Noteworthy | 11.11.11

It's 11-11-11 and what a week it's been! With less than two weeks until Thanksgiving, and the holiday season getting into full swing, it's been wonderfully busy and crafty here in my home. Online there's still plenty of crafting excitement, sales, and more to be had in 2011 - check out this week's Noteworthy stories:

'Tis the season for sales, and www.designerdigitals.com is having their amazing quarterly sale - all of their digital scrapbooking products are 30% off now through November 16th at 3am EST. Many digital and hybrid scrapbookers (myself included!) look forward to this quarterly sale and use it to stock up. With a wide variety of styles and products from beautiful brushes by Katie Pertiet to word art from Ali Edwards and page templates by Cathy Zielske, there's something for everyone. Even if you're not into digital scrapbooking, there are many products that can be printed out and utilized beautifully on paper projects as well.

Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom episode on My Craft Channel was especially inspiring this week. Focused on telling your stories, and not scrapbooking to "catch up", Stacy inspires with numerous stories and layouts of her own. All previous epsiodes of her show on My Craft Channel can be viewed here.

I love the concept of JBS Mercantile's collaborative design team Christmas garland. It shows off all kinds of wonderful Jenni Bowlin products, while day by day revealing pieces that are wonderful on their own as well as a whole project. I have found myself inspired to do other paper crafting projects based on some of the ideas shown. I look forward to seeing what other designers will create, and what ideas will be shown. The banner pieces are being revealed on the JBS Mercantile blog.

Jen McGuire is up to her usual tricks (and tips) with a great video for Studio Calico utilizing one of their stamp sets in three unique ways. I really love how she makes the banners into a tree, a sun, and more. Three cards are shown, and it is a helpful video showing how to get more use out of a stamp set - in ways I wouldn't have thought of. The video and images can be viewed on Studio Calico's blog here.

Shimelle Laine is back with Journal your Christmas 2011, an online course that she has been teaching since 2004. Each day she encourages and inspires through uplifting prompts delivered via email. One of the great things about this class is that you can simply write and make notes, basically treat it like a journal project if you do not scrapbook or do not wish to scrapbook a lot of pages. Shimelle says about the class:

Journal your Christmas started from a personal journal I kept just for me, as I tired to rekindle the magic of Christmas in what had otherwise been a rather unglittery time. It worked. I found myself remembering exactly why I loved the holidays and how they could bring hope to the darkest of winters and I realised the magic of Christmas did not belong to children alone. Christmas can be magical at any age, no matter what the circumstances.

With Shimelle's positive outlook and approachable style, I understand why so many are excited for this class to begin! To read more about the class or register visit Shimelle's site here.

Cocoa Daisy is hosting a star-studded online crop this weekend on their site. You can view the information and line-up here on their blog. The crop will be November 11th - 13th, and this "craft fair" themed crop is to help celebrate being in business for five years. With guests like Ali Edwards and Amy Tan issuing challenges, not to mention several chats with amazing crafters including Julie Balzer, I am sure that this will be a great event. To attend you need to register for their message board, and then log in and enjoy. The weekend is filled with challenges, chats, and some classes from their design team as well - and it looks like a fun and inspiring time. View this blog post for the schedule and more information.

Finally, I have a couple pieces of great sale news to pass along! First, Maya Road is having a massive rub-on clearance for a limited time. Here is a link to their website with information.

Also, our resident sale shopping expert, editor Nancy Nally, is busy putting together Scrapbook Update's Black Friday sales page. She has already discovered that the Cricut Imagine with two bonus cartridges will be on sale for just $187 at Walmart on Black Friday. For details on this, and more great deals as she discovers them, keep an eye on the 2011 Black Friday Scrapbook Sales listing as it is updated continually between now and Black Friday!

Noteworthy” is a weekly column on Scrapbook Update. Have something new & noteworthy to share? If you have something you would like considered for next week’s column, email may@scrapbookupdate.com with a link or press release.