Country Estate - three layouts

I had a play with some beautiful papers from Websters Pages Country Estate line. I added my all time favourite thickers 'honey' in copper and here is what I came up with....

They are straight in real life!!

Following Up On Those 3D Flowers....

During our retreat the 3D flowers were used by delegates in a variety of ways and I wanted to share a couple of those with you today.

First up is this gorgeous cluster of flowers. I saw Antonia working on this at the retreat and even though she hasn't finished the layout yet I asked her to email me a photo of the progress so far. I am sure you will agree that the effect of the clustering is pretty spectacular!

And to show you that they are not just for layouts here is Debbies fabulous altered pencil pot with a beautiful floral lid!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing what some of the ladies came up with using the My Little Shoebox 3D Flowers, remember we are running a special offer for all orders over £20 placed before Sunday - you will receive a FREE set of 2011 release Christmas papers with all orders over £20.

Year-O-Graphy by Simple Stories

New in the shop by Simple Stories is a collection called Year-O-Graphy.
If you are looking to create a minibook to summarise your 2011, or maybe a set of papers to feature on a layout-a-month project for 2012 these papers would be perfect.

They come with matching stickers and the papers are a mixture of great background papers and others with plenty of elements that can be cut out and used as embellishments.

How about using this paper on a double layout with twelve 3"x4" photos and the twelve bingo card months cut up into a grid format? One of my to-do pages for the retreat this weekend which Mel, Jill, myself and the majority of the design team will be attending in Stoke-by-Nayland from this Friday through to Sunday. Talking of which, I must go organise myself a little more, I have many photos to print off ready for a very scrappy weekend.

Me, me, me, me, me!

It's all about me... well actually it isn't, that's just the name of Webster's Pages latest collection that has just landed in the store and is actually a tiny bit lovely. Ok so I think it is alot lovely!

There is a lovely die cut paper, six double sided papers, matching trims and fabric stickers too, not to mention an alphabet letter sheet as well. They can all be found here in the store. The 6x6 pads are already sold out so if you like this collection grab it while you can!

Quick and simple pages

Do you ever get frustrated with how long it takes you to complete a layout? Many who know me would say I scrap fast, glue and stick without hesitation but this is not always the case. On occasions I labour over a page for what I am sure is far too long, and it's good to sometimes do a quick page with little thought required. Often sketches are good for this, gives you the basis of how to lay your papers, photo , title and journalling, but these Mix and Mend papers from Sassafras pretty much do most of the work for you. Take this paper for example and then my layout that follows.

I added a 6x6 piece of paper, a 6x4 photo and the decorative strip from the base of the paper. Added a title, placed my journalling on the preprinted lines and a small embellishment cluster in the form of a ticket/button and heart sticker.

This paper also required very little to be added to achieve a layout that looks like it took a lot longer to put together.



The papers are super summery colours and would be perfect for holiday photos too. And why not take some ideas on how the printed paper places the elements that make it up and use it to replicate the feel with your own paper choice? That is my challenge to myself for this week - I'll let you know how I get on.

Have you seen the new MME papers?

I have just returned from a week away with the family and of course I have several (big understatement!) photos taken during our vacation begging to be scrapped. Of course there are plenty new papers ranges coming out at this time of year as well from the recent CHA show, so what to choose? Well I have always been a fan of My Minds Eye and like many people fell in love with their lost and found ranges last year.


They have done it again this year, releasing several Lost and Found 2 ranges and the Sunshine one (several papers of which arrived with me this morning!) is just stunning! Take a look at some of these papers, all of which are thick good quality craft papers with added sparkle to them ,just too delicious for words and far, far nicer in the flesh than any picture can portray.

And I also ordered these cute alphabet stickers, to go with a kit I have put together to teach at the Eclectic Keepsakes crop next month, which are from a new manufacturer called Authentique. You can see more from them in the store here.

I can't wait to get scrapping with my kit which includes three papers, a sheet of cardstock, the label stickers and the alphabet stickers, all for just over £5!

There are other ranges from MME lost and found as well, take a look at them all in our store by clicking on the links to each range - BLUSH - SUNSHINE - ROSY - BREEZE - CHRISTMAS

It's Here.....

Remember I posted about the beautiful new Echo Park Victoria Gardens? Well it is here and just as lovely in the flesh!

Click HERE to see these little packs of loveliness :)

A Closer Look At 7 Gypsies Summer CHA 2011 Releases

We are really excited to be able to share some of the samples we were shown during the 7 Gypsies webinar on Wednesday. We were asked not to post them until Friday as their second webinar was Thursday so it was only right that retailers attending that got "first look"

The Summer Release from 7 Gypsies includes two paper lines. Off The Wall features their typical grungey backgrounds but with street art inspired silhouettes as a strong feature of the designs. During their presentation they showed a selection of graffitti and street art photographs which had been their inspiration - from my perspective it looked like the main inspiration ended up being the stencilled silhouettes and also the idea of images which "speak" to people.

The second paper line is called Global and features maps which have been re-invented to suit 12x12 papers; taking the aesthetically pleasing qualities of vintage maps and making a few alterations to make them work as scrapbook papers.

The first layout shown using the Europe paper just grabbed me instantly. As long time blog readers know I took a long European cruise last summer and I am definitely going to recreate the layout below with a few tiny photos of us in the different destinations and the tacks and string showing the route!

See the hanging piece in this frame? They have released some adhesive hooks designed to adhere to the insides or edges of their trays allowing you to hang dimensional embellishments or bunting from them - very neat.

This was an additional example similar to the above but with an Australian theme. The words on both maps are stamped with their new alphabet stamp set featuring both upper and lower case letters which look great mixed up together!

I loved this little village one of the designers had made to showcase lots of the product. You can see some of the Off The Wall papers have been used - look for sulhouettes for example the girl on the house on the far right, the birds on the wire on the house in the front on the left etc...

You can also see a selection of their hardware old and new, some rub on and stamped images and rooftops of the houses are made from their book covers. Love it!

This mixed media panel gives you a closer look at some of the items - the alphabet stamps, the top section is part of an Off The Wall paper and the silhouette is also cut from Off The Wall papers. The cute ruler along the bottom is also part of the new release - there are a selection of 6 inch rulers in light weight but sturdy real wood available. Some designs are "school rulers" and the numbers run horizontally and some are "surveyor rulers" (like the one below) and the numbers are right way up when the ruler is held vertically.

I LOVE the next item I am showing you. The 7 Gypsies Printers Tray and Letterpress Tray have been popular but they are definitely a larger purchase. Let me introduce you to the Solo Shadowbox... It will probably retail at around £10 so quite a bit less than the other trays. It's overall dimensions are a little over 6"x6" and that large aperture is sized to fit a 6x4" photo exactly with three 2" square apertures along side it (you can orientate the frame in which ever way you wish) It is also nice and deep so as you can see it can hold the apothecary bottles (or the new apothecary domes which they are releasing) or accommodate the hooks shown in the larger frames above.

The last thing I wanted to show you for now was this mixed media collage which uses several of the new product. The popular collage tissue line from their last release has some new designs (I am in love with the frames - not shown here sadly) In addition there are some fabulous new colour rubbings. The butterflies on this panel are rub ons and you can see from the image how strong the colours are and how well they rub on, even on to uneven surfaces like the crinkled tissue background on this panel. As well as paper the rub ons also work on the little bottles and domes - one of the sets of rub ons features gorgeous little labels which look amazing when applied to miniature bottles!

I hope you have enjoyed this peek at some of the new 7 Gypsies products. Please note that all projects are credited to the 7 Gypsies designers and were posted here with full permission.

Keep an eye out for more info including their new "Look Book" with further ideas and images.

*~*~*Edit - The Summer CHA 2011 7 Gypsies Look Book can be viewed HERE*~*~*

Product Spotlight: 7 Gypsies Mykonos

Well a little later than I should be but here is the layout I made with the Mykonos papers. I really enjoyed working with them and have uploaded my layout to the Play Along With Scrap Factor gallery on UKS as believe it or not there are only 3 patterned papers on this layout (the challenge at the moment is called 1-2-3 and requires one sheet of black cardstock for the background, 2 photos and 3 patterned papers)

I also used some co-ordinating cardstock, stickers including Echo Park For The Record and some really old Jenni Bowlin Lil Davis stickers, thickers, Basic Grey letter stickers, My little shoebox alphabet & punched embellishments.

I've got loads left so will probably knock out some cards with the rest so at some point they will be uploaded too!

Loving This...

The most recent Echo Park: Country Drive, is so lovely, perfect for scrapping all those photos you are taking right now of summer time fun!

Their next new one however is so beautiful that it is quickly going to become one of my favourite Echo Park ranges - Victoria Gardens has a slightly softer colour palette and not such a heavy emphasis on the geometric and bold designs that usually typify Echo Park - An extra collection pack will go on the order for me I think - I will have to do a class with it to justify "product testing"

I will be back this evening with prizes for participation in the cybercrop!

The Magic of Oz

We now have the gorgeous new Graphic 45 papers, The Magic of Oz. Their products have been a real hit with our customers and I know this latest collection is going to be popular too. The papers are a good weight and great to work with, appealing mainly to scrapbookers, although a few of our customers buy selected papers from the range for card making. If you haven't used their papers and are not familiar with them, they all have a vintage feel to them across an increasingly broad spectrum of themes.

Most of the ranges have die cut paper weight tags with some frames and borders, but this time the die cuts are chipboard and there are a full 12 papers in the range.

I hope many of you will join us for our very first cyber crop this weekend, it has largely been co-ordinated by Ann Freeman, with help from the rest of our Design Team, who have submitted the classes and challenges. It promises to be lots of fun and a great opportunity to use up some of that stash you have been saving for a rainy day.

Jill

Favourite Florals

Here at ATDML Wednesday was a busy day on the website with a higher than average number of orders... why would that be? Well because of course on one of the few days where I am in charge of dealing with the orders it is just typical that they come in faster!

The reason I found myself at home, trying to juggle a to do list that was a mile long, pick, pack and post orders and entertain Olivia is that Jill was off on a jolly! To be fair this particular day out comes round once a year and is not to be missed - they went to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and as keen gardeners thoroughly enjoyed it.

She did come back and present me with a camera and ask that I download the photos from the camera but the afore mentioned to do list has somewhat got in the way but I will get the photos upkiaded here soon :)

In the meantime it got me thinking about the floral revolution that has been evident in the past few years. Remember when the first glass bottles of Prima Got Flowers hit the market - remember the layouts covered almost entirely by those flowers? Since then Prima have come in to their own with a vast range of (sometimes pricey but ever so beautiful) flowers, companies like Websters Pages have gone to town on the florals to create their signature look and there are all manner of flower papers, stamps and embellishments available.

Below are a few of our favourite floral items past and present!

The Lost and Found range by My Minds Eye is definitely one of my favourite ranges ever and this shabby chic floral glitter paper is just stunning.

Once Upon A Springtime has been enormously popular and is one of our most restocked lines ever!

These floral stamps that were released with Basic Greys June Bug line are so versatile you can really add depth and interest to your page with stamped and cut out flowers.

These Angelica Rose flowers from Prima are so pretty and each pack comes with a selection of roses in three toning shades so you can add variety of colour but keeping the flowers in perfect harmony with each other.

I will get those Chelsea Flower Show photos up this weekend and who knows, they mighr soon feature in a project using these or any of the other floral products we have in store,

Prima Melody

I thought I'd share with you some layouts I made with the Melody range by Prima (available in the shop here).

Initially I was overwhelmed by the very busy patterned papers - and that's from someone who loves patterned paper! I figured if I found them daunting then there would be others out there that felt the same, so I wanted to give you an insight into how I overcame that 'eek' feeling and got down to using the papers as opposed to just drooling over their gorgeousness!

I broke myself in gently, so to speak, by using the least busy of the selection and then building up the interest by adding the Cosmic Shimmer spray inks (Mallow Blush and Bronze Blush) over a Prima mask. Then I added balance to the right hand side by cutting up one of the notepapers and tucking them under the photo. I absolutely love using this type of die cut; I think they make a great base for layering titles and embellishments as well as giving a beautiful space for journaling.

The Tim Holtz ornate label frame is the perfect spot for holding my sub title and I've added a range of embellishments around the page to help move the eye across each section.

Next up I thought I would jump in feet first and use a whole range of the patterned papers together. Using a blocked design, or strips as I have here, is an easy way to get a multitude of patterns onto one page -using the tone on tone or more subtle patterns next to the bolder patterns, and making sure that there is a good contrast between each stripe, helps each pattern to stand out in it's own right rather than them all merging together in a confusing pattern jungle. Because there are SO many patterned papers on the background, the embellishing was kept much more low key and the story showcased on the paler journaling block

Finally, I went all out with this absolutely gorgeous, but incredibly busy, patterned paper. A clustered design works well when using a busy background as it provides a strong focal point. The stronger colours and less busy patterns of the paper strips under the photos are a perfect way to 'ground' the cluster and matting the photos gives a little bit of vital white space between them and the background.

I used various dies and punches for my butterflies - using the same patterned paper for all three as well as the paper strip running across the bottom helps to unify the key elements. And I love the new Sugar Blooms flowers Prima have released. They are beautiful yet small enough to add interest to other embellishments without overwhelming them.

I really do love patterned paper backgrounds - if you have shied away from them in the past, I hope that my examples and tips encourage you to spread your wings a little.



A Royal Wedding delight

Well I don't know about you but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Royal Wedding Celebrations on Friday and was lucky enough to be part of an organised event celebrating the day alongside my family. I now have lots of photos quite heavy on the RED/WHITE/BLUE them that I need to scrap and was browsing the site for suitable items and thought I may as well put together a quick go-to guide for you all - just incase you are in the same boat as me!!

So how about some RED themed products?


Featured here are red buttons, Artilicious Frames, Pink Paislee Artisan Tape, 7Gypsies Embossed book covers and 7G Family tags (I especially like these!). Click on the hyperlink for each item to locate them in the store!

Some WHITE products...


Showing here we have Maya Rd Vintage lace blooms (which can be altered with sprays and inks, Basic Grey Basic White 6x6 Pad, Bazzill glazed lovebirds paper, MLS Alphabet Stickers and how about some Chandelier drops for your pages, I love these trinket beads.

And of course not forgetting the BLUE.


Take a look at Faded Jeans Distress Stickles, Teal Blue Stazon ink, October Afternoon dotty paper, Mini Bazzill envelopes in shades of blue, and the very lovely Bo Bunny Gabrielle Cameo Paper.

If you are in need of a more Royal embellishment for your pages how about some crowns - chipboard, metal or bling, the store has them all!!

Hope that helped, and that you enjoy preserving your Royal Wedding Day memories. For more inspiration take a look at the wedding inspired ChickenSoup recipe for last week!. We would love to see your creations so please do share with us here on the blog.

Lovely Lille

Sorry - the flowers will have to wait, I forgot the photo for the blog until it was too dark to get a good one! What I do have to show you is some of the lovely new 7 Gypsies that has been added to the site today. These are the journal pages from the Lille range and as ever 7 Gypsies have come up with a gorgeous line. I am slightly confused as to why the Union flag is on the cards alongside the Eiffel Tower and in a range named after a French town however geography aside I really like this range! Take a look HERE on our site to see the Lille products, you won't be disappointed. PS If I am missing a really obvious reason as to why the Union flag would be on this range PLEASE enlighten me - I won't be offended!

For the Record

As promised I am back sharing some Echo Park love featuring some pages using their For the Record collection.


This collection has to be my favourite yet from them and is open to a multitide of uses, by that I mean you can scrap modern colour photos, older vintage photos, architecture, pets, kids - anything goes with this collection.



I have shared three of the layouts I have created so far with this double-sided paper collection which also comes with a sheet of mixed sized alphabet and border strip stickers!



This collection, as well as the Springtime and Little Girl collections can be found in the store along with other Echo Park collection packs.

Plenty of new arrivals

As Mel and Jill are busy preparing for those of us lucky to be attending the Spring 2011 retreat in just a couple of weeks time, I thought I would pop on here and share with you some of the goodies they have had arriving these last few days.

First up these gorgeous fabric tags by Websters pages. They coordinate with the papers but are also versatile enough to be used without the matching collection and would make a real statement on a page. I have a set in my shopping basket!!

Check here for another style of these tags!

I'm also rather in love with this cute 6x6 paper stack by My Minds Eye - their Stella and Rose - Mabel collection. I think there is just something so nice about the mix of colours here and I'm pretty sure those fabric tags will match nicely!.


There are three other 6x6 paper collections in the Stella and Rose range as well as a set of stamps - take a look here

Plenty of new American Crafts thickers alphabet stickers have been loaded to the store this week including these fabric ones (go nice with those fabric tags again!) and they are available in four different colourways


I'm sure you'll agree there is plenty to wet the appetite!
I'll be back again in a day or so with another blog post sharing some Echo Park love, watch this space!