scrapologie

A week of projects... for you!

photo source: Sur La Table Website

Mmmmm, don't these look yummy?? These yumm-o cookies are made with a copper cookie cutter set from Sur La Table and you can get them here for $24.95.

Coming up next week -- something fun to kick off the month of February! So much to honor this month, Valentine's Day of course, but also, Black History Month.

I will be revealing a project a day. Most of them are quick and easy projects you can do with existing stash -- some of the projects utilized the valentine kits a bit further... but definitely come check them out whether you got the kit or not as you'll be able to do them even with other things you have on hand -- I have a few really fun (and lovely!) ideas I think you might like to try! I'll share one project and instructions each day - Monday through Friday. Plus I will share a free vintage graphic or two to download, and I just might even have a goodie giveaway! I wanted to give you a sneak peek but realized that I left my camera at mom's house so that will have to wait for a day or two.

Also, I wanted to let you know that project instructions for all the valentine kits, with the exception of the heart binder album, have been uploaded. I hope to finish up that last project this weekend and get it uploaded as well. The project instructions are uploaded at Box.net - you can access them using the password you were sent with the purchase of the kit. If you were not sent a link and/or password, please let me know and we'll get those over to you. You'll want to go download the free valentine image and card at Box.net.

The instructions are also available here:

Beloved Heart Chipboard Box Instructions

Cupid Banner Instructions

Sweetie Pie Instructions

Let me know if there are any questions you have that aren't covered in the instructions!

Presenting Chocolate Kiss Fudge Sweetie Pie Bunny Rabbit

This is Grannimals' Lucien, the Rabbit, (though in our house, his name is  Chocolate Kiss Fudge Sweetie Pie Bunny Rabbit - not always in that order). We found him the other day at Target and Alekha, being the little mommy that she is - fell in love with him. What about your 20 other children I asked? Won't they feel sad that you are bringing home a new baby? "Mommy," she replied, her tone inferring what a silly goose I was, "I will love ALL of my children."

The thought occurred to me that this would be a good time to point out how mommy could also love more than one baby, if by some miracle of God I would get pregnant again. She then said "Mommy, if you keep talking about other babies (i.e., not ME), then I am not going to love your or give you hugs and kisses anymore!" That settled it. I gave in and brought Lucien, aka Chocolate Kiss Fudge Sweetie Pie Bunny Rabbit home, safe and loved in the arms of my four year old.

I think he is actually a baby toy, but he is awfully loveable even with that goofy, toothy grin. He is actually a knitted bunny rabbit - with that sweet knitted sweater. And of course -- the perfect chocolate color. How could I resist?

Okay... in other news... all valentine kits are shipped. And this makes the first time, in two years, that I am caught up on shipping. In TWO YEARS. I think, for the past two years, I have been in a constant state of panic - that I forgot to send something, or ship someone's kit, or just in a general state of flux trying to get 100 things done at once. It reminds me of that quote from Alice in Wonderland -- about how you have to run twice as fast just to stay in the same place. That was me then. But now, I can finally... EXHALE. And so here I sit in my studio, on a gloomy wintry afternoon with my cup of tea in hand, and the whole luxurious afternoon stretching out before me, and even though I have been to the dentist this morning and been told I need two crowns, even though there are dishes and laundry and unmade beds calling my name, even though it is gray and wintry outside, within, I am as giddy as a young girl in spring because after two years, I realize that time is a gift. Each and every moment is a wondrous gift. And that it's not too late, at nearly 40 - to slow down and learn the art of doing nothing, to spend an afternoon just dreaming.

I do have some fun projects and ideas and a couple of goodies plus a new venture to share -- I will be working on those in the next few weeks and will be sharing them here soon, I hope.

One last tidbit -- I've been trying to keep up with CHA releases - and learned today that Prima just started their own digi site - at Prima Hybrid. They are offering digital downloads to complement their already gorgeous products. They are even offering a free download - a valentine-ish candy wrapper you can download for free here though you do have to register after you put it in your shopping cart and check out, (then it is emailed to you to download for free). Very exciting - can't wait to see the digi products they will be offering. They also have a blog and it looks like they may be searching for some Prima Flower Girls for their hybrid team -- so if hybrid is your cup of tea -- go check it out!

Off to my tea and an afternoon of dreamy nothingness.....

When the cakestand is more beautiful than the cake....

Every once in awhile I come across something so beautiful I just have to share it. I collect cakestands -- but nothing in my collection rivals the beauty of this one! It's rendered in black and white glass -- and at $180.00, this beauty doesn't come cheaply. Seriously. I think I'd have to buy a dress to go with this cakestand, if I owned it! Evidently it's very popular as it is on backorder both at Neiman Marcus, and at Horchow which is the company that manufactures it. Not one that will be added to my collection anytime soon regrettably, --- but fun to drool over, anyway!

In other news, I am pretty excited about this:

My Beloved Chipboard Heart Box Project was selected to appear at Maya Road's Booth at CHA-W! It's such a great honor, and made even sweeter that the honor is bestowed by a company I respect and whose products I love, Maya Road. Thanks so much to Caroline, Deb and the Maya Road Design Team. If you haven't had a chance - be sure to check out Caroline's Blog and Deb's Blog as well - they've been sneak peeking some terrific new products that will be surfacing at CHA.

ANNOUNCING THE MAYA ROAD OPEN CALL PROJECT WINNERS Please join us in congratulating the following project winners: Audrey Tan - West Midlands, United Kingdom Colette Bate - Gilbert, AZ Emelyn Magpoc - Neward, CA Jane Jones - Sydney, Australia Julie Balzer - New York, NY Julie Gordon - Carramar, Australia Karen Grunberg - Palo Alto, CA Kay Daniels - Bella Vista, AR Kimmithy Achord - Baton Rouge, LA Lia Abdullah - Singapore Linda Cain - Morton, IL Melissa Thigpen - Columbia, SC Rachael Chamberlain - Reading, PA Ranjini Malhotra - Hilliard, OH Sylvie Dupuis - Montreal, Canada

The healing power of words

I am about halfway through with shipping valentine kits... we have a big shipment going out today and I hope to finish the rest up to be shipped out by tomorrow.

Just something else I've been musing about lately... I have been told that I talk too fast - that I need to slow down. It's typical of my Gemini nature - highly communicative, very much so a fast talker. I love words and enjoy the written and spoken word both, but at times in my life I've used words so sharply that they've cut the recipient like a knife. The positive side of Geminian speech is the ease and flow of witty conversation, but the negative side of it is cutting sarcasm. I try not to let that latter side surface too much - it was a lot tougher for me to control in my younger days but as an adult - I've made an effort to temper my speech. I heard this the other day on The Open Door, which is broadcasted on Lime Radio.

It's a story about the healing power of words told by Jack Kornfield, and you can listen to it here but you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the Listen button where it says Jack Kornfield, The Power of Spoken Words.

The gist of the story in case you don't have audio on your computer, is this:

Speech has enormous power. There's a story of a Sufi master, a healer. He goes into this household one day where there's a sick child, and there are people gathered around. He goes over and he passes his hand over the child and he says some sacred words, a kind of prayer, and he says, "Now you will be healed." The parents are very grateful, but a really disbelieving and somewhat aggressive man says, "How can you heal a child just by saying some words, all this healing and this spiritual junk"? The master turns to him and looks him in the eye and says, "What do you know of this? You are an absolute fool. You know nothing!" He says this in front of all the other people. The guy becomes enraged and he turns red and he is shaking with anger. And the master says, "Wait a minute, sir. If a word of mine has the power to make you turn red and shake with anger, why should not a word also have the power to heal?" (cited from dharmaweb.org)

He goes on to say: "Two principles: First, that the words are true for Right Speech; and second, that they're kind or helpful, because it's possible to say what's true and not have it be helpful at all, what one might call "brutal honesty". "I'll tell you just what I think, whether it's helpful or not." The second principle is that speech be helpful, not only that it be true, but also that it speak in some way that's compassionate or kind or useful to someone."

Bingo. Perfect. Speak the truth. Speak with compassion. And know the power of speech - examine if you are using rightful speech, words that empower, heal and uplift (not just towards others - but towards yourself as well). It's never too late to start a new way of speaking (or writing, when it comes to blogs and message boards). Just sayin'.

                

1-21-08

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.

       -St. Francis of Assisi

dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beautiful Type

Thank you, to everyone who ordered a Valentine kit -- we still have some left -- it's not too late to get one -- but the two project kits are officially sold out. We are stuffing kits now and will start shipping hopefully, on Monday. And incidentally, thanks for all the wonderful comments you leave -- I have been trying to figure out how to set up typepad so I can respond to each one -- once I figure it out -- ít'll be great fun chatting with you all.

I just wanted to share with you some of my favorite sites for type. I LOVE type. But especially, I love elegant and antique type, and there is atleast one foundry that specializes in it. That foundry, and one of my very favorite sites for type, is Archive Type. They specialize in recreating vintage and antique type, and I've used several of their typefaces on various photos and art. Then there's Veer which has some gorgeous professional-grade fonts if you feel like dropping the big bucks, (or just go and look and drool) and in that same vein, House Industries is also a professional font foundry. There are lots and lots of individual fonts I just love, like Fling from ITC Fonts (the typeface for the now defunct Blueprint magazine) and Adobe's Bickham Script Pro, although you can find similarly styled but lesser quality fonts for free elsewhere. One of my favorite freebies that I use constantly is Beautiful ES. I also love Metallophile SP 8 (it's a commercial font) from Mark Simonson Studio as well.

There are lots of great freebies to be had at DaFont, it's a great source for all styles of type - grungy, gothic, script, calligraphic, typewriter fonts, you name it. That should be one place you bookmark and check regularly.

Fontshop has a great newsletter that they send out periodically, with free fonts to download. You can sign up for the newsletter here. What are your favorite typefaces and foundries? I know there's atleast a dozen more I check but am omitting them here. I'd love to hear which ones you turn to again and again. Have a great weekend!

Ranjini

Sweetie Pie and Valentine Kits

Valentine kits are finally in the store, whew! You can get the kits here: yummy delicious valentine kits and we also just e-blasted the Valentine Newsletter to everyone - so if you didn't get it - drop me a line and'I'll forward it to you. The Cupid Banner Kits are nearly sold out - I have exactly one left in stock at this writing - so hope you'll be the lucky one to get it, if you want it.

One last project to show you - this one from the Sweetie Pie Project Kit - it actually uses Making Memories' Noteworthy Spiral Notebooks, the very same ones in the December kit -- so if you haven't broken out your December kit already -- you could certainly do something similar without buying this supplement. But if you already used your kit, or want more of these awesome notebooks, or just want to get this one anyway, by all means feel free to pick it up. I used the notebook as a the books were so popular and I had enough of them left to do an extra project kit with them for valentine's day. I personally love the books because they are so versatile - you can use them for journaling on layouts as well as make them into a minibook in themselves. This book is a valentine gift for hubby -- I used the sections in the book to cover the various stages of our romance - A Love Story (section 1), Courtship (section 2), True Love (section 3), Oh Happy Day (wedding day) (section 4), Toujours et a Jamais (Always & Forever) (section 5). I tucked in little mementos here and there. It's not complete yet -- I need to add journaling and photos, but you can get a pretty good idea from the pics here. The cover decoration was a Basic Grey rubon (in the holiday kit), glass glitter in silver, and a few Marcella by Kay wedding themed paper flowers.

and here are some kit photos for you:

This is Beloved (the main) Valentine kit, followed by Cupid Banner Project Kit, and Sweetie Pie Project Kit.

 

More Valentine projects

With any luck, we'll have the valentine kits up for sale by Thursday evening. Here are a few more projects and some pics of my valentine decor in the interim to hold you over! The banner and envelope projects are from one of the supplements called Cupid.

You are also seeing our dining room hutch which holds our dishes and glassware normally. I like to clean it off periodically and decorate it seasonally. The banner looks great strung from it. I've thrown in some other photos of our valentine decor. Enjoy!

This sweet little brass envelope will be in the Cupid add-on. The card it's attached to was just something I created in photoshop, and will be provided in a digital download to those who purchase this kit. It was truly easy and makes a stunning gift.

The pink rhinestone bracelet was an after Christmas find at Papyrus - for for $6.00. I love picking up vintagey looking jewelry - or the real thing -- whenever I can find it - and even better when it's a bargain!

 

A last season wreath from Jo-Ann's brought back out of storage to embellish the wall.

These little cupcakes were Christmas Ornament finds at Target last month.

The wire flower holder was a Wendy Addison Christmas Ornament - TJ Maxx find - at $3.00 post Christmas! I had to scoop that right up. I will probably do something with it but for now it just holds a pretty postcard and a rhinestone heart.

Beloved Chipboard Heart Box

Hi all, here is the sneak peek for the Beloved Project -- this is the project from the main kit. The heart shaped box will contain a chipboard binder. You'll have lots of goodies of course to create your heart shaped box -- but I did add some of my own stash -- most notably -- the flowers (other than the ribbon flower I created) and the vintage buttons. The little dove will be in a supplement, I also added some thick velvety ribbon and Melissa Frances glitter chipboard letters from the holiday kit. You'll also want to have paint and glitter on hand if you want that glittery look.

I hope to have the binder album done shortly (that will utilize a lot more of the kit items) plus some other projects just to share. The pendant frame is included -- I just glittered up a chipboard letter and slipped it into the frame, and strung a velvet ribbon through the hole. I also made a flower from a cupcake liner, leaves from silk flowers I had on hand, some tulle and a heart pick that will be in one of the supplements - I'll try to post instructions on that as well. More to come, enjoy!

Cupcakes, anyone?

                                                                                             Just had to share this. You all may remember some of the offerings we have had in some of our past kit supplements from the folks over at Whimsy Press - the hot chocolate and marshmallows and bird on a wire paper in the Snow Queen Supplement, the ABC sticker bookplate - I can't remember now which one that was in -- but basically these folks are very design forward and never disappoint with their wonderful offerings.

This is one of the most recent in their line of new products. I can't get over this cupcakes paper. It looks good enough to eat. This is high end giftwrap, by the way, not scrapbook paper -- but you get a fairly large sheet and at $4.50 a sheet -- you can cut it up and get lots of use out of it. The flip side of this has chocolates on it -- check out all the new patterns at www.whimsypress.com.