New Year - new PageMaps Calendar

We hope everyone had a safe and joyous Christmas and New Year.  We have a brand new PageMaps calendar available in the store.  We can't speak highly enough about this calendar. There is so much inspiration and the sketches are so easy to follow and interpret whatever way you desire.

We worked with the 'Snowed In' collection from Carta Bella. Here is how the Design Team has interpreted this sketch:

Lorena's Take:

I create a Reverse Negative with my title. What that means is: using a die cutter, I cut my title and used the base sheet or negative as your title and put scraps of paper underneath to give dimension and interest.





















Sarah's Take:
I used the new Tim Holtz snowflake die that I picked up at Aunt Em's just before Christmas (Merry Christmas to ME!). It's super easy to use and add a great embellishment to any winter themed page!

Come check out the 2013 PageMaps calendar and these layouts and many more in person at Auntie Em's!

Paper bag cards - Winter Fun style

I was watching an episode of Live With Prima the other night, and Frank made some cards out of paper lunch bags, yes you read that right! I had so many little pieces left over from the Winter Fun line from Carta Bella that I had to try making some of those paper bag cards.

The method is simple, fold the paper bag in half, glue down the flap and decorate the front, center and back of the card, leaving the opening so that you can tuck gift cards or photos inside to give to your loved one - genius!

You can check out Frank's video tutorial here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/27546829

Here are four cards I did using the same technique.

I hope you enjoyed my little paper bag cards, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Family Time

The Echo Park collection Life Is Good is filled with fantastic colour combination of pinks and blues and browns.  I knew the other girls would be pulling the pinks out of this collection, and I wanted to use some winter photos so I pulled out the blue and brown from this collection.

Hexagons are very popular right now, and this sketch lended itself very well to using that instead of squares as was on the sketch.

 

The Theme this month was to use distressing on your layout, I did that in several formats, I distressed the edges of my paper with the Prima Comfort tool by roughing up the edges.  I also used the same tool's wire brush to distress the largest photo.  I used distress ink for the hexagon images in the background.  I used some Core'dinations paper and a sanding block in the center of the layout (blue). And finally I inked the edges of all the little hexagons and some WheatFields glimmer mist on the date.

I used several photos from the same day on this layout.  I apologize for the quality of these photos, as I had an unfortunately life changing event, my mother passed away on October 25th, luckily I was done my layout, however I left my husband in charge of taking some photos.  If you would like to see this layout in person it is on display at Auntie Em's.

I do hope you enjoyed this month's DT creations, it was fantastic to see how each of the girls took this sketch to a different level.  You too can play along for a fantastic prize simply by bringing your layout based on this sketch into Auntie Em's.  Remember that your materials for this project entry must have been bought at Auntie Em's to qualify.

August PageMaps Challenge - Songbird style

Have you noticed how flags and pendants are popping up everywhere in scrapbooking?  This month the PageMaps challenge is to create a Flag or Pendant on your layout based on the August PageMaps sketch from the Scrapbook & Cards Today calendar. 
Check out what your Auntie Em's Design Team did using the Songbird collection from Prima Marketing.

If you want to play along for an amazing Auntie Em's prize - simply bring your layout to Auntie Em's before the end of August.

Stephanie's Take: Pretty Girl

I kept it pretty simple this month, letting the photos of my niece be the main focus of this page.  I didn't want embellishments to take over, a simple title, wooden buttons, and my version of a flag was just enough.

Sarah's Take: Mother's Day

Flags are easy and fun to make. I cut a few strips of paper and used a square punch on the end. Then, using liquid glue, I wrapped the other end around a toothpick. I love that an embellishment that took 5 minutes to make can add so much to a layout.


Nancy's Take: Too Cute

When I saw the paper I knew right away what photos I wanted to use. I love it when it's obvious what the page will become. I used the flag in the title and I had a leftover pin from one of the last challenges that went just perfectly on the layout. I simply wrote TOO in brown pen and drew some stitching around it wrapped it around the pin and voila "too cute"

Lorena's Take: "SMORE'S"

I turned the sketch on it's side and created a unique title with the ticket shaped alphabets with this collection.  I used both colour and sepia photos together on this layout to capture the moment of my daughter's Smore's experience - pure love!

Watch this blog every week for more close up's and details about each layout.  You can see each of these layouts displayed at Auntie Em's for the entire month of August.