Crate Paper

A Favorite....

 

After a week's worth of debuting CP's newest products, the trade show is finally over and rumor has it that Steve and Lisa are on their way home to Utah this afternoon. Before I progress further into the post, let me quickly mention that it is me, Christine Middlecamp, posting today. Unlike the rest of the CP crew, I arrived home yesterday from Chicago after three days of playing with all the new products, including Crate's. I had a chance to spend some time with CP both at the show and outside the show and let me tell you, we had a fabulous time! The show itself was a huge success and the collections were extremely popular among show goers. We heard it through the grapevine that CP's collections were a top favorite by many.  As a means of celebrating, I'm secretly giving away all three new collections! Are you up for it? Tell CP which collection you love most and then mention where you think you'll pick it up! I'll return Monday with the selected weekend winner and also, last week's School Spirit giveaway winner. We'll dedicate Monday to "Winners" only! Good luck you guys and thank-you for your continued support of all things Crate Paper! 

Here are but a few more images of Crate Paper's booth (in full commotion - though not necessarily apparent because I grabbed photos while the coast was clear!) and just because I'm able (and I know Lisa will love me for this), I posted a cute image of Lisa and her sister together during our time away at one of Chicago's best well known pizza-maken' establishments, Giordano's! Num....

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before the Start :: CHA

 

It's official - We made it to the Rosemount Convention Center and after much effort and a hefty dose of lifting, we finally managed to piece together the booth..of course, that doesn't go without saying that we didn't run into a few snags along the way, but all in all, things are looken' pretty good and we're ready to go! A quick reminder to those of you attending the show, we're booth #1243. We'd love for you to stop by and take advantage of our CHA specials: 

Spend between $300 - $399 :: Free Shipping
Spend between $400 - $499 :: 5% Discount  + $100 Product Basket (Retail)
Spend $500 or more :: 10% Discount + $100 Product Basket (Retail)

For those of you not attending the show, we welcome you to check out our "Pre-Order" Specials, which are available for viewing via our website at cratepaper.com 

We've posted a quick couple of images taken during set-up today - the first is one of Crate Paper's most dedicated team; Steve & Lisa!! While at CP's booth, make sure to say "hi!" to the both of them! Not only are they the creators of all things Crate Paper, they're also builders of the Crate Paper booth! We'll share the full booth set-up on tomorrow's post! If you've not seen CP's booth previously, you'll be quite astounded by Steve's out-of-this-world carpentry skills! 

 

 

 

One wall done..we're making progress! Recognize the collection? We've accommodated the collection with another recognizable item; Heidi Sonboul's spectacular "School Spirit" layout! 

 

 

This one's almost finished, but it's not quite there yet - a slight turn to the right and then it'll be perfect! 

 

And the mayhem continues...though slightly closer to the finish line and nearly ready to go for tomorrow! There's still some maneuvering of walls and final touches to be had, but of course, it's the end of the day already and we've managed to put it all together in time for tomorrow's 10:00am opening ceremony. Oh yes, there's a ceremony...it makes for quite an interesting story, but we're opting to save it for a lil' later on! For now, we'll leave you with this small bit of info about tomorrow's post as we're doing our best to keep you updated with our daily ongoing's and CHA adventures while in Chicago - we've asked one of our designers to guest blog for CP tomorrow evening..you're probably well familiar with her - she'll bring with her images of the completed booth & of course, more pictures of Steve & Lisa! 

And incase you're wondering, we do have a winner of our latest giveaway - "School Spirit", though we're going to hold off on announcing the name as we want to dedicate a full post to the topic - there were too many great stories to not include or devote to a full post. So, if you'll kindly provide us another couple days to announce the winner, we'd be more than grateful! We just think it deserves more "credit"! 

What Remains :: Restoration

Yes, this is our final collection production this week - by the time you read this, we'll have left Utah for the great big city, Chicago! There's truly no better collection to leave you with than Restoration (at least we think so anyway!). Since it's original debut, the response to the collection has been overwhelmingly positive! So many of you came forward and expressed your love for it's vibrant colors and trendy vintage flair. It should be no surprise to you then to find out that we're just as enamored with it as you are...and so are the CP Girls! They've been creating with the collection ever so diligently the last couple of days and have lots for you to peek at this weekend while we're away and on the road! Of course, we'll return with CHA updates beginning Monday, so don't think we'll be away for too long! Once we settle in at our new home away from home, we'll have an array of stories to share with you from the grand event! We'll see you in Chicago!

  

 

 

 

Oh swoon Larissa..why is it everything you create is so intricately beautiful?! You sent us three lovely layouts this week, but we'll share just one today as we're holding onto to the others to share a lil' later on. Simply too much beauty to give away in one day :) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melissa's Phillip's signature shabby chic style is something to be cherished as her cards are always sophisticatedly crafted..the above two cards are no exception. Thank-you for passing these along to us so very last minute Melissa - we love them. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Paper trays are a treat to decorate as their little cozy cubbies open up a world of possibilities for storing all kinds of wonderful goodies. Rhonda Palazzari jazzed up her tray cubbies with elements from both Restoration and real life! She's even given us a closer look at each of the cubbies - look at the frilly flower and the sweet lil' spoon..so, so charming, isn't it? 

We wish you a wonderful Saturday! We'll have a quick post for you tomorrow to announce our school spirit winner! Don't forget to leave your story - check out the last post for more info about the contest! Happy Scrapping you guys and to those you leaving for CHA soon - Happy Travels!

 

This Week's Final Giveaway!

RING, RING! School Spirit is now in session! Our designers have been happily playing along with the rulers, pencils, numbers and alphas that predominate our first ever school collection. As we already showed you yesterday, Christine created the cutest of mini albums from School Spirit. Today, it'll be our CP Girls, Heidi Sonboul & Mou Saha, who'll be presenting us with their "art projects" from the collection. To coincide with them, we're offering up one more giveaway for you before we leave for Chicago! We've yet to give this collection away, so of course, it's today's grand prize! What are the academic requirements to win the collection? How about a 4.0 GPA and a perfect school attendance record? Actually, all that's required to win is to tell us your favorite school moment - yes, you're going to have to think back to the good ol' days, whether in college or high school, as there's always one or two stories we never forget. Tell us the story and we'll sign you up to win the School Spirit collection! We'll announce our WINNER Sunday evening! Hurry, you only have two days before the session closes - Good Luck!! 

 

A hand-trimmed apple is the focus of Heidi Sonboul's oh-so-smart card!! Trimmed from the backside of our "Grade Card" pattern paper, it's bound to bring a lil' cheer to the teacher who'll receive it the first day of school! It's perfectly adorable!

 

 

 

 

 

Our official last project is markedly Mou Saha's as it has the classic clean lines that she's so well known for as a contributor of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Behind the assortment of carefully positioned pattern papers are creative, non-conventional ways to play with our School Spirit chipboard accents including the pencil turned arrow above. Very clever!

Don't forget to leave a comment before you leave today to earn at chance at winning the School Spirit collection! We'll assess your comments over the weekend and hand out grades on Sunday! The person with a perfect score, WINS! 

  

Winners & Contest + Mini

  

A big thanks to all the retailers that joined in on our Retailer Giveaway.  We appreciate all your emails about the the collections...we are really excited about them too! Our three winners are....  

RESTORATION COLLECTION:

Blue Bazaar
 
 PO Box 3200
 Caboolture QLD 4510
 Australia

SCHOOL SPIRIT COLLECTION:

Scrapology

At the corner of 620 and Lakeway Blvd
915 RR 620 South
 Lakeway, TX 78734

SNOW DAY COLLECTION:

Scrap Attack Scrapbooking
 
 5126 NE 75th Avenue 
 Vancouver, WA  98662

 

 ATTN: Designers attending CHA

We are excited to offer a CHA contest for all designers attending CHA this Summer. We give out 3 x 3 paper swatches at the show to all our retailers, but want to offer it to designers as well. Once you receive your paper you have until Aug 5th to send us a layout or project using the little swatches.  The winner of our Swatch Contest will receive a collection kit of their choice.  Come by early for your swatches, we have limited amounts.

Good Luck, see you in Chicago.

  

 

 

 

 
 Here's a quick little sample of a really cute mini album created using some of our 3" x 3" pattern paper swatches from our design team coordinator, Christine Middlecamp. We love, love, love what she's done with the papers! Each sits nicely atop a grade card from our "Grade Card" pattern paper and is further accented with a few of our School Spirit chipboard tags and large size School Spirit fabric brad. Don't you think this would be great for the kids? It's so much fun!! 

We still have an assortment of layouts/projects to share with you over the weekend from our CP Girls!! Tomorrow, we'll focus solely on School Spirit and will have the entire collection up for grabs! It will be are final giveaway before the show, though we'll have plenty more to give away after the show as well! Do join us tomorrow though as we anticipate sending this collection to one of our lucky CP Fans! More info about the giveaway will be posted tomorrow...and school attendance isn't required to win! 

 

Our Snow Day Winner is...

Lets just jump right on in, shall we? We asked you on Monday what sort of ideas you had for our Snow Day collection and all of you had some really great ideas to share with us. Some of of our favorites included decorating our chipboard accents with clear glue and glitter to create festive brightly colored ornaments for the tree, creating miniature versions of Jen Chesnick's super cute Christmas Wreath, spicing up the work cubical with some of our colorful Snow Day pattern papers and lastly, this great idea which we've selected as today's winner of the Snow Day collection:

 

A Crate Snowman, hanging out on the ledge of the fireplace. Complete with little twigs for arms. My two and a half year old son would love looking at it, and my pug Lola would love to eat it ;) The line looks amazing.

Posted by: Michelle | July 20, 2010 at 06:14 AM

 

Who doesn't love a snowman with twigs for arms?! We also thought it was cute that she mentioned her lil' pug, Lola. From the sounds of it, Lola considers our Snow Day collection to be a tasty treat fit for a pug like herself. We'd really love to see this snowman and Lola together next Winter - we bet they'd be the best of pals! Do send us a photo Michelle! Congratulations on winning the collection! Send your info to [email protected] and we'll arrange to send you the collection after CHA! 

We're going to move ahead and keep inspiring you with our new collections over the next couple of days before we leave for Chicago. Today, we're devoting the post to a few more project samples from our CP Girls using the Snow Day collection. Many of you considered the collection to be "non-traditional" and a nice alternative for creating both your Christmas & Winter projects. We happen to think the same, which is reason we're so excited about it! For us, Snow Day is about celebrating Winter with a splash of color and a hint of quirkiness. It's eclectic, fun and perfectly captures the festivities of the season! Our CP Girls have done a fabulous job demonstrating the versatility of the collection along with it's uniquely whimsical take on Winter. Heidi Sonboul sent us this layout last week that includes almost the entire assortment of our Snow Day's chipboard accents. We think it's particularly festive and joyous and is a great example of how to use our chipboard accents!

 

 

 

 

 

Next is a quick and easy card from Heidi that combines our "Mittens" pattern paper with some really cute lil' eyelets. What a great way to dress up them polka-dots! 

 

 

Amy Heller's been busy playing with Snow Days as well this week. She sent us an assortment of cards recently, but because they were unbelievably wonderful, most were picked up for publication already! Here's one we're able to share with you today though...

Amy has a way with paper, doesn't she?! Her cards are simply splendid and we love everything she does for us! If you're a card maker, you'll want to continue visiting our blog now and in the future. We've added an assortment of talented card makers to our team who'll be inspiring us with their card making ideas via tutorials starting in August! 

We have more plans up our sleeves as we finish off the week! If you're a scrapbook designer and will be attending CHA, add us to your schedule for tomorrow as we have a special contest awaiting you. On Friday, we'll be saying farewell before heading off to CHA and will leave you with enough Restoration inspiration to last you all weekend! And of course, we'll post CHA updates nearly all next week with the help of our Design Team Coordinator, Christine Middlecamp! A HUGE thank-you to those that participated in Monday's "Snow Day" giveaway. Our final giveaway will go live tomorrow, School Spirit! We know there are lots of you out there that adore our School Spirit collection, so join us tomorrow to find out how to win it! We'll see you then! 

Retailer Giveaway + Cards

We absolutely love all of our Crate Retailers that are out there in the scrapbooking world and if you are not a Crate Retailer.....well, were hoping to change that soon. We want to give all of our retailers and future retailers a chance to win our new Fall 2010 Collections.  We'll be giving three stores one complete collection of their choice. Each collection includes a unit of each paper, diecut paper, chipboard, rubons, brads, layered chipboard, phrase and border stickers, 6 x 6 pads and collection kits. Each collection giveaway is worth $450.00 Retail Value. Yeah!

To enter the giveaway please email us your store name, address, and what collection you want to win to [email protected]. That's it!

If your LSS isn't a Crate Retailer make sure you tell them about our giveaway for their chance to win. That way everyone wins.

Our three winning stores will be announced on Thursday.  Good Luck and thank you for supporting the Crate Brand!

  

Our CP gal Sarah Martina designed these adorable cards with our School Spirit Collection. The first card show the versatility of the collection and how sports can be the focus of your design. Who knew a "sports" card could be so lovely? 

Sarah Martina

We look forward to those emails retailers, we can't wait to get our new products into your scrapbookers hands. 

Thanks Sarah for showing us how to hit it out of the park!

Snow Day Giveaway + Holiday Wreath

 

It appears that there are 350 + Crate Paper fans out there that are in love with Restoration that visited our blog over the weekend to take part in our first official "Restoration" collection giveaway!! It's one of three giveaways we're hosting here before the big show. Today, we're giving up the "Snow Day" collection in leu of Jen Chesnick's super cute "Snow Day" wreath! Though, before we share her wreath with you and of course, the instructions for participating in today's gift giving prize, we thought we'd mention the TWO lucky winners of Restoration from this weekend's comments. Yep, we've selected two winners!! We know, we said we would select only one winner, but we couldn't help but reward the sweet husband that wrote in about his wife and wanting to surprise her with the new papers...talk about a wonderful guy! We just love that he thought to do this!! Here's his comment:

 

Please pick me so I could surprise my wife with this paper pack. She really loves this new paper and hasn't stopped talking about it. Thanks.

Posted by: Jeremy | July 17, 2010 at 01:22 PM 

Our second winner, whom happens to be a grandmother to eight, is Peggy McDevitt. She left us the following comment and we just thought it was so endearing:

 

This is my favorite collection - the colors are so rich and inviting. I would make a album or two out of the papers. I make hand made albums with hand sewn signatures. I have a journal/scrapbook for all 8 grandchildren. I also create handmade albums for myself of all our activities especially camp memaw where all 8 (14 years to 7 years) come and enjoy each other. Can't wait to get my hands on all Restoration collection.

Posted by: peggy mcdevitt | July 16, 2010 at 04:03 PM

Congratulations Jeremy & Peggy, Restoration is waiting for you! Please forward your shipping info to [email protected]. Thanks to all that participated!! We greatly appreciate your comments and ideas..we even hope to highlight a few in the near future here on the blog!

 

 

 
 We absolutely in love with our new set of CP Girls!! Already they've been creating gorgeous, inspiring projects with our new collections and all this week, we'll be posting them here for you to enjoy!! Today's project is from Jen Chesnick - she's crafted what we think is the cutest, most festive holiday wreath in all the world...when she emailed it to us last week, we begged her to write instructions for us so that we could share them with you. Because she is one of the sweetest, most kindest scrapbookers we know, she of course said, "Yes!" We were so super excited that she offered to show us how to recreate the wreath that we thought it the perfect way to begin the week! Here's how she did it...

Supply List

10 - 11 Sheets Double Sided Paper
 1 - Coaster
12" x 12" Piece of Heavy Chipboard or Paper Board
Embellishments
Glimmer Mist
Eyelets
6" Piece of Heavy Ribbon
Hot Glue Gun & Liquid Glue
Crop-a-Dile

 

 

 

 

Start by cutting down ten of your 12" x 12" sheets of paper to 6" x 6" squares. Set aside one square to cover your coaster. Once you have everything prepared, you will start to roll your squares. Roll them at an angle into a cone shape and glue each one closed with your hot glue gun. After you have rolled all your squares into cones, separate them by pattern. You will want to layout your pattern beforehand. I typically use 5 to 7 different papers. You can also turn your squares to the B side and use those as another pattern. Next, start hot gluing your cones together. Moving in a circle, glue cones to one another to create the base of your wreath. Be sure to put glue only at the bottom portion of your cones so that it's not noticeable after the project is finished. Once you have the base of your wreath done, take your remaining cones and cut them in half. This will create the small filler cones for the top portion of your wreath. Take the "top" of your half cut cones and affix them to the base of your wreath. Once you have a good base for your coaster, cover your coaster with paper and affix to the top of your cones. Then use the small "Bottom" cones to fill in as needed. Embellish the coaster & wreath as you like. Then give it a heavy shot of Glimmer Mist for some added shine. 

As an optional step, feel free to cover the back of your wreath with a paper covered circle. Using the 12" x 12" paper board, trim a 10" circle. Cover the circle with your remaining piece of paper. Punch two holes top & center and insert eyelets for ribbon placement. Run your ribbon through the eyelets to secure. Attach the circle to the back of your wreath for a nice finished look!

Ahh, thanks Jen! This is fabulous! We're so very happy over here...and now, we're wondering if you have a Christmas/Winter creation in mind for our new Snow Day collection? If so, leave a comment!  Our favorite idea will find themselves greeting "Snow Day" at their front door! Hurry, we'll select and announce our winner on Wednesday! Once again, we can't wait to hear your ideas!! Best of Luck!! 

 

We're Giving it Away!!!

So what exactly do we have up our sleeves today? Well, there's been a lot of great reception from you in response to the first collection to debut here at Crate Paper this week - Restoration. Because of this, we thought that maybe one of you would enjoy playing with the collection while everyone else is eyeing it at CHA! How about a chance at winning the collection? Are you up for it? We're giving away the Restoration Collection this weekend (more collection giveaways scheduled for Monday & Tuesday as well) to one very lucky Crate Paper fan!! Simply tell us what your PLANS would be for using the collection in the comment section below and we'll select a winner early Monday Mornen'! We look forward to seeing what you guys come up with as we know you'll surprise us to no end with your inspiring ideas! We'll read them ALL, so don't hesitate to jot down an idea or two...good luck everyone!

 

We have a couple of gorgeous Restoration projects to share with you today from a few our exceptionally talented CP Girls. The first is from our pattern paper expert, Heidi Sonboul!

  

 

 

 

We've included a lot of florals in the collection and Heidi has done a fabulous job of demonstrating various uses for them. We love how she's combined both the pattern paper flowers and chipboard flowers along with a little bit of twine. We can't imagine how long this must of taken her to create..it's simply beautiful!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playing cards are classic, aren't they?! They play a lead role in this collection as a part of our "Lace" pattern paper design - they're the ideal backdrop on Larissa Albernaz's layout! She's used them to house an assortment of lil' embellishments and misc. vintage items. She then layered each one with another game playing paper from the collection titled "Flea Market"! This is simply stunning Larissa! We love, love this layout!

Before leaving you today, we want to quickly thank the many of you that followed along with this week's large debut of our three new collections! We were super excited to share them with you and couldn't wait to read your responses to the new collections after having posted them! And let it be said, the response was huge!! We were so happy to find out that you love the collections! Yah! Now we can hardly wait to show them off in person! Our next stop is CHA! Only two more weeks to go until show! It's getting busy around here...

Remember to leave a comment this weekend to win a chance at owning our newest, most favored collection, Restoration. Again, we'll announce the winner this upcoming Monday - Best of Luck and have a wonderful weekend! 

Sneak Peek.....Snow Day

 

Jaime Warren

 

Christine Middlecamp

Amy Heller

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lucy Edson

We hope you've enjoyed our three new Fall Collections....we had a great time showing them off.  Wow, we can hardly believe their shipping out to you next month.  Be on the look out for the new release Mid August.  We appreciate all of you that left a sweet comment on the blog, you made our day!

Now, what you don't know is we have a design marathon going on!  You wouldn't believe it if we told you about all the amazing layouts and projects that are coming your way over the next two weeks.  The CP girls are outdoing themselves so come back and see more stunning layouts form our girls.

Were counting down to CHA with inspiration, prizes and contests, come share in the fun with us.