Preserving Memories

I've had a camera since I was 11 yrs old and have been taking photos ever since. I also kept them in a photograph album.  This was in the 50's before "scrapbooking" was invented and became a billion dollar business.  If you sense a note of sarcasm, you'd be correct.  I never understood what all the fuss was about when it came to scrapbooking.  I'd been doing it since the 1950's.  Of course it wasn't commercialized back then.  We didn't have any of the supplies and embellishments available to us now, but we could still be pretty creative.  My dad was a scrapbooker too.  I have his album from when he was in the RAF in the 1940's. He journaled and even painted on his pages! Its what we did.....

A few years ago, Fiskars issued a challenge and asked designers to create ways to display our photos using supplies found around the house.  Here are my projects:

 
Can you identify all the things I used?  Check back in a few days and I'll list everything for you. Let's see how many you found.  Enjoy!  Y'all come back now...............

Yours truly,
Julie :)

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON CRAFTING!

Scrapbook Soup Online!

Scrapbook Soup began broadcasting online at scrapbooksouptv.com  effective April 6th.  A new show is aired each week starting a noon EST on Fridays.  The show is available until the following Friday.

Episode 107 is airing now.   Julianna Hudgins opens the show by showing us how to create a cut and embossed fall card featuring Spellbinders dies. Then Julie Fei Fan Balzer and I present a wooden Advent Calender on behalf of Kaisercraft.  I love this project, since it's all about découpaging scrapbook paper onto wood then adding embellishments you might normally use for paper crafting projects. I think it's fun to be able to use all that neat stuff on other things besides cards and scrapbook pages!  Jo Pearson from Michaels Arts & Crafts stores shows us how to make a canvas wall hanging and at the end of the show Julie FFB shares an idea for using glue resist to embellish paper and fabric projects.

Photos and instructions for all the projects are on our website.  Select projects to download as many pdfs as you like.  You may also find projects from past episodes of Scrapbook Memories.  Just select a show to see thumbnail photos of all the featured projects.  Enjoy!  Y'all come back now!

Yours truly,
Julie :)

20% Off Everything Coupon for Michaels!

Here's a fantastic coupon from Michaels - your one stop, shop till you drop shop for arts & crafts! It's their Friends & Family coupon and here's a copy for you. Just click and drag onto your desktop, then print away! Valid Sep.30th - Oct 2nd; just in time for all your remaining Halloween purchases and more! (Restrictions apply.) Enjoy!

Yours truly,
Julie :)

Newsletter

I am the editor/designer of a new newsletter. It goes "live" today at the Memory Keeping Collection website. Each month I'll be bringing you scrapbooking and papercrafting tips, plus information on any new offerings from Ashton Drake Galleries. You'll also notice that they're having a drawing for a new Cricut. All you have to do is to go to their Facebook page and "like" them to qualify.

I'm also having a drawing for the month of October! It's for a Cricut roller bag with 3 Cricut cartridges! Plus I have two additional sets of 4 cartridges each to give away.

Blog "followers" will be automatically entered, so sign up here, or leave me a comment on why you like to use the Cricut for papercrafting. The winner will be announced on NOVEMBER 1st.

Y'all come back now.............

Yours truly,
Julie :)

ScrapFest! Friday, September 17th

Today is the first of 3 days of ScrapFest at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, sponsored by Archiver's stores. I hadn't been to ScrapFest for quite a few years, so it was great to see how busy it still is. Hundreds of people lined up around vendor booths for the MITIs and registered for workshops and demos by some of the industry's most popular manufacturers.

The lines snaked up and down the hallways of the Mall of America where the wait for some of the MITIs was up to 90 minutes.

This is a great event for friends who come for a weekend getaway and mothers and daughters who share their love of scrapbooking and crafts.

My friend, and business partner, Jean (Just Crafty Me) plans and designs the MITI projects for Mark Richards, the company responsible for fabulous bling! We provided about 900 MITIs between 9am & 5pm, just today and we still have 2 days to go!

Check back tomorrow for even more updates! Ya'll come back now..........

Yours truly,
Julie :)

Reality of Life

I haven't posted for a while, but there are times when everyday life takes priority. We had a great trip to the east coast to help my son and his wife move into their new home. I'd forgotten how tiring moving can be, but it's also a lot of fun and I didn't want to miss a minute. Unpacking boxes and re-discovering things that have been languishing in cupboards, drawers and corners of closets is as exciting as unwrapping Christmas presents. I really need to start with my own home. We moved here 7 years ago and there are still boxes I have yet to unpack........ Now I'm inspired to do so as soon as possible. Who knows what treasures I may find. After 36 years of marriage, 2 children and about 8 moves, whatever I discover might be as good as a Willy Wonka chocolate bar.

It's good to step back for a while. It's very easy to get involved in creativity to a point where it becomes overwhelming. There's always so much designers want to do, but never enough hours in the day. Each idea grows into more ideas - it's part of the creative process and the more we try to do, the more creative we become.

Life in the Craft Lane has changed dramatically over the past 5 years. Social networking has taken over to the point where our lives have little room for anything else, but Facebook, blogs and Twitter. Articles and projects which used to be created for books and magazines now appear on our blogs and websites, free to everyone who visits. There's still something comforting, however, about picking up a book or magazine and leafing through the pages while sitting with your feet up to the coffee table a glass of wine, or cup of tea in hand, so I hope they'll still be around for a few more years. Funnily enough, I'm sitting with my feet up, while I write this on my laptop; even computers have evolved where I'm not tied to a desk any more. I still don't have an iPhone though... so I don't Tweet..... can't imagine that anyone would really be interested in what I do on a daily, or hourly basis.

I will tell you what I have planned for tomorrow. I have boxes of projects which I will start to photograph and feature here on a regular basis. The projects may not use the latest and greatest patterned papers, or embellishments, but I've always loved to show ideas, concepts and techniques. Design has never been about the project - only the how to, so, Y'all come back now! You may find some treasures of your own.

Yours truly,

Julie :)

CHA Summer Trade Show

CHA holds a trade show twice a year; one in winter and one in summer. This is where manufacturers display their lines of products for retailers to buy for their stores - for you..... This show is not open to the public. You have to qualify for admission by being a store owner, member of the press, manufacturer, service supplier or designer and the qualifications are quite strict. I am a designer member of CHA, but qualified initially as a Professional Crafter - a term we don't hear very much any more. I would go to the shows to buy product to make items to sell in craft malls and at craft shows. I went to my first show in 1991 and haven't missed a winter or summer show since. It was always exciting to see the new products, but I really enjoyed seeing all the samples that had been created for display that featured those products. It was amazingly inspirational. The shows have changed a lot over the past 20 years, because the industry has changed, but the common denominator remains - creativity. We love to create!

So, that being said, here are photos from the trade show. Mostly pages and projects for your enjoyment and inspiration, plus news about some of the new tools and products that will be coming your way over the next couple of months or so.

What's New!

1. Provo Craft has updated the Cricut, so now you can both print and cut. You will also have this capability with the Eclips from Sizzix.

2. Spellbinders. The Presto Punch,which is designed for small dies was introduced at the winter show and this summer the Grand Calibur made its début with an assortment of large dies.

3. We R Memory Keepers. The company that brought you the Crop-A-Dile and the Big Bite, now has a third tool in this series - the Main Squeeze, a tool that die-cuts small shapes, embosses, sets corners, flattens squeeze tabs and more.

Also new is the Sew Easy line of products for those of you who love to stitch on your pages, but don't want to pull out the sewing machine. The basic tool is hand held with interchangeable rotary blades which pierce the paper. Another nifty little tool is the Heart Attack, a small sanding/distressing tool in the shape of a heart.

4. Imaginisce. Create dazzling projects by affixing pearls, rhinestones, jewels or mirrors to paper, fabric and even wood with the i-rock, a cordless heat setting applicator. Just place the embellishment where you want it, then press the i-rock tool on top. It's so easy you'll rock too!

5. Vagabond. Tim Holtz is currently designing a signature line of dies for Sizzix which debuted at the winter show. Now there is a coordinating die cutting machine. Here's a sneak peek, but you'll probably find more info on Tim's blog, or on the Sizzix website.

It's a nifty little machine. With the front part folded up, it looks like a small suitcase. Below is a photo of Tim's booth.

6. Epiphany Crafts is a new company which has introduced the EC Shape Studio and EC Button Studio. This is a type of punch. There are 4 shape studio punches (2 sizes of circles and 2 sizes of hearts) and 4 button studio shapes with button holes (two sizes of circles, a heart and a flower). Each shape has a corresponding acrylic dome, or flat acrylic button. Use these punches to punch a paper shape (it could be a small photo printed on paper) then place the corresponding self-adhesive acrylic shape on top.

7. Flip Pal. This is a mobile scanner and it won the CHA Innovations award. It is a small, hand held scanner which runs on AA batteries. Just place it on the top of whatever you want to scan and it works just like the flatbed scanners. The information is stored on a flash card like the ones used for a digital camera. It's great for things that are difficult to place on a regular scanner and even though it's small (about 5" x 7") it has a stitching feature so you can scan larger pieces then "stitch" them seamlessly together.

8. SCAL from Create & Craft. This is software for a Mac (yeh!) or a PC that allows you to create and cut your own designs and fonts already installed on your computer using a Cricut

All the manufacturers in the paper crafts section had new paper designs and coordinating embellishments, so you'll have to check your local and online stores to see what they ordered, there were way too many to feature here.

Halloween is the second largest holiday and craft buying season, so it stands to reason that it would be a popular theme for papers, embellishments, etc., but this year I saw so much more of it than in the past. Maybe because we're not just creating album pages any more. We're making cards and lots of projects for the home using these same supplies.

Cupcakes themes are still hot, both in craft and gift market and flowers are everywhere in paper, fabric, ribbon, felt, metal, button designs and rubber stamps. Not just for scrapbook pages and cards, flowers and images of flowers, were being used to decorate just about everything. Check out the gallery of projects below.

So many flowers, so little time........ Here are some button, felt and metal flower embellishments from Sassafras.

The show is always a good place to see friends. Here I am with Helen Chu from My Little Shoebox and photos of her brightly colored booth.

Here's Marianne Walker from Copic markers. If you haven't tried them yet, these markers are wonderful, especially for coloring rubber stamped images. Both Copic Marker classes at the Super Show sold out within days of being offered.

Here's Suze Weinberg, Kathy Cano Murillo, the Crafty Chica and Katie Hacker. Katie is the new host of Beads, Baubles & Jewels, which airs on PBS stations across the United States.

Just a few more for inspiration........... Enjoy!

Yours truly,
Julie :)