Crate Paper

Crate Color Challenge - Winner!

Hi everyone! It's Tara here and today is the day I get to announce our Crate Color Challenge winner for the month of May! Thank you to all who submitted their summery (and Fall-ish) layouts, cards and tags. I love seeing that so many of you were inspired not only by the colors this month but also by my mention of paint! 

We're happy to announce our Color Winner as: Cassandra Cyr! 

scrapbook artist: Cassandra Cyr

I love how Cassandra used a combination of white papers and doilies, to create a subtle but textured background combined with pops of color here and there. I thought her page was not only visually interesting but also a playful take on this month's color combination. Congrats Cassandra! Please email us at cpblog@cratepaper.com to claim your prize! 

I also wanted to share another layout that I thought was a fun take on the classic Chevron pattern. 

scrapbook artist: Brenda Booth

If you look closely at this layout Brenda created, you'll notice that she constructed the Chevron pattern by piecing together small patterned triangles. I love the almost patchwork-quilt feel to her layout! 

Lastly, quite possibly the cutest baby card I've seen! I loved everything about this card, down to the little pink button! 

scrapbook artist: Dana 

Thank you all again for joining me in Crate's May Color Challenge and a very big thank you to everyone who contributed their wonderful projects! Mark your calendars for June - we have something new and exciting that we'll be introducing to next month's Color Challenge that you won't want to miss out on!

Happy Monday! ~ Tara 

May Crate Color Challenge!

Hi everyone! Tara here with an all new Color Palette challenge for the month of May but first - I'd like to announce the winner of my Pretty Party Giveaway! Our lucky winner is: 

My husband bought me a coffee maker for my birthday this year and because he doesn't drink (or even like the smell of) coffee, it was a completely selfless gift. The best kind!

Posted by: Angela Fehr

Congratulations Angela! Pleas email us your contact info to cpblog@cratepaper.com

~

Challenge time!

May is certainly the start of summer for us, hot days spent in the pool and the warm evenings are perfect for neighborhood bike rides. I also think May is a perfect month for jumping into some new light summery colors! In doing so, I decided to challenge myself a bit with the color combination this month. I wanted to step outside my typical comfy color choices and choose a combination that 1. didn't include pink and 2. was more suited for everyday type photos. Hopefully you'll like the colors this month and will be inspired to create something lovely for the challenge! 

This month's color combination is: Marshmallow White, Marigold Orange and Aqua Blue

and our inspiration wire:

Just a few guide-lines for the challenge before we start:

- You may submit a card, layout or project to be eligible. Projects need to be submitted by: May 13th please email your work to: cpblog@cratepaper.com

- You may use the colors in any proportion you wish, as long as you use all 3 colors in the palette. And you may add black, white or kraft paper to the colors.

- Projects must use at least 75% Crate Paper - you may mix any paper lines you like, old and new.

- The winner will be announced on: May 14th (Monday), and I'll share some of my favorite projects here on the blog.

- The winner will be selected based on creativity and quality of work.

~

The color combination this month reminded me a bit of water color paints. Something about a teal blue and orange together that's very playful and artsy! I took my cue from that very inspiration and decided to do a little painting on my own layout! (If you find your paper warping a bit after the paint dries, try using an iron, set at the lowest setting and carefully iron the backside of the paper.)

I decided to use the aqua blue as my main color paired with a multiple layers of white paper and fabric and the orange acted as an accent color. I love playing with different proportions of each color until I find just the right combination for my layout! I thought these photos of my kids and their friend complimented the playful colors this month and I was happy to finally have a reason to use them! 

My favorite part of this layout (other than the photos) is this little button card I created from a small piece of fabric. I sewed white buttons from both the new Pretty Party and the StoryTeller Collections to make a textured focal point of the layout and I love the one stand-out orange button amongst the layers of white! 

 It's your turn now! Sort through your Crate paper and pull the matching colors and let's get creative! I'll be back later on this weekend to update the submission date for our color challenge so please check back soon for that date and I look forward to seeing your projects! Good luck everyone and Happy Creating

~ Tara

 

April Crate Color Challenge ~ Winner!

Hello all! Tara here today to announce our April Color Challenge winner! Thank you all so much for contributing your projects this month! We've had lots of pretty layouts, crafty projects and sweet cards to look through and I believe we've chosen a winner! 

The April Challenge winner is: Elena Stefanidou

We loved not only the arrangement of overlapping tags and journal stickers but also the use of this month's color combination! The use of bright yellow in contrast to the black and white really made Elena's It's About Time layout truly stand out as a winner! Congrats Elena!

I'd like to share a couple of layouts that also caught our eye! With each new entry that we receive here at Crate Paper I really look forward to seeing how each person intreprets the color palatte. As you can see in the examples below, the color white was quite dominant this month, when mixed with our red-blue-yellow combo! 

scrap artist: Christin Gronnslett

scrap artist: Marina Garcia 

scrap artist: Brenda Booth

~

Well friends, that wraps up this month's Color Challenge winner and featured artists! Thanks again for joining me and I hope to see you next month for a very Springy inspired color palette! Happy Monday ~ Tara 

April Crate Color Challenge

Hello-hello Crate fans! Tara here today to kick off the month with a brand new Color Challenge! Do you know what the month of April is? I'm happy to say that this April makes 1 year that I've been posting the Color Challenges here at Crate! ~ Here's to another year of color! 

Alright, back to business. With Summer vacation right around the corner (only 6 more weeks!) I've been daydreaming about how we are going to spend 3 glorious months of no homework or hectic schedules! This month's color combination is very much inspired by vacations and traveling.  

The color palette for this month is: Fuschia Pink - Map Blue - Canary Yellow 

and the inspiration wire for this month: 

Just a few guide-lines for the challenge before we start:

- You may submit a card, layout or project to be eligible. Projects need to be submitted by midnight (EST) April 15th. Please email your work to: cpblog@cratepaper.com

- You may use the colors in any proportion you wish, as long as you use all 3 colors in the palette. And you may add black, white or kraft paper to the colors.

- Projects must use at least 75% Crate Paper - you may mix any paper lines you like, old and new.

- The winner will be announced on April 16th and I'll share some of my favorite projects here on the blog.

- The winner will be selected based on creativity and quality of work.

~

For my first project, I decided to go the road less traveled and create a shadow box. I happen to pick up this frame from Ikea over the weekend and wanted to create something that included an A and a R (my husband's and my onw last name intials), for our front entry room.  I forgot how much fun using a shadow box can be, especially when you like to use lots of chipboard pieces and foam pop-dots!

I started this piece by hand cutting a few butterflies from the Story Teller collection. I played with the arrangement of chipboard pieces and the butterflies until I liked the configuration and then used lots of foam pop-dots to add height to each of the layers of paper.  

These pretty flowers were cut out of Random's - Vintage paper. 

 

and here's my finished Shadow Box frame, hung and displayed! 

 For my second project, I wanted to create a very small piece of framed art. I sometimes find it challenging to work with such a small size, this frame measures slightly larger than the size of an atc card. However, much like the shadow box frame I created, I layered little bits of paper in the center and used a snippet from a vintage map as my base paper. 

I also tucked in a vintage gold foil photo corner in between some of the layers of paper. I really like combining contrasting textures and colors into my projects!  

 

It's your turn now! I hope you'll be inspired to create something lovely using Crate's April color combination!  I'll be back on the 16th to showcase some of my favorite entries and to announce the winner of this month's color challenge. Good luck everyone and Happy Creating ~ Tara

 

 

Crate Color Challenge - Winner!

Hey everyone! Tara here to announce this month's color challenge winner! Thank you so much for all of your submissions, I know it was a challenging palette but I was excited to see so many entries come in! I sometimes think it's fun to push our create boundaries a bit and introducing new color to our work is a great way to start!

The winner of the March Color Challenge is: Lynne Stewart

 

We loved the way Lynne incorporated the color palette into an eye catching chevron print! It's quite creative and very pretty. A bold patten combined with a sweet photo and a splash of ink splatters made Lynne's submission a winning project this month! Congrats Lynne! 

I also wanted to share another layout that caught our attention! Eva Pizarro sent us this beautiful layout. I was excited to see that Eva was able to combine both of my color palettes for this month and I might also have a special fondness for paper pinwheels. 

 

 

Thank you all again for joining me in Crate's March Color Challenge and a very big thank you to everyone who contributed their wonderful projects! Don't forget to pop in next month for an all new color combination - it's going to be a very Pretty April!  Happy Wednesday to you! 

March Crate Color Challenge!

 

Hello-hello! Tara here again and since it's this first Friday of the month that can only mean one thing.... Color Challenge time! I'm super excited about this challenge, so excited that I've added a little something extra for the first time this month! March, for us here in the Southwest is the beginning of Spring. Flowers are blooming, tiny succulent gardens are being planted and the days are warm and sunny. For this month I knew I had to use the great outdoors as my inspiration!

The color palette for this month is: champange peach - emerald green - charchol grey

and the inspiration wire: 

 

and here's the extra part of this challenge! I couldn't decide on which color combination I liked more, so I decided 2 would be better than one! Feel free to choose from either palette this month. (Or you can use all the colors together as I did!) 

palette #2 - tulip pink - champange peach - emerald green

Just a few guide-lines for the challenge before we start:

- You may submit a card, layout or project or mini album to be eligible. Projects need to be submitted by midnight (EST) March 12th . Please email your work to: cpblog@cratepaper.com

- You may use the colors in any proportion you wish, as long as you use all 3 colors in the palette. And you may add black, white or kraft paper to the colors.

- Projects must use at least 75% Crate Paper - you may mix any paper lines you like, old and new.

- The winner will be announced on March 14th and I'll share some of my favorite projects here on the blog.

- The winner will be selected based on creativity and quality of work.

~

I love creating little pieces of art-work to hang on the walls of my craft room and this gave me a great reason to put to use the journal cards from the Story Teller collection!  (You're going to LOVE the Story Teller collection, the papers are so versatile!) I sewed a quick fabric banner and pieced together a tiny ticket stub, and a layered paper embellishment complete with a sparkly emerald. With the help of a little metal clip, my wall art is ready for hanging! 

 

My love of confetti and sequins has evolved into a love of circles. I really the look of using one shape for the 'base' of a layout. Here, for my Carry On layout, I mixed up various sized circles in different colors. Did I already mention that you are going to love-love the new Story Teller collection.... just making sure! (I also used paper from the Paper Heart, Peppermint, and Random collections.)

 

My last contribution for the challenge is a simple layered card for a sweet friend. I've mentioned before that I have a tendency to use fabric along side paper in almost everything I make! I created this little card by combining a layer of fabric and a layer of paper until I had enough contrasting colors and then added a chipboard typewriter and my title.

 

Alright friends those are my projects - now it's your turn! I hope you'll be inspired to create something lovely this month using our color combination and I'll be back on the 14th to showcase some of your artwork and to share the winner of the March Color Challenge!

Happy Creating! ~ Tara

 

Crate Color Challenge - Winner! (Part 2)

Hey everyone! It's Tara, again. I'm so excited to be back today mainly in part because I'm announcing 2 more winners from our Color Challenge this month! Due to a slight mix-up in the office I realized that I didn't received all of the color-entries and to be perfectly fair I felt these two projects were worthy of recognition as challenge winners! 

Congrats to Gladys Chia! 

I think this card is simply beautiful and perfect for Valentines Day! The colors are stunning too! 

 

and Congrats to: Amber E.!

 

We loved Amber's sweet layout and I loved the garland of locks and keys - it pairs perfectly with the title of her layout too! 

Thank you for joining me today for a part 2 of my Color Challenge! Have a lovely crafty weekend everyone! ~ Tara

Crate Color Challenge - Winner!

Hi friends! It's Tara here this morning to announce our February Color Challenge winner! I'll tell you a little secret: this color combination was my favorite so far! So, it really didn't surprise us that we received so many entries and sweet comments about this color palette! We were greeted with everything from traditional scrapbook layouts to cards, a few altered projects and even a Project Life page (our first ever!) - we loved seeing such a wide variety of submissions. Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate, I really do love seeing how each person interprets these color palettes! 

The winner for the February Color Challenge is: 

Vanessa Menhorn

 

We loved Vanessa's layered lollipop flowers and the cute embellished flower pot! I think this would be such a sweet Valentines Day project - be sure to bookmark this for next year! Congrats Vanessa! 

I'll share a few more of our favorites from this challenge!

Scrap Artist: Audrey 

 

Scrap Artist: Johanna

 

Scrap Artist: Flo

 

Scrap Artist: Trine

 

Scrap Artist: Kim 

 

Thank you all again for joining me in Crate's February Color Challenge and a very big thank you to everyone who contributed their wonderful projects! Don't forget to pop in next month for an all new color combination - it's already in the works. Happy Wednesday to you! 

 

February Crate Color Challenge!

Hello-hello! Tara here and now that the excitement from CHA is winding down, I'm ready for a new month and brand new color challenge! I hope you are too! With this month hosting Valentines Day and all things red and heart shaped, I was determined to choose a combination that maybe wasn't quite as expected but still just as pretty! 

 

The color palette for this month is: Peachy Pink - Tropical Coral - Misty Grey 

 

and the inspiration wire:

 

 

Just a few guide-lines for the challenge before we start:

- You may submit a card, layout or project to be eligible. Projects need to be submitted by midnight (EST) February 13th . Please email your work to: cpblog@cratepaper.com

- You may use the colors in any proportion you wish, as long as you use all 3 colors in the palette. And you may add black, white or kraft paper to the colors.

- Projects must use at least 75% Crate Paper - you may mix any paper lines you like, old and new.

- The winner will be announced on February 15th and I'll share some of my favorite projects here on the blog.

- The winner will be selected based on creativity and quality of work.

~

Since it is February and with Valentines Day approaching, I took the oppurtunity to work with Crate's new Paper Hearts collection. (I also mixed in a few of the older lines: Portrait, Neighborhood, Random and Emma's Shoppe. The colors in this month's combination can be found in almost any of the past collections!) Heart's abound this month and the first can be seen in a card I made for my own sweetheart!

 

 

In my one of my most used techniques I pieced together layers of fabric mixed with paper! I love the texture that fabric lends itself to small paper projects.

 

 

Valentines Day also seems like the perfect reason to create a little framed artwork. Simple punched paper shapes were layered and sewn together. Choosing a gold ornate thrift-shop frame was a great contrast to the pinks & coral combination. I recycled a thankyou card as the base for my artwork (the black & white stripe paper) and found a lovely flocked tulle to break up the bold pattern a bit. 

 

(most of these little embellishments were gifted to me by my sweet friend Christine!) 

 

My last project is a layout with a very subtle pattern that creates a delicate overall look and pops of rich color. Each of grey shaped pieces were hand-cut using a painting stencil. I was able to break up the stencil look by using 3 types of grey-ish papers; a solid card-stock, a patterned paper, and a doily lace paper. 

 

 

My pops of color came in the form of a vintage table-number card and a small handmade silk flower both of which draw your eye up towards the flower photo. (Which by the way is not a true instax photo.... shhhh! don't tell anyone!) 

 

 

Well friends those are my projects - now it's time to sort through your Crate Paper! I hope you'll be inspired to create something lovely this month using our color combination and I'll be back on the 15th to showcase some of your artwork and to share the winner of the February Color Challenge!

Happy Creating! ~ Tara

 

Crate Color Challenge - Winner!

 

Hello everyone! Tara here to announce the winner of our December Color Challenge! I just wanted to say, that I was a little hesitant about this month's color combination. I wasn't sure if it was going to be popular amongst our Crate fans but the entries I received this month were absolutely wonderful! We have never had a month where all entries were layouts and (I'll confess) we oohed and ahhed at each of them. I can't wait to share them with you! But first, we have chosen a winner for December and the winner is:

 

 Nao Honbo 

 

We thought her layout was beautiful! I loved the series of photos and the combination of Crate collections. Congrats Nao on your lovely December layout! 

Now to share more inspiring layouts from our fans! 

scrapbook artist: Az

 

scrapbook artist: Tina Walker

 

scrapbook artist: Kim Stewart

 

scrapbook artist: Lilith Eeckels

 

scrapbook artist: Piradee 

 

A very big thank you for making Crate's Color Challenge so much fun this month! Oh how we love to see your work! Please join us next week for more Christmas inspired projects and even a few giveaways!