The Sampler is shown here with products from one of their new lines, What’s Up.

Basic Grey was also offering some specialty items targeted to children’s boutiques, including a memory game, zippered and cell phone pouches, and iron-on tie and lace trim t-shirt embellishments.

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This line brings to mind everything I loved about Basic Grey back when they were a new company, while bringing current trendy patterns and fresh designs into the mix. Indeed, like the Christmas line before it (Nordic Holiday), Basic Grey is making the holidays filled with vintage chic-inspired products.

While the line as a whole is great, I do have five specific favorites that I would like to share with you. They are favorites because they will be useful beyond ‘love’ or ‘Valentine’ pages, and I believe they will be great additions to any stash:

    It’s a bold choice to have pink be so prominent, and while I know this narrows down the consumers willing to buy the line (as pink is truly a “love it or hate it” kind of color) – I’m glad they let it shine here. The color range runs from purple undertones back over to a more reddish pink, and I love that. From pale to bright, this line is a dream for any scrapbooker who frequently has feminine subjects that favor pink. While easily useful in Valentine paper projects, it can also be used for general girl pages as well. Here is a layout I created with this new line: My favorite elements of this line are the great solid patterned papers (such as the pink in my background), the heart paper that is begging to be cut apart as I did above, and the fabric and paper die cut elements – though the entire line is fabulous. Supplies:

I did find some of the designs a bit less photo-friendly and harder to work with, but overall this is a very strong line and a great bright color palette to kick my case of the winter blues far away. The stitched-looking hearts, doily details, and flourishes make this a stand-out and a line that is truly new and noteworthy.

BasicGrey’s Kissing Booth collection is now available in stores and online.

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After my roundup of Christmas scrapbooking lines went live here on Scrapbook Update, I received many, many requests to do a similar article for each holiday. I can’t promise that I’ll do one for every special day on the calendar (there just aren’t that many paper lines for Talk Like a Pirate Day, you know?), but when there are enough themed lines to warrant a roundup, I’ll be sure to post them to keep you all informed!

As with the Christmas roundup, I’m listing all the Valentine’s Day paper lines that were released either at or after CHA Summer 2011 and have scoured the vastness of the interwebs to bring you representative photos of each. They’re listed in alphabetical order, and, since there aren’t nearly so many of them as there were Christmas lines, I’ll also give a little commentary on each.

Ready to start seeing pink? Let’s get going!

Basic Grey – Kissing Booth

Kissing Booth is a mix of basic patterns (I spy doilies and herringbone in the mix) and sweet watercolor images. This line uses brown as a contrast color and is one of the few cream-based collections in the roundup.

Bazzill Basics Paper – Love Story

Bazzill, long known for its quality cardstock, has only recently entered the patterned paper market. The Love Story line continues the graphic style displayed in other lines that have already been released by the company, and they’ve chosen grey to offset the sweet pinks and bright reds of the designs.

Bo Bunny – Smoochable

Bo Bunny’s signature style is readily apparent in their Valentine’s Day offering, Smoochable. Light distressing and the use of light purple and hints of green are the signature elements in this line.

Crate Paper – Paper Heart

Crate has knocked Valentine’s style out of the park with their Paper Heart collection. It’s at once vintage and trendy with its pops of turquoise and use of popular elements such as chevrons and doilies. I predict that Crate will have a major hit on their hands with this collection!

Doodlebug Design – Sweet Cakes

Sweet Cakes is everything we’ve come to expect from Doodlebug – whimsical graphic designs in their signature color palette make it easy to identify. Doodlebug has gone all out for this release, producing a wide variety of coordinating embellishments including a special Doodle Twine card and a Doodle Twine spool featuring a red, pink, and white twist. Be still my baker’s twine loving heart!

Echo Park – Yours Truly

Following in the footsteps of their Be Mine collection from last year, Echo Park continues to produce Valentine’s Day papers in a traditional color palette. This year they’ve thrown red and grey into the mix of Yours Truly (last year’s collection was almost all pink and black), but if you’ve got any Be Mine still hanging around your stash, this new collection should coordinate with it wonderfully.

Fancy Pants – Love Story

Fancy Pants has amped up the pink to nearly hot proportions and added lots of turquoise to their Love Story collection. This is one of those lines that would work well for everyday pages, especially with some of the strong, non-themed B-side patterns that the line sports.

Jillibean Soup – Hearty Barley Soup

Hearty Barley Soup shows Jillibean returning to their krafty roots. I’m completely in love with the woodgrain print – it has tiny little hearts worked oh-so-subtly into the pattern!

K & Company – Circus Valentine

K & Company “themed the theme” with their Valentine’s release Circus Valentine – it’s filled with circus motifs!! The pops of blue add unexpected contrast and interest.

KaiserCraft – Sweet Nothings

This line from the Australian powerhouse is pure vintage elegance. Filled with Victorian-style cupids and flowers, Sweet Nothings is perfect for those who want a softer feel for their Valentine’s projects.

Karen Foster Designs – Valentine’s

Karen Foster Designs’ Valentine’s collection puts a comic book style spin on the holiday.

KI Memories – Hot Date

While not specifically advertised as a Valentine’s line, the Hot Date collection has all the motifs (including plenty of XOXOs and hearts!) associated with the holiday, wrapped up in a completely nontraditional color palette.

Lily Bee Design – Head Over Heels

Head Over Heels is another line that isn’t specifically for Valentine’s, but in my opinion it’s a stronger collection for that very reason. There are plenty of pinks, creams, and floral motifs to make it suitable for the holiday, but the addition of orange and turquoise and the lack of a huge amount of Valentine’s specific motifs make it a very versatile line sure to keep you scrapping long after 2/14 has passed.

Martha Stewart Crafts – Valentine’s

Martha Stewart brings her simple, graphic styling to her newest Valentine’s Day collection. The real news here, though, is the punches! Perenially a highly sought-after crafting item, her newest border and shape punches are sure to be a hit!

My Mind’s Eye – Love Me

My Mind’s Eye chose a decidedly cream base for their Valentine’s line Love Me, then loaded it up with several shades of pink, plenty of grey, and just a hint of baby blue. The collection is filled with the doily and banner designs that we’ve all come to know and love from My Mind’s Eye’s more recent offerings.

Pebbles – With Love

Long known for having a simple graphic style, Pebbles has kicked it up a notch with the With Love collection by including a kraft-based sheet in the mix. The speech bubble pattern is printed right onto heavy-duty kraft paper, providing a great contrast to the pinks and reds in the rest of the collection.

SEI – Promise Me

The Promise Me line from SEI is all softness and beauty, with just a hint of gold to set it apart from the rest of the field.

Tim Holtz for Sizzix – Texture Trades, Love Struck Bigz Dies, and Love Struck Movers and Shapers Mini Dies

Tim doesn’t have a paper collection for Valentine’s Day (though I think that a V-Day version of his Kraft Resist paper would be an awesome addition to his line- hint, hint!!), but since this is such a huge cardmaking holiday I just had to include his new Love designs from Alterations for Sizzix – dies (available in both Bigz and Movers and Shapers mini formats) as well as his new Texture Trades embossing folders.

We R Memory Keepers – Love Struck

We R Memory Keepers finishes up our roundup with their Love Struck collection. Here light blue offsets the plethora of pink, and the collection has a nice variety of both large and small patterns.

And now, dear readers, I’d like to hear from you. Which of these collections has caught your eye? Any favorites? Sound off in the comments and let us know!

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Looking for a cute place card for your Thanksgiving table? Check out this tutorial from Doodlebug’s blog. I think this could be done with a rosette die (if you’ve got one), but I like how Stephanie used a scallop border punch to create hers. I think this would be great to use at a kids table, or even take the turkey off the placecard and use this idea as a homemade embellishment on your scrapbook layout.

Speaking of fall and Thanksgiving, Ranger has spent the week showing the results of their “great pumpkin challenge on the Ranger blog. From Wendi Vecchi (her pumpkin is shown above) to Claudine Hellmuth, Jenni Bowlin and many more – it’s fascinating to see what these designers have done to decorate the artificial pumpkins, and how they used Ranger’s crafting products to do so. It inspires me to do a bit of altering to home decor pieces that feel stale or aren’t quite how I’d like them to be!

In new product news this week, it was revealed that Lisa Pace is designing a collection of vintage stamps for Pink Persimmon stamps.  From the glimpse given on her blog, I am guessing that her “antiquated collection” is going to be stamps that are made from vintage images. The release is scheduled for  Saturday, November 19th (tomorrow), and images should be visible (and stamps available to order) at www.pinkpersimmon.com on that day according to the company.

Basic Grey revealed their next line – Kissing Booth. The Valentine’s Day inspired line has a beautiful color palette and utilizes lots of lovely chocolate brown which I adore – and can’t wait to try out. Between the wooden buttons and several of the patterned papers this line is one that I am highly anticipating. Like with their Christmas line Nordic Holiday, Basic Grey is continuing to release themed lines that are anything but predictable – and highly versatile.  Kissing Booth will begin shipping in mid to late December.

Speaking of Valentines, check out Echo Park’s newest release “Yours Truly” that was also revealed this week. Classic red, pink, white, and black colors come together in a fresh way for this line filled with hearts, love, and kisses. I really like the typewriter detail and the use of “xoxo” in this line as well as the versatile dots, stripes, and other classic patterns in the paper. Watch for this line to begin shipping in December.

This week has been review week here at Scrapbook Update – be sure to check out all of the reviews. With the holidays upon us perhaps there is something you’d like to add to your wish list. Speaking of the holidays – next week stay tuned for a special edition of Noteworthy. I will be rounding up all kinds of holiday inspired classes and inspiration that you should be watching for in the coming weeks.

Finally, be sure to watch the Scrapbook Update Black Friday scrapbook sales page for the latest on great deals that Editor Nancy Nally has found. As a enthusiast of the shopping holiday, she’s been scouting out the best deals and sharing her finds with you there.

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.

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Let’s start with a company and their customers who have made a $60,000 donation possible! I’m talking about Stampin’ Up! and their recent donation to the BCRF (Breast Cancer Research Foundation) in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

A special Strength & Hope stamp set and Strength & Hope digital kit were designed specifically for the campaign, and contained inspirational messages and images. Both were promoted through Stampin’ Up! direct-sales representatives, also known as demonstrators.

BCRF is dedicated to preventing breast cancer and finding a cure in our lifetime by funding clinical and translational research worldwide. For more information about BCRF, visit www.bcrfcure.org.

It’s always so wonderful to see a company doing something to give back and working towards making a difference for a cause.

Big Picture Classes announced their 2012 line-up of 4-Expert Classes this week. Most notable for 2012 is that Big Picture will be featuring Scrapbooking’s first true celebrity designer Becky Higgins in her first ever online class.

We are celebrating 5 years of 4Experts at Big Picture Classes! We are thrilled to announce Becky Higgins, Heidi Swapp, Nic Howard and Stacy Julian as our expert line-up in 2012. We join you in anticipation of these four 12-week workshops, hosted in unique and custom classrooms, designed to provide the very best that BPC has to offer.

More information on each class, the dates they will run, and a video from each instructor can be found here. Registration opens approximately eight weeks prior to the start date of each class.

Speaking of new classes, Something Splendid announced their newest offering, the “My Thankful Journal” class:

We are so thrilled to announce the next splendid online workshop entitled “My Thankful Journal” starting November 10th!

What are you thankful for? What puts a smile on your face? How are you blessed?

This class will focus on creating a chipboard album, and there are options for both receiving a kit ($52 including shipping within USA/$58 international) or simply signing up for a ‘class ticket’ ($15) which will give you access to the class materials. More information and a promotional video can be found on the Something Splendid site.

Let’s take a moment and talk about new products! The Picadilly and Little Black dress lines from BasicGrey (including the coordinating Hero Arts stamps) hit shelves this week, which is very exciting indeed!!

Next, let’s look at the Red & Black line extension that just came out from Jenni Bowlin. This classic line never gets old – I love these new papers and can see myself adding them in and using them in addition to my existing JBS stash!

Finally, American Crafts mid-release line Chap is hitting store shelves! The colors are fantastic in this line – I plan to explore the possibilites of this line for some travel, outdoor, and other random pages.

Noteworthy is a weekly column here at 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.

Check out the October Kit from Scrapbook Update, Autumn Sunlight!

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