Noteworthy | 12.2.2011

Whether you’re recovering from a recent shopping spree or gearing up for the holidays (or both), there is no question that the internet is filled with inspiration these days. I’m already having fun with Tim’s 12 tags and Ali’s December Daily, and really getting into the holiday creative spirit. Last week, I focused on many of the great online holiday events in my Noteworthy column (link), if you’re looking for a class or series to check out.

This week I’m back to rounding up the best announcements, tutorials, and information in general, so let’s get December started:

Pink Paislee has begun their annual 12 days of Christmas series on thier blog, this year re-named “Winter Wonderland” to fit in with their winter themed Snow Day product line that is in stores now. It  promises to be as fun filled as ever:

 Each day we will post a new project from our creative team that includes step by step tips and tricks so you can create along with us; and we will also provide FREE printables and host daily blog giveaways so we can give out secret scrappy gift boxes filled to the brim!

The event takes place through December 12 on the Pink Paislee blog. With the free printables, prizes, not to mention tutorials for projects I am really looking forward to this.

Thousands check out the Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas posts, of course, but also worth watching is the Ranger blog, which promises a daily prize drawing for a box filled with holiday inspired Ranger products during Tim’s 12 tags event. Some of the Ranger staff will also be creating tags inspired by Tim’s daily tag and posting those as well. [Read more...]

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. [Read more...]

Noteworthy | 9.09.2011

As the first full week of September comes to a close, it seems education is a big theme this week. Not only are the kids back to school, but new craft classes are popping up all over the place! This week three very different classes make my noteworthy list, as well as some great tutorials and a sale that you don’t want to miss.

Christy Tomlinson announced that she has a new workshop coming this fall: She Art Workshop #2.

 In this workshop, I delve more into the smaller details on how I make my She Art girls, including their hair, face, clothing,plus some really fun technique to make those even more unique!  PLUS I will go into how to create simple faces on your She ARt Girls!

The class begins November 7th, and registration is just $35 when you sign up during September. There is also a discount for those interested in signing up for this new class and the first She Art class. More information and registration is available on Christy’s blog.

Designer Digitals is having their quarterly sale – and with the entire store priced at 30% off, it’s noteworthy indeed! Shown above are just a few of the 39 new items just posted that are of course included in this weekend’s sale. With a lot of new product from Ali Edwards, and with such a huge selection, both digital and hybrid crafters do not want to miss out on the opportunity to save big. The sale ends at 3am EST next Wednesday (9/14) morning.

Get it Scrapped! announced a brand new digital scrapbooking class with Jana Morton called “Blending and Beyond”:

Jana  Morton has a passion for preserving memories, and she pursues this passion with a unique and appealing style. Jana breathes new life into everyday photos using the tools available in Photoshop. In “Blending and Beyond” you have the opportunity to look over her shoulder while she works and, thus, understand the techniques and artistry that are a part of her signature style.

Students will have an “over the shoulder” view of Janna as she creates six digital layouts over six weeks. To see the class schedule, get more information, and to register for this $65 class ($55 if you register before 9/16) visit the Get it Scrapped website.

The Crafter’s Workshop templates are hot – they made Scrapbook Update’s top 10 for CHA, I did a video post about them, and they are popping up all over the place! Scrapbook.com is having a buy two, get one free sale on them right now, and that’s not even the noteworthy part today! The real exciting news is that Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is doing a series of tutorials on her blog that focus on her templates with the Crafter’s Workshop. “Stencil-a-palooza” looks to be a great resource and chance to see get new ideas for these stencils.

Welcome to Stencil-a-Palooza!  Several days a week for the next month or so I’ll be featuring one of my eighteen stencil designs for The Crafter’s Workshop!  Each post comes with a giveaway.  Leave a comment answering the question-of-the-day and you might be the winner of that day’s featured stencil in both 6×6 and 12×12!

With videos, loads of project images, and the added bonus of give-aways this is the start to an amazing series I am really interested in. So far she has done a Chevron post, and a Herringbone post, both of which are exceptional. Watch her blog for more!

There is a cool tutorial up on the Ormolu blog this week, showing how to make this unique hybrid scrapbook page. Creative team member Kaitlin Sheaffer shares the how-to as well as some tips and her inspiration behind the page. Her design process as well as combining digital and traditional into her title is really neat.

Jenny Doh announced that she is bringing back her first on-line class “crafting my best life” this fall.

Crafting My Best Life, Class of 2011 is the same quality content that the founding class experienced, being offered to a brand new group of students. The curriculum helps us get real, dig deep, and explore the answers to these questions which are complex and multi-layered. It’s a curriculum based on a belief that in order to be the best that we can be, we have to roll up our sleeves, and work hard to deliberately face who we are, and to identify our values, so that we can map out our best life strategies.

Class begins October 3, and the $98 fee includes a kit that is mailed to students upon registration. For more information, to see Jenny’s video about class, and to register visit the Crescendoh site.

Shimelle is known for her informative posts on her blog, and her Camera School series is definitely one you don’t want to miss. Rather than making my head hurt with technical lingo, she breaks down information in a format and style of writing that makes sense and is helpful.

I promised I wouldn’t make this technical. I promise to keep that promise. And that’s because my entire process for taking a picture is about stripping away as much of the technical as I can. Basically if you can totally figure out just a couple basics, then the rest gets really easy.

Her lesson 2: let ISO set you free post that she posted on Thursday is a great installment, and I look forward to more. All of her Camera School posts are listed here.

Finally, in new and exciting product news, Simon Says Stamp has all of the new Tim Holtz stamps (wood mounted and cling!) as well as some of his new idea-ology products and some seasonal die cuts in stock now. Over at Scrapbook.com the much anticipated new Studio Calico lines are in-stock this week as well.

“Noteworthy” is a new regular weekly column at Scrapbook Update. Have something new & noteworthy to share? Feel free to leave a comment, or 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 May’s latest class at Big Picture Classes:

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Trend Watch: Decorative Tape

News flash: Tape is a hot, must-have scrapbooking supply.

For those of you who just said, “well, duh, Melissa,” let me explain. I’m not talking about just any old tape here. I’m talking about the fun, decorative, available-in-so-many-colors-and-patterns-that-it-makes-you-want-to-collect-them-all kind of tape!

Also commonly known as “washi” tape (from the Japanese word referring to a specific type of handmade paper), decorative tape is available to crafters in a dazzling array of colors, widths, and types of materials. Many Etsy shops and small online sellers offer imported washi tape made in the traditional Japanese style, and a large number of scrapbook manufacturers also produce their own varieties of similar decorative tape.

Scrapbook-specific styles of decorative tape are being designed to coordinate with new paper lines, such as American Crafts Mixtapes from the “City Park” and “Dear Lizzy: Enchanted” collections.

Making Memories has introduced patterned tapes for many of its new lines over the years including their latest travel release, “Panorama“.

Decorative tape fits right in with 7 Gypsies’ vintage, eclectic style, and they’ve produced it to coordinate with many of their lines such as “Lille,” “Avignon,” and “Venice.” The patterns are reminiscent of vintage ephemera – 7 Gypsies’ signature look.

Holidays and seasons are another popular design theme for decorative tape. Tim Holtz has some amazing designs in this area, including “Hobgoblin” (Halloween) and “Tidings” (Christmas) versions of his tissue tape.

American Crafts’ holiday-themed tape is also a strong entrant in this category. The “Dear Lizzy: Christmas” version features a gorgeous array of colors and patterns in a single package.

7 Gypsies has a fun Christmas set available in the form of their “Christmas Wrap” collection.

Not even Martha Stewart can resist the attraction of decorative tape, as evidenced by this sweet Valentine’s Day offering.

Many decorative tapes are also being produced as standalone products with no associated holiday or paper line. Perhaps some of the most popular of these are Tim Holtz’s tissue tapes – the timeless patterns and neutral colors of his designs (“Sketchbook,” “Nostalgic,” and “Journeyman” shown below)  make them perfect accents for all types of layouts, cards, and paper projects.

Tim even dreamed up a tape-gun style dispenser for his tissue tapes that’s now being produced by Advantus.

Pink Paislee has several styles of tape available in their Artisan line of generic embellishments, including the Bayberry, Green, Lime, and Red varieties shown below.

Martha Stewart has another entry in this category – the fresh and feminine “Vintage Girl” collection.

Hambly has jumped into the washi tape trend in a big way with their new tapes. Four new collections were debuted at CHA Winter 2011 and have been one of the most anticipated releases from the show.

Digital scrapbookers aren’t left out of this latest trend. Many designers are now including coordinating tape strips in their digital kits as well as offering standalone tape collections. “Patterned Tapes No. 1” and “Defined Tapes No. 1” from Designer Digitals are just two of the many, many styles available.

So what can you do with all of those beautiful products? Decorative tape is a supply that is as versatile as it is varied, and there are myriad uses for it on your papercrafting projects. It makes a wonderful base for embellishment clusters – just tear off a small piece and use it as a way to anchor your embellishments to each other and to the photo block at the same time. You can use it to completely cover die cuts and chipboard (instead of using paint or patterned paper). It’s a wonderful replacement for ribbon or paper strips, and it’s even great at adhering items (imagine that)! Amy Tan is a master at that last one and often uses copious amounts of washi tape in her travel mini albums (you can see one of her more recent works here). She also offers an instant download course at Big Picture Classes called “Get Those Creative Juices Flowing,” in which she covers her use of washi tape along with ideas for making your own.

Another use for washi tape? Fold it over baker’s twine and cut to shape for a fun spin on the pennant trend!

Supplies:

Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper (“Raven“)
Patterned Paper: Creative Imaginations (“Threepio “, “Blueprint” and “Storm Trooper” Die Cut)
Journaling Spot: Anna Griffin (“Darcy” collection)
Letter Stickers: American Crafts (“Poolside” white)
Punches: Martha Stewart Crafts
Baker’s Twine: The Twinery (Charcoal)
Spray Mist: Studio Calico (Calico White)
Decorative Tape: Tim Holtz for Advantus (“Journeyman“)

I’d like to take a moment to thank Japan – a country that has gifted to the world such cultural phenomenons as Hello Kitty, anime, and Nintendo – for giving papercrafters everywhere a trend that they can call their very own. Which reminds me…I found the cutest Hello Kitty washi tapes on Etsy and need to go order some right now!

The staff of Scrapbook Update would like to extend our sincere best wishes to the people of Japan as they work to recover from the recent earthquakes and tsunami.

[NSD Giveaway] Designer Digitals

Here’s something for digital scrapbooking fans…a giveaway of goodies from Designer Digitals!

Designer Digitals is the digital scrapbooking site with everything you need for all your digital scrapbooking, ideas, supplies, and art or photography projects. This includes photoshop brushes, actions and ready made cards and printables. Their designers include Katie Pertiet, Ali Edwards and Cathy Zielske.

One lucky Scrapbook Update winner is going to win a set of vintage style digital scrapbooking kits from Designer Digitals by Katie Pertiet: From My Bookshelf No. 1, Le Marche, and Letter Box Brushes and Stamps No. 5 Value Pack.

How To Enter: All you have to do to have a chance to be the lucky winner is leave a comment on this entry before Midnight U.S. west coast time on Sunday night, May 8th. Make sure you include your email address in the line reserved for it on the comment form (for your own protection, don’t put it in the text of the comment, where it will be visible to the public – just in the line labeled “email” in the form where only Scrapbook Update staff can see it). We will need it to notify you if you are a winner. Winners will be drawn by random drawing from all eligible entries. One entry per person.

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