Crate Paper

The Sketch Challenge--April 2011 Edition

HAPPY FRIDAY Crate Paper friends! Have you had a chance to start playing with the new releases yet? I think my favorite part of this season's products are the eclectic button sets that each line carries. The house shape from the Neighborhood line is definitely at the top of my list, I really want to buy 5 or 6 more packs and line up a little neighborhood of houses.   

You didn't come here to discuss Emily's favorites though, you want to see the sketch, right? Well, I can accommodate that! This month's sketch is a three photo layout with lots of rows of scallops. Don't feel like you have to stay with the scalloped look, feel free to use any sort of border punch or deco scissors, or just go with a straight strip. There's lots of room for journaling and your title can sit over the photos in a nice little frame. I hope you have fun with the sketch, I know both myself and the design team members that played along enjoyed it. There were so many great variations this month!

Here are the rules and regulations:

• You have until midnight (MST) Friday the 22th to work on the sketch. That's one week.
• Projects must use at 50% Crate Paper products, new releases are not required.
• Sketch can be a layout, cards, tags, or other project.
• Scan/Photograph your project and send it to info@cratepaper.com
• Winner will be selected based on quality or invention of work. I will send my top 5 to the Crate Paper office, then they'll choose one winner to be announced on Monday the 25th. I share some of my favorites with you at that time too.

And here's the sketch:

Here's my take on it. Apparently I have a hard time sticking to the sketches. :) Last month I had to add a photo, this month, I had to take one away. I turned the design sideways and moved the journaling over to the column of photos. I used the "Boys will be boys" tag to hold the place of the third photo I eliminated.

 

This is what Lexi Bridges did with it, trading out the scallops for stars, love that look! And her journaling ended up tucked behind the photos because she used the original spot as a great place to cluster some fun elements.

Anne Jo also turned the sketch sideways, shrinking everything as well. She used one of the blocks to house the title and replace the original title location with the cute bunny embellishment from the Paper Doll Collection. She mixed a lot of the lines here, I love how they all work together!

 

Kinsey Wilson went with an 8.5" x 11" version and really dolled up the journaling in the upper left corner. I love how she did all the fun stamping in pink! The perfect compliment to her topic! 

 

There you have it, four versions all inspired by the same sketch. And now it's your turn, go, create! 

 

 

The Color Challenge - Introduction

Hi, Crate Paper fans, it's Lucy Edson and I'm so excited to be hosting a new monthly challenge for you here on the Crate Paper Blog. Color is a driving force in my work and something that really inspires me. I'd like to invite you to come play with color with me each and every month and have the chance to win some gorgeous Crate Paper goodness! 

This month's prize is a Crate Paper Collection Pack of your choice!!!

 Here's how the challenge will work:

• I'll post a monthly color palette - it might be an inspiration photo, color swatches or a different combination from Crate Papers - old and new.
• I will show my inspiration from the color palette. You look at the palette and draw your own inspiration.
• You may submit a layout, card or project to be eligible. Projects need to be submitted by midnight (EST) Dec 10th - that is a week. Email it to me @ info@cratepaper.com
• You may use the colors in any proportion you wish, as long as you use the 3 colors in the palette. And you may add black, white or kraft paper to the colors.
• Projects must use at least 50% Crate Paper - you may mix any paper lines you like, old and new.
• The winner will be announced on December 12th and I'll share some of my favorite projects here on the blog on date. The winner will selected based on creativity and quality of work.

This week's palette is based on the colors from Peyton Ellie from the Paper Doll Collection by Crate Paper. So many times a lot of the work is done for you with a patterned paper - the color matching is already there - just pull out the colors and select your own papers!

I love to mix and match collections and add in bits and pieces from my stash and I hope this will encourage you to do the same. If you notice at the bottom of my storyboard - I've pulled a color swatch from the paper colors - it made this palette so quick and easy to pull together.

Your inspiration board:

 

My layout: And just so you know....this is not what I call myself....lol. The journaling tells this humorous story. ;)

I combined papers from Snow Days, Restoration and Pink Plum to go with the palette. A layout is never finished with out some black or white for me, so that goes in, too.

A great tip.....if you are struggling to find a perfect color match, why not use paint or mist? And you'll add a special artistic touch to your work.

 

I can't wait to see your interpretation of this color palette!  

Crate Paper Houses & A Recipe Album

Oh my goodness you guys, we have a great line-up of two spectacular projects for you to peek at today!! The timing of both projects couldn't of been better because with the weekend upon us, we always want to leave you with something that will knock your socks off and these two projects deliver like no tomorrow!! One found it's way to us from Scrapbook.com - it's of a gorgeous, multi-page recipe album from Scrapbook.com's founder, Jill Davis. The other is from our famous DYI crafter, Lolly Chessie - wouldn't you know it, Lolly's created a village for you to visit and the best part is, the houses are cuter than ever!! Come take a look..chances are, you won't want to leave!!

 

Besides wanting to know what sort of recipes Jill has hidden away in this precious album, we still can't get over the fact that she's used our Restoration chipboard shapes & cardstock stickers as page tabs in the album. What a fantastic idea!! We would of never thought of these items as "page tabs" per say, so when we saw them, we knew this album would be a major hit with our blog readers! Even the little labels that Jill added to the tabs are insatiably cute. Besides the tabs, we're huge fans of the album's overall concept - Restoration and recipes is obviously a perfect pair! The two seem to work really well together, amazingly! We're betten' this album is entirely at home in Jill's kitchen..thank- you Jill for allowing us to post this - Visit Scrapbook.com for more info about the project! 

 

Are you ready to move in? We've already begun packing our bags!! These houses are so very sweet and cozy, don't you think?! And of course, we're guessing (now this is just a guess..wait, we just did our homework and they're actually a Sizzix die-cut!) that they're made entirely from scratch. Imagine that, sitting down and making tiny houses out of paper..aren't they quite something?! Lolly, these would be a great addition to your CP holiday tree collection..maybe a Christmas village from Snow Day? Possibly with glitter and cute puffs of snow...we love these houses.

 So, what do you think? Don't you just love Fridays?! Two great projects, two talented artists and enough inspiration to keep you going all weekend long! With that said, we have a big event planned for you next week!! We're hosting our first official blog hop of the season - CP's Autumn Blog Hop!! We'd love for you to join us! We'll be serving a host of technique ideas via the Crate Paper design team to help you start thinking about things your most thankful for this time of year and also, we're giving away a very special prize..one that every scrapbooker will want!! You'll definitely want to add this blog hop to your calendar CP Fans! It's going to be a ton of fun for everyone!

Have a great weekend you guys!! See you next week...

Two Big Winners & Brand New Tutorial!

We have a couple of announcements to make this fine Monday before moving forward with today's tutorial from Michelle Lanning. You may have noticed that as of last week, we had two giveaways going at the same time! The first being Thursday's Creative Journaling giveaway and the second, Jenni Bowlin's October kit! Well, the both are patiently awaiting winners and guess what?! We finally have names to share and two very lucky folks are about to receive fantastic prizes today! Let us spell them out below:

 

Creative Journaling Contest Winner: 

Put a brad through the corner of the journalling sheet & attach it to the back of the layout so it swivels out to read from behind the page - that way you can write A LOT as I always have too much to say...

Posted by: Cheyne Fanke | October 28, 2010 at 03:49 PM 

Jenni Bowlin October Kit Winner:

I definitely wanna lift the layout with the banners by Michelle McCord. I love the use of all the lil phrase and journaling stickers across the page. My kids school colors are green and gold and this kit would work perfectly with a BUNCH of stuff I have to scrap for them.

Posted by: tami white | October 29, 2010 at 09:19 AM

 

 A huge congratulations girls!! Please send us your shipping info at info@cratepaper.com so that we can arrange to have your packages shipped! And thank-you to all our blog readers whom commented with their great ideas and project favorites! If you haven't had a chance to read some of the journaling tidbits listed in response to last Thursday post, check them out before you leave - considering that journaling can often be tedious, space consuming task, it's inevitable that at some point or another you'll be faced with a complex journaling fiasco! Many of the comments posted are especially helpful in dealing with this problem - print them out and post them on your inspiration board for quick reference or tuck them away in a folder for one of them "just-in-case" moments! You never know when a story might be too big for a layout!

 Moving on to Michelle's tutorial... 

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Hello there! Michelle Lanning here to share with you a little bit of a behind-the-scenes look at a section of one of my layouts for Crate Paper. First, lets take a peek at the layout:

I'm going to show you how I put together the vertical strip that accents the background of my layout. Here's what you'll need for the task at hand: Restoration Pattern Paper, Adhesive, Punches (any you prefer) - I used a label punch and a circle punch.

 

 When I first start a layout, I chose my colors/patterns according to the them I want to convey. I loved the look of the Heirloom paper because it reminds me of vintage kitchen wallpaper. I thought it would go well with my layout's theme - "Ice Cream". To break up the blues, I decided to bring in Lace paper because of it's vibrant yellow hue! I then brought out my punches and started punching! I punched shapes from a variety of Restoration papers and Kraft cardstock.

 

After I punched out all the tags and circles, I inked their edges "brown" with Colorbox Pigment ink. *Hint: Petite ink pads come in extra handy for distressing and on top of this, they're also extremely economical! Find them just about anywhere...

 

Next, I cut all the punched shapes in half, though not equally. This was done intentionally so that the punched shapes would be of varying widths. 

 

To adhere the punched shapes as shown, I simply flipped the pattern paper over and added a strip of glue to it's edges. From there, I randomly placed each of the punched shapes, making sure to overlap them while moving down the paper. 

 

Here is the finished pattern piece after the punches are fully in order. I then simply adhered it to my layout as shown.

 

This is a really simply, but fun way to add layers to your layout! Thanks so much for stopping by today - it's been a pleasure!