  I like to try to match my friends scrapping style or personality when creating for them.  I've created these flowers and hearts for my friend Melissa.  One of her loves is creating mini albums so I tried to keep things small and flat in case she wants to use them in her albums.



I like to leave small embellished die cuts on a sheet of glue dots so they can be used right off the sheet. 



I also enjoy finding new ways to package these gifts other than just giving them in a simple baggie.  My favorite way is to create my own packaging similar to manufacturer's packaging.  You can easily create these using your scraps and left over plastic packaging from your embellishments and stickers.  If you don't have any packaging to recycle, small zip top plastic bags work great.



You can make these the same way as you make treat bag toppers.  All you have to do is cut a piece of pattern paper the same width as your baggie.  Fold over the top of the baggie to hide the zip top.  Add a hole punch to tie a ribbon through if you like.  You can customize the topper for holidays.  It would be really cute to give your friends decorated candle or cupcake die cuts packaged in a birthday theme or hearts packaged for Valentine's Day.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful New Year!!  Enjoy! Love, Melissa

 

Which of course means LOTS of new and gorgeous scrapping products to covet.  Several companies have been releasing sneaks of their new products (my favorite part of CHA since I have never been to one!)  Here are a few sneaks that I have come across and loved!

Cosmo Cricket:

 

 

They have four new lines coming out - Everafter, Girl Friday, Snorkel and Lil' Man!  You can check out the rest of the goodies here:  http://cosmocricket.blogspot.com/

Creative Cafe:

Look at those colors - I'm in love!  Over at the Creative Cafe blog: http://mycreative-cafe.com/blog/ they are updating with new sneaks all the time - check it out!

Scribble Scrabble:

 

 

How gorgeous are these new collections?  Carmen, Evelyn and Ruth - all three are just stunning!  To check out more sneaks visit the Scribble Scrabble blog here:  http://scribblescrabble-scribblemethis.blogspot.com/

Dream Street:

 

 

How awesome are those two lines?!!  I can't wait to see more from them, you can visit their blog at:  http://dreamstreetpapers.blogspot.com/

Keep checking back for more CHA sneaks!  There are so many gorgeous new lines coming out - I just love CHA time ;o)

Have a great week everyone! Christine

Supplies: Paper, Crate Paper, Studio Calico, Sassafras Lass. Stamp, Studio Calico. Ink, Colorbox. Letter Stickers, American Crafts. Buttons, Autumn Leaves.