New Video: Preparing for a Mini Album

Hi, everyone!

This Saturday is the April 2011 Virtual Crop on The Beach ~ YAY! For my crop project, I'll be decorating a paper bag album with the K & Company "Flora and Fauna" collection. The album itself is based on a design from Kathy Orta. I have made some minor modifications to her original design {mostly to the binding} and have uploaded a video over on my YouTube channel for you to see her version and my changes: Kathy Orta's Paper Bag Album.

Typically when I am getting ready to work on a mini album, I will go through my entire stash and pull out things I think I might want to use in the mini. I gather way more than I could ever fit into an album {it's nice to have options!}, but it is a lot easier to pick from this pile of supplies than to go through my entire stash looking for just the right element. Just for fun, I made a video of the pile I gathered together for the "Flora & Fauna" paper bag album so you could get an idea of what the floor of my scrap room looks like when I am working on an album since that's where all this stuff ends up! :D Check ot the video on YouTube by clicking this link, or watch below: Preparing for a Mini Album.



If you want to follow along during the crop, you can go ahead an assemble your bags as shown in the first video linked in this post, but DON'T glue anything down {except the chipboard piece shown in the video}. You want to decorate the bags with your papers before you start gluing! Also, rummage through you scrap suppplies and start pulling together a pile of your own ~ you'll be surprised at all the cool things you can find to use right at home!

To see Kathy's original video, click here: New Paper Bag Album. She has a very inspiring nine part series on assembling the bags and decorating them with the Tim Holtz "Lost and Found" collection.

The crop will be from 3:00-6:00 PM and from 9:00PM-Midnight on April 2, 2011. All times are Eastern USA. Hope you can join us! To go to my UStream Channel, click here: Live on The Beach!

I hope you enjoy the video & that you'll come party with us on Saturday!

~Kathryn :D
Give me two Piña Coladas

New Video: Kathy Orta's Paper Bag Album

Hi, everyone!

This Saturday is the April 2011 Virtual Crop on The Beach ~ YAY! For my crop project, I'll be decorating a paper bag album with the K & Company "Flora and Fauna" collection. The album itself is based on a design from Kathy Orta. I have made some minor modifications to her original design {mostly to the binding} and have uploaded a new video over on my YouTube channel for you to see her version and my changes. You can watch the video below, or over on YouTube by clicking this link: Kathy Orta's Paper Bag Album.



If you want to follow along during the crop, you can go ahead an assemble your bags, but DON'T glue anything down {except the chipboard piece shown in the video}. You want to decorate the bags with your papers before you start gluing!

To see Kathy's original video, click here: New Paper Bag Album. She has a very inspiring nine part series on assembling the bags and decorating them with the Tim Holtz "Lost and Found" collection.

The crop will be from 3:00-6:00 PM and from 9:00PM-Midnight on April 2, 2011. All times are Eastern USA. Hope you can join us! To go to my UStream Channel, click here: Live on The Beach!

I hope you enjoy the video & that you'll come party with us on Saturday!

~Kathryn :D
Getting a bikini and a Piña Colada

SOLD ~ THANKS! Graphic 45 "Curtain Call" Paper + Stamp Bundle

Hi, everyone!

I went a little crazy affter CHA and I overbought some of the Grapic 45 "Curtain Call" papers and stamps, so I have an extra set for sale right now if you're interested!

Graphic 45 "Curtain Call" bundle contains the following:

One Graphic 45 "Curtain Call" 12"x12" paper pad:




One Graphic 45 "Curtain Call" 8"x8" paper pad:




One Graphic 45 "Curtain Call" stamp set #2:




The bundle sells for $30.00 + shipping and insurance via USPS Priority Mail service. When checking out, please be sure to select your country from the drop down menu below. Orders where the shipping address does not match the country selected will be immediately refunded & you may lose the purchase.

The bundle is already boxed up and waiting by the door to be shipped out the next business day after payment clears. I only have one bundle, so don't hesitate if you're interested!

~Kathryn :D
paper pusher

New Videos: Graphic 45 Featured Artist, Day Two!

Hi, everyone!

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who left me such nice comments here yesterday, on the Graphic 45 blog and on The Beach! I love all of you guys & I appreciate your kind words SO much!!!! :D :D :D I was so touched by the wonderful blog write up Graphic 45 did for me & also for the wonderful, wonderful things all of my dear friends from blogland said about me. Now let's get to the good stuff! :D Graphic 45 and I have a nice treat for you today!

Last week I woke up to a notification from YouTube that Graphic 45 had "liked" one of my videos and subscribed to my YouTube channel. That was pretty exciting in and of itself, but later that day I received an email from Graphic 45's blog writer, Kelly Woessner, asking me if I would be interested in being a Featured Artist on their blog. {It turns out some little birdies had been chirping in their ear about my latest creations with their papers ~ thank you so much, little birdies!}

Of course I agreed, and today is the second day of a two-day feature. Yesterday's Graphic 45 blog post highlights past creations and tutorials of mine. Today's Graphic 45 blog post features THREE brand new creations AND step-by-step tutorial videos that I designed and filmed just for them! There are over forty minutes of brand spanking new new video for you to enjoy + still photos over on their blog, so go check it out & ENJOY!!! :D :D :D

I hope you have a good time watching all the videos & a great weekend!

~Kathryn :D
Graphic 45 Featured Artist

Graphic 45 Featured Artist!

Hi, everyone!

Last week I woke up to a notification from YouTube that Graphic 45 had "liked" one of my videos and subscribed to my YouTube channel. That was pretty exciting in and of itself, but later that day I received an email from Graphic 45's blog writer, Kelly Woessner, asking me if I would be interested in being a Featured Artist on their blog. {It turns out some little birdies had been chirping in their ear about some of my latest creations with their papers ~ thank you so much, little birdies!} Of course I agreed, so today is the first day of a two-day feature. Today's Graphic 45 blog post will highlight past creations and tutorials of mine. Tomorrow's blog post will feature THREE brand new creations AND tutorial videos that I designed just for this feature!

Thanks for stopping by!

~Kathryn :D
Graphic 45 Featured Artist

P.S. There is UStream today at 2:00 PM and 9:00 PM Eastern USA time & I will be working on the "Family Circus" album using the Graphic 45 Le Cirque papers. I'll also be giving more details on the April crop and my take on Kathy's paper bag album design. Hope to see you there!

New Video: Scalloped Opening Tag Pocket

Hi, everyone!

I have another new tutorial for you guys! This one is from my "Sisters" gate-fold album. Using the Graphic 45 "Once Upon A Springtime" papers, I recreated one of the tag pockets from the album. This is the pocket with the scalloped opening. You can see the original in the following video, starting two minutes and thirty seconds into the recording: Sisters Album.

I had gotten a request to show how to make that pocket with the scalloped opening, so I did a tutorial video & uploaded it over on my YouTube channel for you. You can watch it below, or you can check it out on YouTube here: Scalloped Opening Tag Pocket.



I hope you enjoyed the video & the completed project! I'll be crossing that tutorial off my "to do" list, too! Yay! Love it when the project request list gets shorter and not longer. I have a dream of one day having fewer than ten requests on that list ~ think it will ever come true? LOL!

~Kathryn :D
Tutorial Maven

New Video: "Christen" Layout

Hi, everyone!

I have a new layout video for you guys. I created this layout for the weekly challenge in the "Glue It Down & Use It Up" group on The Beach. The challenge this week {well, last week actually, but I am a little late getting this video up} was to combine old stash with new stash on a layout. The papers are old: Basic Grey "Lily Kate" and Pink Paislee "Spring Fling". The flowers, leaves and bling are all new {to me} Primas. I used up a pack of Prima flowers and finished off two packs of Prima bling that had just a few swirls left ~ talk about using it up! Yahoo!

I filmed the whole layout coming together & I uploaded the tutorial over on my YouTube channel last night. You can watch it below, or you can check it out on YouTube here: Christen Layout.



I hope you enjoyed the video & the completed project! Feels good to be using stuff up and getting layouts done! Yay! The challenge for this week is to use up some journaling spots, so I am on a mission to figure out something to do with all the journaling spots that I collect but don't really use ~ mainly because of my love affair with grid paper.

~Kathryn :D
Lovin' the Layouts

Life Lessons from a Butterfly

Hi, everyone! I hope by now you're all recovered from the crop this weekend! I had a great time, despite UStream being a colossal pain in the ... neck.

I wanted to share with you one of the layouts I created with some of my photos from my birthday trip to the butterfly preserve. We were lucky enough to see a butterfly emerging from his chrysalis & it got me thinking about some changes in my life. I tend to be pretty resistant to change, but I have had some pretty dramatic ones forced upon me. Some of these, I never would have chosen for myself, but they ended up being very, very good for me. So with all that in mind, I created this layout:





The titles of this layout is "Changes" and the quote by Richard Buckminster Fuller to the side of the photo array reads: There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. This quote struck me particularly because sometimes when change is before me, there is no part of me that thinks it is going to be good. When looking at the caterpillar, it is hard to imagine the butterfly.

The tab at the top right of the layout that reads "NOTES" is actually a journaling tag. It pulls out to reveal my thoughts from watching the butterfly emerge ~ basically what I've written in this blog post about embracing change.

The background paper with the butterflies, as well as the cream and black polka dot paper, are from the Prima "Flights of Fancy" paper collection. The ledger style paper is from the Making Memories 8"x8" Slice Ledger pad. The green damask strip, the cream text strip with the black damask and the red bordered tag that reads "Avian" are from the 7 Gypsies "Conservatory" collection. All edges are distressed with the Zutter Distrezz-It-All & then inked with Ranger Distress Ink in "Tea Dye". The key is from the K & Company "Life's Journey" embellishments and the butterfly is cut from the background paper {under the photo, where you can't see}. The title letters are from the Making Memories "Noteworthy" collection & the small alphas are from Making Memories as well. The pearls are from Close to My Heart & the tiny paper clip is from Tim Holtz.

I hope you enjoyed the layout! If you'd like to see it coming together, I worked on it during the Virtual Crop. You can see the recordings below:

"Changes" Layout, Part One
"Changes" Layout, Part Two

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed the layout!

~Kathryn :D
ch-ch-ch-changes

March 2011 Crop Challenge #6: Triangulating

Pythagoras has nothing on me!

The prize for this challenge is my set of chipboard diecuts.

Forming a triangle around a page element such as a photo or journaling spot is a way of unconsciously telling your viewer that wwhat's inside the photo is important. In this layout by Dawn Edwards, the eye is pulled to the photo by the three yellow elements surrounding it:




To participate in this challenge, create a layout utilizing a visual triangle. The layout may be any size {12"x12", 8.5"x11", 8"x8", 6"x12", etc.} and can be either a one-page or two-page layout, but it MUST have photos AND journaling to be considered complete.

Enter the challenge by posting a link/links to your submissions BELOW by 9:00 p.m. on Monday, March 7, 2011. The link/links can either be to a photo of your entry in an online gallery {like The Beach!}, or to a video on your YouTube channel or to a post on your personal blog ~ wherever!

Remember that you have until 9:00 p.m. on Monday {that's Miami, FL EDT USA time which is GMT-5} so you have until then to submit an entry for each challenge. Prize winners will be chosen randomly on Monday and posted in a new "March 2011 Crop Prize Winners" thread in the "Official Beach Announcements" forum on The Beach.

That's it for challenges this month ~ have fun creating! Can't wait to see what you come up with!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.

March 2011 Crop Challenge #5: Three + Three = Nine?

See? I told you I was really bad at math.

The prize for this challenge is Lori's Tim Holtz hammer.

It pleases our eye to see like items clustered in groups of three. What's even better is to see three groups of three! So to participate in this challenge, create a layout clustering page elements into three groups of three. An example would be the way the buttons have been grouped in the below layout.




To participate in this challenge, create a layout in which you arrange your page elements in three groups of three. The layout may be any size {12"x12", 8.5"x11", 8"x8", 6"x12", etc.} and can be either a one-page or two-page layout, but it MUST have photos AND journaling to be considered complete.

Enter the challenge by posting a link/links to your submissions BELOW by 9:00 p.m. on Monday, March 7, 2011. The link/links can either be to a photo of your entry in an online gallery {like The Beach!}, or to a video on your YouTube channel or to a post on your personal blog ~ wherever!

Remember that you have until 9:00 p.m. on Monday {that's Miami, FL EDT USA time which is GMT-5} so you have until then to submit an entry for each challenge. Prize winners will be chosen randomly on Monday and posted in a new "March 2011 Crop Prize Winners" thread in the "Official Beach Announcements" forum on The Beach.

You will get one entry for each challenge you participate in, so get ready to scrap! The next challenge will be posted at 11:00 p.m. Miami time!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.

March 2011 Crop Challenge #4: Love Notes

Think of journaling as your love notes to your family & get ready to write some out!

The prizes for this challenge are Belinda's Tim Coffey "Cottage Garden" embellishments.

For this challenge, make a page using layers of journaling to jot down some love notes to your family. In the below layout, I layered several journaling spots to write down lots of short notes about a day spent in Key West, FL.





To participate, create a layout in which you include layers of journaling spots to write some notes for a free-form, less-structured journaling. The layout may be any size {12"x12", 8.5"x11", 8"x8", 6"x12", etc.} and can be either a one-page or two-page layout, but it MUST have photos AND journaling to be considered complete.

Enter the challenge by posting a link/links to your submissions BELOW by 9:00 p.m. on Monday, March 7, 2011. The link/links can either be to a photo of your entry in an online gallery {like The Beach!}, or to a video on your YouTube channel or to a post on your personal blog ~ wherever!

Remember that you have until 9:00 p.m. on Monday {that's Miami, FL EDT USA time which is GMT-5} so you have until then to submit an entry for each challenge. Prize winners will be chosen randomly on Monday and posted in a new "March 2011 Crop Prize Winners" thread in the "Official Beach Announcements" forum on The Beach.

You will get one entry for each challenge you participate in, so get ready to scrap! The next challenge will be posted at 10:00 p.m. Miami time!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.

March 2011 Crop Challenge #3: Go with the Flow!

Z Flow, that is!

The prize for this challenge is Zeffy's set of hand beaded butterflies & a small art notebook.

Make a page using a strong Z layout. Because of how we read text, westerners tend to appproach printed materials in a Z pattern. Our eyes are trained to enter the page in the top left corner & travel in a straight line across to the upper right corner. From there, our eyes move in a diagonal from the upper right corner to the lower left corner & then across the bottom of the layout to the bottom right corner. Placing important page elements like photos or journaling along this Z pattern can aid in design, although it's not necessary for a layout to have Z Flow in order to be visually pleasing.

Take this layout for example:





In the above layout, the eye enters the page in the upper left corner and travels along the first row of photos to the upper right corner of the page. The eye then travels to the next "line" and travels along the second row of photos from left to right. The second line of photos leads right to the layout's title & then to the layout's large main photo & journaling spot.

To participate, create a layout in which you arrange your page elements according to the Z Flow design principle. The layout may be any size {12"x12", 8.5"x11", 8"x8", 6"x12", etc.} and can be either a one-page or two-page layout, but it MUST have photos AND journaling to be considered complete.

Enter the challenge by posting a link/links to your submissions BELOW by 9:00 p.m. on Monday, March 7, 2011. The link/links can either be to a photo of your entry in an online gallery {like The Beach!}, or to a video on your YouTube channel or to a post on your personal blog ~ wherever!

Remember that you have until 9:00 p.m. on Monday {that's Miami, FL EDT USA time which is GMT-5} so you have until then to submit an entry for each challenge. Prize winners will be chosen randomly on Monday and posted in a new "March 2011 Crop Prize Winners" thread in the "Official Beach Announcements" forum on The Beach.

You will get one entry for each challenge you participate in, so get ready to scrap! The next challenge will be posted at 9:00 p.m. Miami time!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.

March 2011 Crop Challenge #2: Sketch It Out

In crop challenge number two, we're getting sketchy!

The prize for this challenge is Sue's set of crocheted flowers in the winner's choice of color.

Make a layout utilizing one of both of the below sketches from Becky Fleck's March 2011 PageMaps. If you choose to use both sketches, you can be entered to win TWICE as long as you post both layouts separately & link the separately.








To participate, create one {or two!} layouts using strong the above sketches. The layout may be any size {12"x12", 8.5"x11", 8"x8", 6"x12", etc.} and can be either a one-page or two-page layout, depending on which sketch you choose, but they MUST have photos AND journaling to be considered complete.

Enter the challenge by posting a link/links to your submissions BELOW by 9:00 p.m. on Monday, March 7, 2011. The link/links can either be to a photo of your entry in an online gallery {like The Beach!}, or to a video on your YouTube channel or to a post on your personal blog ~ wherever!

Remember that you have until 9:00 p.m. on Monday {that's Miami, FL EDT USA time which is GMT-5} so you have until then to submit an entry for each challenge. Prize winners will be chosen randomly on Monday and posted in a new "March 2011 Crop Prize Winners" thread in the "Official Beach Announcements" forum on The Beach.

You will get one entry for each challenge you participate in, so get ready to scrap! The next challenge will be posted at 5:00 p.m. Miami time!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.

March 2011 Crop Challenge #1: White Out

Hi, everyone! Ready for your first crop challenge!?

The prizes for this challenge are Ruthie's CTMH "White Daisy" & "Colonial White" ink pads.

The first challenge of the new year is to make a layout utilizing strong white space. Not sure what white space is? Click here! White Space in Graphic Design. An example of a layout I did with strong white space is below.




To participate, create a layout using strong white space to highlight your page elements. The layout may be any size {12"x12", 8.5"x11", 8"x8", 6"x12", etc.} and can be either a one-page or two-page layout, but it MUST have photos AND journaling to be considered complete.

Enter the challenge by posting a link to your submission BELOW by 9:00 p.m. on Monday, March 7, 2011. The link can either be to a photo of your entry in an online gallery {like The Beach!}, or to a video on your YouTube channel or to a post on your personal blog ~ wherever!

Remember that you have until 9:00 p.m. on Monday {that's Miami, FL EDT USA time which is GMT-5} so you have until then to submit an entry for each challenge. Prize winners will be chosen randomly on Monday and posted in a new "March 2011 Crop Prize Winners" thread in the "Official Beach Announcements" forum on The Beach.

You will get one entry for each challenge you participate in, so get ready to scrap! The next challenge will be posted at 4:00 p.m. Miami time!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.

Virtual Crop Today!

Yay! Starts in just two and a half hours ~ can't wait! Check the "Watch Me Live!" section on the sidebar for the UStream link. Show starts at 3:00 PM Eastern USA time {GMT/UTC-5} and challenges will be posted here on my blog each hour! Hope to see you there!

New Video: Accordion Pocket Tutorial

Hi, everyone!

I have a new tutorial for you guys. This is another tutorial from the "Steampunk Debutante" album. Using the Graphic 45 "Once Upon A Springtime" papers, I created another of the expandable accordion folder pockets so I could show you how to do it. You can see the original in the following video, starting at 5:25: Steampunk Debutante Album.

So I filmed the pocket & I uploaded a the tutorial over on my YouTube channel for you. You can watch it below, or you can check it out on YouTube here: Accordion Pocket.



I hope you enjoyed the video & the completed project! I'll be crossing that tutorial off my "to do" list, too! Yay!

I'll be working on the "Family Circus" mini album some more in today's UStreams. For details on my UStream show, including links and showtimes, check out the "Watch Me Live!" section on the right sidebar.

~Kathryn :D
Tutorial Maven

Cards for Alyssa & Tatiana

Hi, everyone!

I was going through my phone and clearing out pictures & I realized that I told you I was going to make cards for Alyssa and Tatiana, but never showed you the completed cards! These have long since been mailed off, but I still have the pics to show you. Alyssa is doing pretty well & ran her first solo errand this week. She is still dealing with some soreness and low energy, but that will ease with time. So, on to the cards!

First, the card for Tatiana:




I wanted to keep this one simple and pretty for the new baby girl. I used a lot of my Basic Grey "Kioshi" stash and it felt good to use it up! The papers, the die cut, the canvas brad, the felt flowers & even the letter stickers are all from the collection. I used the papers and embellishments from this same collection for Alyssa's card as well.

Alyssa is a fun and quirky person and so I knew she would "get" this card and not burst into hysterics when she saw it. When we were chatting on the phone shortly after her surgery, she was telling me that during the worst of her pain {prior to the surgery} she had been doing a healing light meditation & imagining sparkling light flowing down her body from her head to her toes. She said that whenever the healing light reached the area of the kidney aneurysm, the meditation would fail & she would get no relief. The pain was just too intense. So she was less than impressed with her kidney's response to the healing, sparkling light.

Later on, I asked her if there was anything she needed that I could send {other than a black market kidney, which was, of course, the obvious choice}. We talked about different books & DVDs, and as I was getting off the phone with her, she told me to be sure that whatever kidney I bought came with healing sparkling light.

So here it is, her new sparkly kidney:




Even though the above card just looks like a bean, I actually used an anatomical drawing of a kidney to make my template, so it is an anatomically correct kidney. This turned out to be a colossal waste of my time since anatomically correct kidneys just look like beans & I probably could have free-handed a bean in about a tenth of the time it took to make the anatomically correct version. Thanks for nothing, Gray's Anatomy.

Anywho, since she asked for a sparkly kidney, I made sure to add plenty of stickles to the papers and embellishments to shine them up for her. After all ~ what good is a spare kidney if it doesn't come with glitter?

~Kathryn :D
Black market scrapbooker.