Croptoberfest Reflections Spring and Summer

Croptoberfest is one of the specialty events celebrated in October by Creative Memories consultants and their customers.  The event is typically marked by a grand style workshop - many hours of cropping time and additional inspirational designs are often part of the event. 

Creative Memories provides exclusive products for use at the event.  This year the Croptoberfest products coordinate with the newest Power Palette of products issued this summer by cM.  One of these products is the Reflections Spring and Summer Additions Pack.

Look for another lesson (coming soon) giving an overview of an additions pack called, "Anatomy of an Additions Pack."  This lesson will show designs made with the spring/summer pack that were created to enhance pages in the "old school" tradition of scrapbooking.

If you are a Creative Memories consultant AND you are a public follower of my blog (become one by clicking "join this site" under my profile description) you may contact me AT THIS ADDRESS to request a handout to use with your customers and to aid your own inspirational Croptober designs.  The handout is in pdf format.  Please do not sell the handout or post it on scrapshare sites.

The reflections Spring and Summer additons pack (above) is ONLY available from your Creative Memories consultant.  If you don't already have a consultant, contact me HERE to ask about this product.

If you are looking for simple and repeatable designs, these are some of my favorite.  I use these borders over and over with different packages and colors.  I never get tired of some of these.  I love it that they are cute but also fast and easy!  The tools use to make these designs are some of the most basic and practical tools in the Creative Memories line. 

You can get the square maker HERE.

You can get the circle make HERE (cost of each $21 US)

 

You can get the puzzle maker HERE

The spring/summer pack comes with paper, photo mats, stickers and titles.  They all coordinate.  I like to use the stickers to create additional simple border designs.  I've made a few vertical and horizontal sticker/border designs.  ONE border along one side of your album page along with some photos and journaling help you to complete a page quickly and easily in the "old school style" of scrapbooking.



You'll need a 12" straight trimmer to cut strips from 12 X12 paper to complete this page.  Get a ROTARY TRIMMER from Creative Memories with a straight blade to complete the task.

The rotary trimmer is available HERE.  ($30 US)

Don't forget to journal.  What you say about your photos not only helps you to remember the details but also makes it easy to share your album with friends without having to re-tell every story verbally.  Journaling boxes are used in both the "old school" and the "new or scrapbook store" styles of traditional scrapbooking.  With "old school" scrapbooking, there is usually a lot of "white space" on the album page - you can write directly on a Creative Memories album page.

If you want the best pens for the job, checkout the Creative Memories dual tip pens - convenient, colorful, long-lasting and most importantly SAFE for use in your photo albums. 

   Get the pens HERE.

 and the pen case HERE.

The Chevron shaped border is a bit more work, but also a lot of fun.  Do yourself a favor and purchase a pair of scissors (try these) to keep with your scrapbook supplies for your use only!

Designs like these giant borders distinguish "old school" style scrapbooking from the new looks.

I hope these designs have given you some ideas about how to break apart and use an additions pack in the "old school" scrapbook style.  I also hope I was able to give you fast and easy ideas about how to create artsy designs using the most basic Creative Memories tools.  Happy Scrapping!

"Reflecting" on Halloween Pages

The newest Creative Memories Power Palette is called Reflections - I've been thinking a lot about reflections lately -I guess you could say I've been "reflecting" on the idea.

I came across this digital Halloween themed page layout on the Creative Memories Digital Project Center.  What I love best about this layout (besides the fact that it's awful cute) is ONE - it showcases SIX photos - while impact, single photo pages can be very powerful, I like to put a lot of photos on a page.  But TWO - I REALLY LOVE the reflection of the Jack-O-Lanterns in the wooden table.

Reflections in photos add a dimensional element to the photograph - you see the item, but you see how it's attached to the world - in this case you truly know it's sitting on a table.  There are all types of reflections in photography that I delight in...mirrors, glass doors, water, raindrops, even a Christmas Ball... but this Halloween page shows reflection in our relevant season.




Halloween photos are some of my favorites because they are usually fun... even the scary ones are fun because they aren't REAL scary, they are manufactured scary, inventive scary.

Reflect on YOUR Halloween Haunting this season and get in the "frame" of mind to make some scary pages.  Happy Digi-Scrapping.

Friday Freebie Alert - Marching Band

Creative Memories offers weekly digital freebie png files for use with your digital scrapbooking.  Check out the MARCHING BAND theme by clicking HERE.

Think Pink - the traditional way

I have to admit, many of my own albums are now digital scrapbooking creations.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Storybook Creator Plus (now at version 4.0) software and find it hard to keep myself away from it.  But, every now and again, I really just want to sit down in a big mess of supplies, paper and tape and create scrapbook designs the traditional way.

Today - I spent time with the Think Pink traditional scrapbook paper pack (which also includes die cuts).  Click on the link above to purchase it.



and the Think Pink traditional scrapbook embellishment pack. Click to purchase.



The paper is gorgeous.  I love the soft shimmer to the light pink paper and the shiny silver elements on both the paper and the embellishment.  I love it that Creative Memories products coordinate rather than match.  I am not a matchy-matchy girl but I love the ease of coordinating products.

In the paper pack, note that all the 12X12 paper (and the 12X12 die cut page too) is double sided.  This means more bang for the buck.  I like to use full page designs AND to create borders and other embellishments by cutting the paper apart.  The way Creative Memories packages their products, I can do both.

Did you know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?  If you've seen any NFL games lately, you'll know that because all the football players find ways to incorporate the color pink into their uniforms. 

A few weeks ago I played around with the Think Pink Digital Kit for PC.  It's also available in a MAC version (RIP Steve Jobs). It was a great package to work with and I created an 8+ page tutorial and a few digital freebies using my digital Think Pink ideas.  Check out the Think Pink Digital blog post here.

In Creative Memories land, October is ALSO the month for Croptoberfest Specialty events.  My Croptoberfest event takes place in a few weeks and I'm working now to get all of my ideas and inspirations complete so I can share them with my event attendees.  I plan to donate ALL of my Think Pink pages and borders to anyone in my customer base who is working on a page about Breast Cancer survivors, or who is participating in Breast Cancer walks, runs, etc...

Here are the full page spreads that I came up with:

The photo above is a pretty good representation of the pink colors as they really are.

The rest of these pinks are a lighter shade and in the fading natural light of the day - and the lack of a white balanced lighting studio, I had a really hard time capturing the real color.  The pages with the soft shimmery paper were really tough to capture as they played with the light in an odd way and unfortunately, light and color exceeded my photography skills so I aplogize for the bad photos of this and the next few pages.  Check back in a few days - if I can capture them better in good light tomorrow I may replace the photos in this post with new and improved ones.

I also cut apart some of the products in the pack to create traditional Think Pink borders.  Here are the borders I created. (NOTE:  I added a piece of black paper for the designs directly below - it does not come with the Think Pink pack)

At my Croptoberfest event, attendees will have a chance to earn tickets for prizes.  One of the way to earn tickets is by purchasing Think Pink Products.

Check out the new Ribbon Maker.  Click its name to purchase it.


 

I love this product because it can not only be used to create Breast Cancer pages, but by punching other colors of paper, the Ribbon Maker can be used to advertise, or memorialize other causes as well.

Check out more ideas with the Think Pink pack from the Creative Memories Project Center.

Like these:


 
Oh, and by the way... if you purchase any of the Think Pink products from Creative Memories, a portion of the sales from each product is being donated to support Breast Cancer Research.

Start THINKING PINK today!

Tag Maker goes Tombstone!

In addition to my SherYourScraps blog, I author another blog called FlytheCoopCrafts.  Today I did a project that crosses over the two blogs... I used Creative Memories tools to create a Halloween Craft.

Check out my Tombstone Paint Chip Bunting Tutorial over at my other blog.

Freebie Alert Cheerleading

Freebie Alert.  Every Friday Creative Memories offers FREE digital PNG files to use with your scrapbooking software.  If you're a PC user, consider Storybook Creator PLUS 3.0 (on sale now for half price - $32) if you're on a MAC  try sbcStudio. (sbc Studio download offers FREE 30 day trial)  These freebies (cheerleading) can be downloaded for use with either software package and any others that use PNG files.  To download these freebies, click here.

Hurricane Balls EASY workshop YUM!

Here's an EASY recipe to bring to a workshop.  It requires no baking, or cooking of any kind.  Give them a try, they never disappoint!  Here's a link to the recipe and instructions.

Think Pink Digital Scrapbooking

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  In honor of that, I thought I'd use some of the new Think Pink digital scrapbooking products from Creative Memories to create some digital art and page layout ideas.

All of the designs in the tutorials below were created using Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus 3.0 software.  NOTE:  Version 4.0 of SBC+ is due out from Creative Memories any day now (impatiently waiting).  I've seen the HUGE list of new features included in version 4.0 and WOW!!!  The software is already awesome, I'm really excited to get my hands on the new tools and features in 4.0

The instruction pages in this post are available as a multi-page pdf handout for FREE to anyone who is a public follower of my blog.  If you'd like a copy for your personal use or to share with friends (please do not sell this handout or post it on scrapshare sites) - contact me by email.  Please tell me you are a follower, list the name you're following with and name the handout you'd like to receive.  Click HERE to make the request.

Here is the link to the Think Pink Digital Kit which you can purchase as a download.

There is a GIRL SYMBOL FREEBIE file at the end of this post.

The PUZZLE piece I used in the title above is available as a FREEBIE further down in this post.

I find most of my free downloadble fonts at DAFONT.  Check them out!

The picture below is of the Cheerful Spring Additions pack - this is the kit that I got the tree from.  Here is the link to purchase the cheerful spring kit.

Here is the link to the ROCK STAR DIGITAL KIT where I got the butterfly wings.

Here is a reference to pdf files that show EVERY digital art package that Creative Memories makes.  Click on any link to see clear pictures of the embellishments included in each package.  Keep this link handy for the future.  I use it all the time.

Think Pink ideas for Traditional Scrapbookers coming soon - stay tuned!  Happy Digi Scrapping -

School Supplies for Your Digital Pages

Happy Back to School.

Today was the first day of school for my high school kids.  It was a good day to be in school.  The rain came down in buckets all day and instead of sweating in a sleevless dress like yesterday, I wore a fleece pullover and fuzzy slippers around the house!

Fortunately - it didn't rain during FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL photo time at 6:50am - and that was about the ONLY 10 minutes it didn't rain.

My kids came home from school with very few requests for supplies.  But, they both needed composition books, and graph paper.  AND...they both needed a calculator.  My sophomore got a hand me down TI-84 but my senior informed me that he needed a TI-89... so THAT was a big purchase!  Besides, he's going into engineering and he'll probably need it in college so I guess buying it now is not a big deal.  If you aren't familiar with calculators, the TI89 is a whopping $130+ buckaroos!

I had a stash of composition notebooks from buying them on sale ($1 each at Staples this summer).  I've always been attracted to composition books - don't know why.  In our day, they only came in black.  These days, the sky is the limit.

So - in honor of high school supplies, I've created some Composition book and Graph Paper pages.

These pages were made using Creative Memories Storybook Creator PLUS 3.0.  Get a downloaded version 50% off thru mid-September HERE.  (software on sale for $33 US)

Here is how the big page looks.

If you'd prefer to make some fancier composition books, here's how:

Here's how the big pages look:

If composition books aren't your style, try some graph paper:

Here's how a graph paper page might look.

Here are some of the Creative Memories packages I used to create these digital pages:

Textures Digital Embellishments - Basic Digital Embellishments - Vintage Romance Power Palette (no longer available but there is a digital KIT which is similar)  - Cheerful Power Palette.  Most of these digital kits are 50% off right now!

Happy Digi Scrapping!