Product Shuffle - Brads

Good morning!

If you started scrapbooking 5 years ago or more, you must be like me and have tons of brads hanging around your craft room.  They have come a long way since the first ones I purchased, they are much more pretty and come in a variety of different colors, patterns and textures.  This week, I will show you a different way to use your brads and it is super simple!

Using some Studio Calico wood veneer butterflies as a base, I simply glued a Teresa Collins brad on top.   I had to glue the brads because I used the prongs for the butterfly's antennas.  I simply straightened the prongs and bend them so they would be visible from the front!  So very simple, didn't I tell you?

I did the same thing to 2 other butterflies on my layout.   Here is another one.

And here is my layout using some old CTMH, and some American Crafts Thickers.

There you have it!  Now go! Go dig out your brads and find a new way to use them.  Be sure to tell us your unique way to use brads in the comments down below.

Visit us again tomorrow when we will reveal the next LCOM design team! Their first reveal will be in November.

Have a great week!

Inspiration Station

This week's Inspiration Station is featuring Webster's Pages Composition and Color collection. These blues and yellows in the collection were perfect for the "mood board" photo collage I created from our recent vacation. We just got back from a cruise to the Bahamas. The water down there is so beautiful - crystal clear and the prettiest blue.

Here's the photo collage I put together:

I also saw this quote on Pinterest and it has been stuck in my mind...

Live in the Sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink in the wild air.  -Emerson

Here's my page:

Don't you love these pretty colors in this Webster's Pages collection? It would be great for boy themed pages or Easter layouts or girl themed pages. There's actually quite a bit of pink in this collection but I focused on the blues and yellows. There are also several neutral colors and patterns - grey/white patterned paper, a wood grain print, and a black zigzag design. This is one collection you could really use on several totally different page ideas. 

There are 12 patterned papers (double sided), including two cut apart papers + a 12x12 sticker sheet. There is also a coordinating ribbon package with five designs of ribbon (1 yard each). The two patterned papers I used are called Master Plan (yellow background) and That Way (under the photos).

Check it out in the LCOM store!

For more details about my page, stop by my blog today.

Oldies and Goodies

Hi, Erin here today to talk a little more about using old products and new products. Last week we looked mainly at combining papers and embellishments in a mix match fashion. This week, I want to show you how to use up some older stuff, and make it new using fun new products.

I chose to dig through my rarely used chipboard, and pull out some pieces from Fancy Pants Designs. You may even have something similar in your collection.

Chipboard is one of those staple products that can always be altered to look updated and modern. Even printed pieces of chipboard can be given a new look by either peeling off the printed layer, or by recovering the print with paper or paint. In this case, I'm giving the surface of the raw chipboard new life with one of my favorite new trends; washi tape.

Any colour combo goes, you could even repeat the same pattern over and over again.  Just line each strip up side by side, and go right to the edge. You can trim off any tape that goes over.

The next step is to take your craft knife and cut out any pieces you wish to use. I chose to remove the small inner frame and shaped tags, but to leave the smaller shapes in the bottom, so it created a polaroid type frame. Cutting is very easy, as the tape is thin, and you can see the indent of the lines where you should cut.

I dug through my pile of old Christmas papers to find a paper that worked with the patterns of washi tape I used. Wouldn't you know I had a red and white polka dot that matched exactly! ( October Afternoon).

Add to that a smattering of old and new embellishments, and you've got a page that can comfortably fit in your album with this year's pages.

New embellishments used: 

Wooden Shapes : Studio Calico ( covered with Tim Holtz Platinum Distress Stain)

Alterable Chipboard Stars: Pink Paislee (Coloured with Distress Stains)

Snowflake Die Cuts: Maya Road

You & Me

Happy Friday friends,

Have you seen the new Pink Paislee Portfolio Collection?  I just love it.  yellow, cream, and grey seem to be very big right now in the industry, and Pink Paislee mixes them perfectly in this new line.  I had this photo of my little buddy Nyah and I kicking around since summer.  I love this photo of the two of us.  She is one great kid!  I knew I wanted to create a great layout with this sweet photo of us.  With this collection, and the help of my Silhouette Cameo, I think I did pretty good.

 

You can see the Portfolio papers in the shop here.  I added some old Echo Park brads, and some mist from my stash to this layout as well as some flair from a fun new shop I discovered on Etsy.  I hid the journaling on the tag with the pull out ribbon under the banner flair badge.  It reads "I couldn't love this girl anymore if she were my own.  I remember praying for her while she was still in China.  She's been here 4 yrs now, and she blesses us all."

I hope you have a great weekend in store.  I'll be back next Friday with my very last post as a member of the Marketing Team. 

Sherri

Something old, Something new...

If you're anything like me, when you get new scrappy goodies, you dive right in, often forgetting the many treasures you already own. I'm going to share with you just a few approaches on how to incorporate some older product onto your pages without making them look dated.  Don't worry, I know you've got new stuff you're dying to use,  we're just going to sneak a bit of aging stuff in, in order to clear a bit of room for the next trend.

Patterned paper- If you're used to using lots of solid or neutral backgrounds for your pages, dig through your older papers, and pick out some that can be used as solids, and keep them nearby when working on new pages. Often, you can slip them in with a new collection. On this page, I used the reverse of an older My Mind's Eye paper ( green dot) paired with a new sheet from The Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go Collection. You can always slide in scraps of those older papers too, as decorative border strips, as I did with a piece from Sassafras Lass.

Letters- Maybe it's because I love letter stickers so much, but I think even the craziest fonts or colours will work somewhere somehow. Don't forget about the basics you already own, and don't be afraid to use several fonts to make up a title if need be. I used an older sheet of Candy Shoppe letters from Doodlebug Design Inc, to make this simple title.

Embellishments- I added a few stickers from Crate Paper Story Teller collection and some flags from the October Afternoon Sassparilla Collection. These are still newer products, but were being neglected since I had newer things to play with. The really old bits include the metal framed tag and chipboard apple from American Crafts. The key to making everything work, is to keep a balance between the older items, and some newer trendier items or techniques. In this case the wooden shapes I coloured with Distress Stain, and the stenciled background help to keep the page feeling current. 

Trends are cyclical, and it seems everything old is new again. So don't discount your older embellishments and papers, you may be surprised at how well you can incorporate them with the newer treasures you've just brought home. 

Have fun mixing it up!

Erin

Nicole's last post

It's my last post today on the blog and my last page with the mystery box, which had some MME, Pink Paislee, Simple Stories, Studio Calico and Maya Road in it. 

Here is my page with all the lines mixed up:

 I added a little banner with some punched circlesm twine, clothes pins and letters from my stash.

I cut a pocket page from Simple Stories down for one of the background papers. I tore it up a bit and layered some paper behind it :

Supplies:

Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu papers

Studio Calico Heyday papers

My Minds' Eye paper

Simple Stories pocket memorabilia page

Thanks for listening to me ramble and comment on my pages these last couple of years !

Please visit me on my blog at www.justnicks.blogspot.com

Create Interest with 3D Elements

Hi everyone! It's Kate Vickers here today. I would like to share this layout that I made using Studio Calico's Hey Day collection, available at the Let's Capture Our Memories store.



I created the 3D butterflies with the Studio Calico Hey Day Ephemera Pack. The butterflies will collapse almost flat when I must my layout in an album, so they add a lot of interest but not a lot of bulk. Here's how I did it:

1. Take 2 of the Studio Calico butterflies and lay them on top of one another. 
2. Secure with a tiny bit of glue in the centre. 
3. Place them on your layout and machine stitch through the centres. 
4. Gently bend the edges up. That's it!

I added interest to the page title by popping up the title sticker with adhesive foam squares. I inked the edges to make it stand out a bit more.



Thanks for dropping by today! As always, I would love to hear what you think. :)

Some More Smash and Some Friday Faves

Hi everyone! It's Kate here again today. I would like to share more of my Smash book with you and show you some of my favourites in the store right now.

Here is one of my favourites from the shop. This is the 'Journal' Smash Folio. I like this one better than the pink one that I'm using. I find this one more versatile.

Here's another page out of my Smash book. This page documents how my horse, Cash, was really green (untrained) when I got him and that he was especially afraid of water. It took quite a lot of convincing to get him in the water. This is a must for an Eventing horse, so I was pretty determined to get him in! Once he was in, he thought it was fun to splash around.

You can see my background stamp a little better in this photo. I created the horse Silhouette file myself.

That brings me to another of my store favourites. I used this Pretty Party chipboard in my Smash book quite a bit. I can't get enough of Crate!

This is my favourite page from my Smash book so far. I love these pictures of my youngest on a horse for the first time. You can tell by the look on my face that I'm a lot more excited about it than she is! I want my kids to love the same things that I do so badly; scrapbooking, horses and skiing.The folded doily is a Silhouette America die cut. You can see that I used a lot of Crate's Pretty Party here and some of the new Studio Calico Hey Day combined with some Sassafras stuff that I have been hoarding.

Here's another close up.

If you miss Sassafras as much as I do, you don't want to miss out Studio Calico's Hey Day. It was designed in collaboration with Sassafras. Basic Grey's Soleil collection was also designed in collaboration with Sassafras, and it will be in the store soon as well!

Here's the last page that I would like to share with you. This one is a journal page about things that I want to change about myself or that I feel I need to work on.

Here's another of my recent favourites in the store. Aren't they the most amazing buttons ever? They are part of Basic Grey's Paper Cottage collection.

Last, but certainly, not least, there is so much new Maya Road stock in the Let's Capture Our Memories store right now that I don't know which one I'm most excited about. I think that my favourite item is probably this vintage trim. It would go very well with just about any of the paper collections currently out.

Thanks so much for making it down to the bottom of my very long post! Have a great weekend! Kate

Helloooo CHA goodness

Tanya has been a machine loading up the shop with all sorts of goodness for us to get our scrappy little hands on.  No matter what your preference clean & simple, bright & bold, muted & subtle, minimalist or layer lovin', manufactures have been sure to meet your every need.  And Tanya's making sure you can satisfy your scrappy desires right here in the LCOM shop. 

In case you've been missing out on all the updates regarding brand, spankin' new product going into the shop these past few weeks let me introduce you to a few of my faves.

I'm not usually one for really bright colours but the new releases by Jillibean Soup sure have me tempted to buy every little piece of the collection.  

Fun & bright, and usable on with so many different seasons of photos

Hexagons are all the rage and these little guys are super cute

Corrugated stars and arrows?  Yes please

I'm a sucker for white alphas, these would look great on a dark background

I know a lot of you are Project Lifers, and these are just the right size

Love, love the idea of these flags, so easy

And who wouldn't love these wood veneer flags?  Can't you just see them on cards?

 All the new Jillibean goodness can be found in the store here.

If bright and bold is not your deal there's also the new Hey Day collection by Studio Calico to be had.

I am especially fond of these two sheets...

totally reminds me of the Parkay flooring in our first home

both sides of this sheet would be fun to fussy cut and pop dot off the page

Add a few of these embellies, and you've got the makings of some fab pages.

find these AC thickers here

You can find all the new Studio Calico goodies in the store here.

And if you know me, you know I love embellishments.  Here are a few that have already caught my eye.

I need another set of alphas like I need a hole in the head, but these, my friends are burlap.  Enough said :)

Evalalicious She knows how to satisfy.

Not sure if banners are still in, but I still love 'em and Heidi Swapp does too.

Last, but not least are a few stamps to satisfy the wanna be stamper in me.  I can't wait to work with some these guys. 

You can see more of their new releases in the store here.

After seeing all this goodness in one spot, I've got the itch to go and create.  Hope you've seen a thing or two to inspire you.  All these items are currently in stock.  As we all prepare to head back to school, and into routine, and start scrapping the photos we've been taking all summer, I'm sure they won't be around for long.  Better hurry before they're gone.