scrapologie

A gift that left me breathless and speechless...

One thing that was really unique about the scrapologie design team is that we became a family -- we really developed such close bonds and it was wonderful having a group of women who were not only amazingly creative, but also truly beautiful souls. We shared life's trials and tribulations and also celebrated each other's successes. We truly worked as a team -- and that was, for me, one of the most magical aspects of having scrapologie. I miss all my ologie girls so. Last week I received this gorgeous book that they had collectively created for me -- I sat down with a cup of tea at my kitchen table to peruse it, with a snowbound landscape before me. I read each page and found it very difficult not to hold back tears. The sentiments and effort from my girls were so heartfelt and moving -- I've read it and re-read it a dozen times since it arrived and I am so lucky to have such a group of women I am honored to call my friends. I feel as each of them gifted a part of themselves to me through this book. Though I miss them so, I want you all to know that each and every one of the ologie designers were truly talented, amazing, and wonderful people and that what we had was unique and special in many, many ways. Words aren't enough to express the gratitude and thanks I have in my heart for this precious, timeless gift.

I've taken photos of this beautiful book from Rita's Blog because we have crappy light here today -- and her photos turned out beautifully and show the degree of work that went into this so well. Isn't it beautiful? I will treasure this always, always.

 

Lucky Lass Partial Project Preview

Thank you for all your comments on the Palladio project, I appreciate it!

Some of you have asked me about the st. patty's day kit --- it's a mini kit, (and I say that because it doesn't contain a whole LOT of paper) but you are going to be able to get a lot of mileage out of it. There are three projects you can complete with the mini kit. The kit will go on sale Sunday night at 8:00 pm EST. I plan to photograph it and put the preview up tomorrow. Two of the three projects are completed, however, and you can see them here. The last project which is a St. Patrick's day favor cone -- will be completed as soon as possible after the shipment of paper we are waiting on gets here - (it's due tomorrow.) We'll start shipping kits on Monday or Tuesday of next week most likely.

Here are some project photos, nearly everything in the projects are contained in the kit -- plus we have some more fun goodies you haven't seen yet! Most kits will include the hangers shown in the photo. There will be a few for sale without the hangers. The second project uses half of an empty Maya Road tin which we will include for no extra charge in your kits. The only thing I added to the second project from my stash was the amber and green beads and the small scalloped paper behind the metal shamrock stamping - those are easily picked up from a craft store (mine were from Michael's and Hobby Lobby I think). The metal shamrock stamping IS included -- I turned mine green with a bit of Ranger Alcohol Ink in Meadow mixed with Ranger Mixatives in Metallic Gold. The effect which is hard to see in the photo, is stunning. More to come tomorrow!

 

Palladio Project

This is the Palladio Project from the November 2007 Palladio Project kit (we are now sold out of the kit itself - it's possible I have a few extras in the way of embellishments, but probably very little of the papers left -- if anyone is interested in the embellies, drop me an email.)

The Palladio project kit was very Venetian-inspired. The colors of this gorgeous kit came together beautifully. I identified the kit colors and embellies with Venetian architecture and design, in which cherub motifs are often seen, so the angel motif figures heavily in my project. I wanted to create a book for Alekha about faith, but also about other things -- just random things I wanted her to know, but I needed to tie it all together. I decided to go with the Biblical quote from I Corinthians about Faith, Hope and Love -- because I think that summarizes what I wanted to say to her. The cover page is titled faith, hope, love and the the last page of the book contains the quote. The rear cover of the book has an image of a guardian angel with a poem, as well. I am posting some detail photos, as well as close-ups of each page, please feel free to email me or post here if you have specific questions. And once again, thanks for being so patient -- I'll be working on Laguna next and hope to finish that *next* week.

 

Update on Palladio

Some of you who purchased the gorgeous Palladio Project kit in November have been waiting very patiently for my finished project -- and I am happy to say it's finished (next up - Laguna, also from November). A big thank you for hanging in there so patiently and waiting for me to finish this one up. Life got a bit crazy and hectic at the end and it's good to be tying up all those loose ends now. I will tell you that you'll really be glad you purchased this kit -- the project turned out lovely (because the kit contents are so lovely)! So look for the project photos here either late tomorrow or Thursday -- depending on how good the lighting is tomorrow I will try to get photos and get them posted asap.

I have some news I am just bursting to share but will have to wait patiently for a bit, before I can do that. And no - I'm not pregnant, lol!

Mags and Movies

Do you ever wonder how magazines choose their cover shots? While at B&N yesterday, I spied the February cover of Italian Vogue which can be seen here. I admit I was surprised to see this Amish look on the cover of Italian Vogue, but then again, what do I know about fashion anyway? It's hard to tell from the cover but if you happen to catch it up close at your local bookstore - take a look at it -- there are lots of layers in the clothing and I love the blending of the bright pastel palette against the muted background, and the chartreuse title. It's very spring-y. It certainly caught my eye. Not a look I'd be sporting myself -- but I would definitely draw creative inspiration from this color palette.

Oh yes, also -- you'll be happy to know I started on the Palladio project and it's coming along -- I hope to have it done by the end of the week, with any luck! I loved opening the Palladio project kit -- I had forgotten how beautiful the colors are and I am excited to work on it! So thanks for hanging in there with me -- those of you who've been waiting on me so long!

And I forgot to mention this happening a couple of weeks ago -- but Candice has a wonderful new venture --- she opened her own sweet little online shoppe called Peacoats and Partyhats featuring Elsie and her pet piggy Sophie -- so be sure to go check it out - I can't wait to see what she will have in store for us!

We watched the Oscars last night -- I was intrigued by La Vie En Rose  -- definitely want to catch that movie, as well as Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett. I love Cate Blanchett. It's funny to sit through the awards show and not recognize half the titles because my mommy radar is tuned half the time to pick up on the G and PG movies. There must be a dozen movies out there I want to see, that I can't take Alekha to. Another one I want to see, a recent offering from Bollywood (India's version of Hollywood) is this historical film, Jodhaa Akbar, starring two of India's biggest movie stars, Aishwariya Rai and Hrithik Roshan. I am usually not keen on Bollywood movies, but this one from director Ashutosh Gowariker, who also directed the academy award nominated movie Lagaan some years ago, looks promising. It's the story of the Muslim emperor Jalal-ud-Din Akbar and the Hindu Rajput princess Jodhaa who were united in marriage during the period of Moghul Rule in 16th century India. Will have to wait for DVD versions, sigh!

 

Just a quiet day of creating here... enjoy your Monday!

A few more layouts...

I am wanting to sit at my desk and scrap for the next three days straight, but it's not happening. We have a busy weekend planned - taking Alekha to see the Bee Movie and I promised her a special mom and daughter tea party tomorrow as well. I did these two late last night - it's good to be doing layouts again but it's definitely a muscle that needs regular flexing. The first one, called Illuminate, is a bit special to me - it's a message to my daughter. I am a second-generation Indian American who grew up here most of my life -- since age three. So even though I naturally consider myself an American  girl, I am always taken by mild surprise when others don't, or they see me as a "foreigner". Sometimes the questions are completely innocuous and harmless, queries because the person is interested in my background, which I am always happy to illuminate for them. But a few times in my life, there have been ugly, unpleasant incidents. (Walking down the street at my alma mater here at OSU as a college student, and being shouted at to "go back home where I came from"). I also recall my elder sister being beat up shortly after we moved to Providence, R.I. from India, because of her skin color. This was in the early seventies, so not very long after the civil rights movement in this country. We still have a photo of her six year old face with a bruised, purplish eye. And when I see it, I think of my nearly five year old daughter, and I think, this could have been her, in 1973. So this first layout is a message to her to be strong and proud of who she is. As for techniques -- the chandelier is actually a PS Brush, not a stamp, that I found yesterday. I punched it up with art effect is PS, but the brush set is a free one that can be found here:Andreoli Chandelier Brushes

They come as a set of twenty brushes but they look like photos of chandeliers. I wanted mine to look a bit artsier so I applied a filter to the brush - I can't remember now if it was poster edges, stamp, or cutout -- but play around with the filters and see which effect you like. Then set it as a new brush and stamp away on your background paper.

As for Fonts, I used Caitlyn, a freebie from Acid Fonts, and also two pay fonts in my stash : DF Cordoba from Veer and Trade Gothic Condensed No. 18 from Linotype.

The second layout is just a fun one - because I've had that Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus song, Rockstar in my head for days now. The Chandelier on that one is actually a rubber stamp. Gotta run now - have a great weekend!

It snowed last night.

A lot. For us, atleast. Compared to what we've been used to, that is. I love the snow (before it gets all mucky) but the quality of light we get with it is useless - a grey, darkish sort of light that makes photos look washed out. Can I tell you how ready I am for warmer weather? Sigh. I even went to Target and picked up a pair of cute flip flops for Alekha yesterday because I am so in need of sunshine!

The good thing is that all this snow is kicking some desire to create my way -- and I did a layout last night as a result -- the first time doing a layout, in months, for me! The pics are of Bob and Alekha at Disneyland during CHA -- and just made me think of spring because of the beautiful weather we had there. I wanted to use pale pastel colors, so I did a bit of stamping with some of my Versamagic Dew Drop pads and chose pale papers and embellies. I did use a photoshop action on my pics, and I found this terrific site where you can download the actions for free. The one I used on my photos was Alyson Camacho's Very Vintage PS Action - but there's tons more there - so enjoy exploring and you'll get lots of beautiful ways to kick up your photos for free.         

In the past, before I even heard of Photoshop Actions, I was using a technique called Orton Imagery, which I used on these marketing photos for the June kit. It casts a really beautiful, ethereal misty glow on your photos - I absolutely love it and if you are a photoshop user, you can easily follow the instructions on the link above for the digital technique.

I am starting work finally, on the Palladio and Laguna projects -- hope to have those done in the next two weeks. Will update here as I get them done. If it's cold and snowy where you are, here's hoping you don't have to go wandering out in it. And oh - another reason to celebrate - it's Friday! :)

Project & Supply Storage

                                                                                                                                                                                        I know I said I wouldn't post for a day or so but just had to share this with you really quick! As I've been trying to get the house in order from two years of total disarray due to the business, I have been trying to rethink my storage. I found these at our local Container Store here in town and I picked up several in brown. They're called Stockholm Office Boxes, made by Bigso of Sweden - and they're nice, archival quality document boxes (I got the larger size, which measures 12-1/4" x 17-1/4" x 3-3/8" h). 

I ended up getting three for Alekha and three for me (I am storing all her school projects from the last three years. Previously, I was using a clear storage container but I like that these are not see-through so it conceals everything inside and lets you label the contents as well. They're just well designed - simple and beautiful.

Mine are being used to store various projects and mini books as well as layouts that haven't made it into an album yet. The other thing I love about these is that we can add to it each year; Alekha will get a box for each year of school and when she moves out -- she can take all 12 of her boxes with her, lol! Hopefully, we would have condensed all of this to just a couple of boxes by then, but knowing my sentimental, pack-ratty nature, I somehow doubt it. Let's hope she's not as sentimental as I am!

Also, while at CHA - I finally had time to peruse storage things from previous shows that I had been wanting and hadn't had a chance to pick up. I know I am probably crazy late to the party here, but I picked up this from Simply Renee/Clip It Up (the photo shown is from their website). I just set mine up and I love being able to hang everything from it. The storage potential is amazing. I got both the upper and lower tiers. In truth, I could possibly use about ten of these (!) in my home but I decided to settle on one, and the rule is that what goes on it is ONLY those items that I absolutely love and turn to time and again when I start projects. That keeps the rest of the stuff at bay. Plus, storage space is at a minimum so I don't want more than one of these - though for those of you with huge studios and craft rooms -- you could go to town with these!

This company also came out with a brand new ribbon organizer at CHA -- and we ordered some of those as well though they aren't shipping until May. I can't seem to find a photo of that product but it's like a large gutter that mounts to the wall and contains your ribbon, plus there is no dowel rod so you can pull the rolls in and out easily, and there is a measuring device to allow you to measure the length you are cutting off - super neato!

I'd love to hear what you're using for storage and what's working or not working for you!

          Photo from Clip it Up Website:

Lucky Lass Mini Kit

I don't have most of what I've ordered yet for this little mini project kit -- but if you're Irish (and of course, everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day!) you're going to love this little kit I've designed for St. Patrick's Day, I call it Lucky Lass. Each kit will contain one of the gorgeous vintage styled silver colored, plated brass shamrocks shown here, luscious gold and green glass glitters, a reproduction vintage postcard, green seam binding and a few other goodies, yet to arrive, that will yield a sweet little project and a bit of nostalgia for St. Pat's Day. I'll post a bit more once everything is here -- but just to give you a heads up!

Was thrilled to hear that our sweet ologie girl of old, Gabby Fekete had a darling little baby boy! The details are on her sister Erika's blog. His name is Evansen George and he's adorable - so pop over to her blog and congratulate her if you like -- she will make the most wonderful mommy ever, as she has been waiting on this for ever so long.

Over the weekend, we took Alekha to see The Spiderwick Chronicles which turned out to be a mistake! (Alekha is four, and though I read a few reviews on Yahoo -- most of them advising that the movie wasn't too scary, one mom had taken her five year old to see it, I figured it would be no big deal as it was rated PG (we draw the line at any rating beyond PG). As it turned out, the movie was fairly intense with some intense and scary scenes for young children. We should have gone to Hannah Montana in 3-D instead, sigh! Needless to say, she's no closer to sleeping in her own room -- I think we may have set her back by another month, atleast! Just to add - the movie isn't bad -- I would have enjoyed it more though if I wasn't worrying about Alekha watching it!

Other than that, I have been in the throes of cleaning and organizing. I may be MIA for a couple of days --- as I try to get my nest properly cleaned and feathered! Enjoy your week -- and smile, it's HUMPDAY!

CHA Wrap-Up

CHA for me, was a bit disappointing this go-round, from the standpoint of new paper to drool over. I found a few stellar stand-outs fortunately, but by and large the majority of the offerings were a disappointment. For one, there was no new offering from Autumn Leaves' Foofala line, and though they did have a new selection of lovely papers from fabric designer Heather Bailey, the lack of new Foofala was a sore disappointment, quite frankly. Fortunately, the new line of papers from Jenni Bowlin, Tangerine Dream, made up for it in part, as did Sassafras Lass' new lines from their Life is Beautiful Brand -- Pocketful of Rosies and My Dearest, the latter of which is utterly gorgeous. (see the starring pattern from that line above!) You will see a project kit with some of the new Sass Lass mixed in with some Tangerine Dream from Jenni Bowlin, coming shortly! Sassafras Lass, in my opinion, was the star of the show. They're one of the few companies that is always leading the pack in terms of design innovation. There are companies that are bigger and with more financial muscle (not naming names) but whose offerings at this show were take-offs of Sass Lass papers from a previous CHA.

Jenni Bowlin had a gorgeous booth and the Tangerine Dream papers were lovely. I look forward to seeing what else she has up her sleeve! Melissa Frances and Anna Griffin offered some gorgeous, vintage styled papers and embellishments as well. I loved the new resin embellies from Melissa Frances and the vintage embellishments from Anna Griffin: brads with heads shaped like vintage cabochons, millinery styled reproductions (velvet leaves and florals) etc.

Maya Road had some lovely new chipboard of course, including a darling Tree Shaped Chipboard Album and some label shaped albums as well. Trees were everywhere - on patterned papers from October Afternoon, Love Elsie and more. Seven Gypsies offered their usual enviable array of Old World, European styled goodies with patterned paper from their new Notting Hill Collection, to boot - so I picked up plenty there as well. KI Memories is offering a new vintage brand, (the name escapes me at the moment) - the papers were pretty but can't be purchased singularly -- they must be purchased in a pre-kitted collection.

The new vintagey goodies from Tim Holtz's Ideaology brand are must haves. Lovely trinket pins, sprocket gears, metal numbers, and more. Heidi Swapp's chandelier crystals were lovely. I also loved the new thickers offerings from American Crafts.

Of course, I can't mention CHA without mentioning Basic Grey. My favorite paper collection from Basic Grey was the new Cupcake line. Very bright and colorful but with a vintage twist. It occurred to me that some might find the clown images that feature heavily in this line disturbing. I happen to associate clowns with a few very happy birthday parties from childhood, so for me, the clowns are no big deal. But the big surprise from BG for me was not even the paper --- it was the RUB-ON tool. And apparently, I have been living under a rock -- because it was released at a previous show - and I had no idea how awesome it is. It's a tool that is shaped like a pen with a triangular plastic piece at one end. The pointy side is a rolling ball which you apply to the rubon. It's fantastic because the pen never leaves the rubon sheet - making it impossible for the rubon to slide around on you while transferring the image. AND you don't have to cut the rubon out -- you can use it directly on the sheet. The triangular side is then rubbed onto the rubon sheet after transferring the design to smooth it and adhere it well. High five to the genius who thought this one up. I loved it.

Some of you may have heard me mention that I'll be doing a Provence kit as well. The papers for that kit will come from My Mind's Eye, K & Company's new Blue Awning and a bit of Notting Hill from Seven Gypsies. It's a gorgeous palette of ivory, french blue, violet, terra cotta and sunny yellow. Can't wait for you to see that.

Bazzill also came out with some ingenious strips of edged papers - so you don't have to buy the entire 12x12 sheet to get the single scalloped edge - another high five to the person who thought that one up!

And then of course -- Making Memories' next installment of their Noteworthy line was scrumptious. I can't wait for that to come out as well. MM's new Slice cutting tool looked interesting but I didn't stay around long enough to get a good look at what it does. The other tool that I found to be a must have is the new Crop-O-Dile - looking forward to getting my hands on that as well. I also ordered some more gorgeous hand made papers (remember the Brown Eyed Girl Project Kit?)

Oh -- and Prima. Prima was so beautiful as usual. I think I wanted nearly everything in that booth!

Other than that, I did get to meet and chat with some wonderful people, sweet Sara Winnick and Mary Grace at the Fontwerks booth, the talented Hope Wallace of Paper Relics, Tricia Canonico from Cocoa Daisy and the uber talented Jenni Bowlin and her crew. I'd love to hear your highlights and what of the new releases you're excited about!