Royal Slumber Crop -- Registration Starts on Dec 1st!!

Scrapbook Royalty is having our big annual crop! Registration opens on December 1 at 8am PST. Don't miss out. I will be there too, both days. Here's all the info:

Join us for the Royal Slumber Crop in San Marcos, CA on March 14-15, 2009 for a royal good time! Your $75 or $95 registration fee entitles you to:

• 32 hours of cropping
• 4 feet of cropping space
• 2 FREE classes (with $75 Registration)
• 4 FREE classes (with $95 Registration)
  
• 4 delicious meals, & midnight snack
• Tea time
• Fairy fly by goodies from our sponsors
• Contests and silent auctions
• Yoga, Personality testing, massages, waxing & more pampering...(some require donation)
• A spot in the "Royal Sleeping Chamber"
• Opportunity drawings
• Charitable fun atmosphere and more!

But wait, it gets better...
...there's a Royal Treatment Bonus!

The first 30 participants to sign up and pay in full will be given a...
"Royal Treatment Bonus Package":

• $30 in gifts from My Minds Eye
• $40 in gifts from Lil' Davis
• Free Starbucks at tea time
• Free mini massage

And you can choose your own "flowerbed" to crop in!!

Choose your flowerbed from these following sponsors and plant yourself for two days of fun:

• Prima Marketing Inc
• Quick Quotes
• Pink Pineapple Scrapbooks
• Fiskars Fiskateers
• Diva Craft Lounge Radio Show
• Cancer Coping Center
• And 4 more to be announced!!!

We Also Have A Payment Plan Available:

Just put half down within 10 days of registration and then pay the other half by February 14, 2009. The payment plan includes a small service fee of $5. For more details, click here. Payment plan registration fees are non-refundable, sorry no exceptions.

AND did we mention we have Amazing Classes and Instructors at this event?!?!

Leah Fung, Stephanie Ackerman, Donna Salazar, and Johanna Peterson will be offering full classes for you to enjoy, Your registration fee entitles you to 2 classes but for an extra $20 you can take all 4! We are lucky to have such wonderful teachers that will be teaching at this event. Click on their names above to see samples of the free classes that are going to be taught.

To register for this fabulous event, click HERE.

But remember, registration doesn't open until December 1, 2008 at 8am PST so make sure you are one of the first 30 registrants. Ask Santa for an early Christmas gift or treat yourself!

We also have ideas for helping you raise the $100 in donations to donate at the event. For all of the details, please see our website.

Five Fridays #14 – Five Holiday Cards

It’s the holidays. We need to get our cards made and mailed out because once you’re a papercrafter, store-bought cards just won’t do. People will think you don’t like them anymore if they get a store-bought card in the mail! LOL Here are five easy-peasy Christmas cards to make this year. You could likely get them 30 done in under an hour.

Stamp a sentiment on a 4x4 piece of paper. Glue to one side of card. Crumple a strip of paper and add to one edge. Add a bow and some punched snowflakes and you're done!

Just a really simple card. I glued the "Joy" word to a circle and then sprinkled embosing powder on top and heated.

These two are the same basic design, just one is vertical and the other horizontal:

On this card patterned paper covers the entire front. Then I used two scraps in strips to make a corner on the lower right, Added a diecut star, some twine tied around the middle, and a rub-on sentiment--easy 5 minute card.

This card is so much easier than it looks! It has a larger circle inside of a larger scalloped circle. I cut two triangles from coordinating paper to make the trees. Then I stamped the word "wishes" one one side. Added some dots of stickles (glitter glue) to the trees and done in 5 minutes!
Hopefully these simple cards help you jump start your holiday cardmaking if you haven;t already gotten started! Christmas is less than a month away!! Which reminds me, I need to start on my cards too...

Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas Season is Here!

As I type Ihave Christmas music playing in the background and Xaver, Katie, and my nephew are setting up a Christmas Village in my living room. TG is officially over, now on to Christmas!

Here's a run down of today:

• Clean and Clean and Clean and...
• Surprise!! Guests get here two hours early!
• Disassemble the "kit factory" in my front room so we have somewhere to eat
  
• Smoked and Brined Turkey Breast-so yummy!
• Teaching the Kids to play Black Jack with M&M's for chips
• Homemade apple, cherry, and pumpkins pies, all made with fruit grown in my mom's garden and orchard...mmm
• Sweet potato pie by Xaver
• Chatting with the MIL by phone
• The kids running around the house
• Yummy mac n cheese
• Meatball appetizers with Hot Pepper Jelly I got at Collective Journey
  
• King's Hawaiian rolls
• Shopping at KMart
• Putting up the Christmas tree

I got a few photos of that last little bit but the rest of the day nothing. I guess some memories are just left in your head to remember...

Hope you had a great Turkey Day!

Zutterin' Ain't Just For Bindin', Y'All.

I know the Bind-It-All is for BINDING books and such but like Alton Brown I don't like uni-taskers in my scrapbook room (he doesn't like them in his kitchen. He is the host of the Food Network show "Good Eats"). So the Bind-It-All (BIA) HAS to be more than just a BINDING tool for me!! And luckily it is!

I've been playing with this "eating away" technique for a few months now, where I use the BIA to "eat away" at the edges of paper to create an interesting effect. The first page I did this on was this page about Matt I did as a class at Desert Scrapper's Retreats in Palm Desert in September:


Everyone has been buying all of these Martha Stewart border punches to make a "spooky fence". Well, not me. Though I love Martha's borders, I could not think of something else to use that spooky fence for besides Halloween. And that would make it a uni-tasker so it's a "no-no".

I figured I could use my BIA for the same effect so I cut some Doodlebug Flocked Cardstock into strips and started "eating away" at the edges with the BIA. Here's the result:

The full product supply list and details can be found on the Zutter Zisters website in my gallery.

I actually lifted this layout design from one Anne Fisher and I designed for our "Twenty Pages In A Day" class earlier this Fall. So that makes two lessons for today:

1. Don't buy uni-taskers. Luckily, the Bind-It-All is a multi-tasker!
2. If a layout design ain't broke, keep using it!
   

Hope you enjoy your turkey day!! It is officially TG right now but for me, it is still "Wednesday" so I am going to call it a night and get ready to gobble gobble gobble up some pie and smoked turkey (mmm) tomorrow!! Catch you all later!!

Gratitude.

Today I traveled to each of the 3 scrapbook stores I teach at on a regular basis.

The Mission: to say "thank you" to these stores for allowing me to teach there for the last year. I really do appreciate all they do to promote my classes, the creative freedom they allow me, and just all of the mutual respect we have for one another. It is an awesome relationship I have with each of them and I really truly am thankful for that! I am looking forward to what the new year brings for classes as well and know we will have many more fun times ahead.

Here you can see the gifts I made for each store:

At The Scrappin' Table:


At Collective Journey:


At Scrapbook Boulevard:


Thanks again to each of these stores (and to all of the others I taught at this year) for everything you do, store owners, employees, and design team members alike. It is really great to have your support and to be able to have a place to come teach and share my love of papercrafting with others. You all are awesome!!

Here are the other stores I taught at, at least once, this year--thank you to you all!! I look forward to teaching for you again as well in 2009!

• Scrapping Lounge, Montclair, CA
• Scrapper's Cafe, Corona, CA
• Now & Then Scrapbooks, Wildomar, CA
• Pink Pineapple Scrapbooks, Vista, CA
• It's About Time...Scrapbooks & More, Murrieta, CA (closed 11/08)

I have goodies for you too, just there are only so many hours in a day, you know?!

So I know you're wondering....how did I make the snowmen?

This project is really fun to make and all you really need is:

• One 12x12 sheet of black cardstock cut into one 2" x 12" strip, two 5" circles, and one 2.5" circle
• One 5" chipboard circle
  
• Two 16" strips of felt
• Pinking Shears
• Zip Dry
• Craft Glue Dots
• 5 Large Black Buttons
• One Orange Chenille Stem (pipe cleaner)
• 24" ribbon
• Holly Leaves (I used Prima's Festive Collection)
• Mini Pine Cones (from the floral shop)
• Candy
• Baggies for the candy
• Three glass globes in different sizes.
  

How to Assemble:

1. Take 3 glass globes (fish bowl type) and stack them.
   
2. Add buttons for eyes and buttons with Glue Dots.
   
3. Twist a chenille stem for the carrot nose & attach with Zip Dry.
   
4. Cut a scarf from felt and embellish with ric rac. Glue one strip to rim of middle bowl and then use the other strip to create the hanging ends of the scarf.
   
5. The trickiest part is the hat; sandwich chipboard cirlce between two 5" circles. Form a cylinder with strip of paper using the 2.5" as a guide. Glue Cylinder to 5" circle. Then attach 2.5" circle as top of hat. Allow to dry. Then add ribbon, pine cones, and holly leaves.
   
6. Filling it with candy was the hardest part but I had the kids help me. Matthew kept eating all the candy though! On some of them we wrapped candy pieces in tulle and then tied it up in a knot. On the others we filled little bags with candy and then tied them shut with ribbon.

We *might* be making these at the little get-together I am having Dec 13 if you all like it...I will send those who have RSVP'd a little note this weekend.

Have a Happy Turkey Day!! I'm off to clean my house for our guests tomorrow...

Zutterin'

Check out the Zutter Zister's website over the next few days to see everything the Design Team created this month! There are some really great ideas like placecard holders, mini books, home decor, and more!! Here's one of the projects I created this month:











I created this book for a class I taught at a local scrapbook store, Collective Journey, in Redlands, CA. I added some extras to this project that weren't included in the class, such as the journaling strips and Prima Crystal Flourishes. The book is from Kasier Craft and is made of wood with holes to be bound with binder rings. I painted all of the pages with paint and then punched holes in each one using the Bind It All V 2.0 (Pink). It punched through the pages perfectly! I bound the book using 1.25” Antique Silver O-Wires. I then covered the holes that were originally in the pages with paper and flowers. The o-wires allowed me to put a lot more ribbons and charms on the spine of the book than the binder rings would have allowed. And the book is much more stable having the binding along the entire edge of the book versus just two binder rings. You can adapt any store bought book to be bound with the Bind-It-All the same way as I did here.

Supplies:
Book – KaiserCraft
Paint, Epoxy Charms – Making Memories
Flowers – Bo Bunny Press, Prima, Making Memories, Unknown
Patterned Paper – Glitz, KI Memories
Diecuts – Accu-Cut, Sizzix
Gems, Pearls – Kaiser Craft, Me & My Big Ideas, Darice
Crystal Flourish – Prima Marketing Inc
Stick Pins – Floral Supply, Oasis
Ribbon – May Arts, Floral Supply, Joann’s, Bo Bunny
Tulle – Floral Supply
Stamps – Prima, Heidi Swapp, Technique Tuesday, Close to My Heart
Glitter Glue – Stickles
Ink – Colorbox Chalk Ink, Close to My Heart, Staz-On
Glitter, Glitter Cardstock, Flocked Brads – Doodlebug
Beads – Michael’s
Tassels - Wrights
Large Chandelier Gem – Target (Christmas Ornament)

***Added 11-26-08: Thanks for all the compliments on the book!!! It is so funny how it turned out so crazy because bling is not really my style, at least not this much! I just had a little tin with all these leftover bits from the class in it. Rather than put it all away I just kept adding more and more and more tyring to empty the tin completely. I don't think there is anyway I caould add another rhinestone to this bad boy!! LOL And Joanne, if you make a boy one I totally want to see it!!!!***

Tis' the Season

To start off the Christmas Season I started a new tradition today. Katie, Keelan, Matt, and I loaded up in the car and headed to downtown Riverside, right by the Mission Inn, for some Christmas shopping. Every year I want to go see the Festival of Lights at the Mission Inn and I never go. Luckily we got there to see them setting up all the decorations around the hotel. The kids are totally excited about going to see the lights at night so I doubt they will let me forget before Christmas ;)

Earlier this month I met up with friends Elena and Maryam at the Mission Inn where several local boutique owners and artists set up shop in a conference room to show their wares and have a little exclusive party (I was not invitied, just caught the tail end of it when I met up with E). Anyways, I never knew all of that great inspiration and good finds were right there near me!

So today I took the kids to start our new tradition. Every year I am going to take them all out shopping to pick out one Christmas Tree Ornament each. Then we'll add a little tag to it with the year and their name. When they start their own family, I'll give them a box with their "childhood" ornaments in it for them to start off their own ornament collection.

We started in Riverside and then ended up at Collective Journey in Redlands becuase Katie had seen some ornaments there that she liked. Katie chose a glass blown Christmas tree covered with cupcakes. Keelan chose a glass blown robot. I got one of those for Matt too. And then Katie got a glass snowflake for Qamar, who was at school today. Here are some photos we took along the way:































Last night I was talking to a friend about inspiration and my classes and projects. She said that my work is always "fresh". That's what I like to think! LOL For the last few months I have really been trying to stay away from scrapbooking magazines, galleries, and the like as far as places to look for inspiration. I've really been going out of my box and checking out craft fairs, boutiques, home decor sites...anywhere I can see cool color or textute combos, somewhere to see new shapes. So whenever I go on one of these little trips I am sure to take my camera so I can capture any inspiration I see and pass it along. Hopefully it will inspire you too.