How to Create a Banner from Chipboard Pieces by Kristin Greenwood

My Creative Scrapbook design team member Kristin Greenwood is sharing a tutorial featuring our December Creative Kit!

Here's Kristin:

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I am going to show you how I dressed up the chipboard banner pieces for my layout! 

The sheer ribbon that comes in the kit was a little too pink for what I wanted, so I used some mist to make it red.

Next I distressed and inked the chipboard pieces.  Using my CropODile, I added two holes at the top of each banner piece.

I used a floss threader (used by people who have braces to floss) and threaded the ribbon thru the holes.

I tied a not at each end, added dimensional foam adhesive and added it to my page!

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Be sure to take a look at Kristin's beautiful work in our Design Team Gallery!

We invite you to join us and experience the possibilities that our coordinated monthly kits offer. To purchase a kit, please visit our website, here.

A Layout Walkthrough by Angel Rodrigue

My Creative Scrapbook design team member Angel Rodrigue is up today with a tutorial featuring our December Limited Edition Kit!

Here's Angel:

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Here is a walk through of how I have created my layout titled

Joy, Love, Peace. 

First I matted on brown card stock a piece of  inked pattern paper .I added it to the top of white cardstock which was used as my base..

 Using another piece of pattern paper I made banners of all sizes and tucked them in one corner as shown.I Inked these with Distress Ink.

Next I grouped together some of the dye cut pieces from the kit in the corner of the matted banner.( Note: Doily was from my stash you can get these anywhere)

Then Using the stickers in the kit  I made my title staggered as shown..

I loved the banners in the kit and wanted to use them on this layout so I cut them in pieces and added two different styles on top each other on each side of the page.

Now on the Right hand side of the title I wanted to add another grouping so I added more die cuts from the kit and some stickers.

After doing so I decided I wanted more size banners in my grouping above so I cut out more using the same paper and then embellished them by adding Liquid Pearls to them. I also inked each one with distress Ink.

Then I punched a few snow flakes from a EK Success Punch and added it in a few places near my groupings..

Now you are done and can tuck in any photo you would like to add. Here is my finish layout..

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Be sure to take a look at Angel's beautiful work in our Design Team Gallery!

We invite you to join us and experience the possibilities that our coordinated monthly kits offer. To purchase a kit, please visit our website, here.

How to Add Color, Texture, and Dimension with Stitching by Nicole Doiron

My Creative Scrapbook design team member Nicole Doiron is up today with a sitiching tutorial featuring our December Main Kit!

Here's Nicole:

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Are you all having fun with the December kits already?!  I was thrilled to be working with the Main kit this month and for one of the my 2 double-page layouts, I decided to try something a little different to bring a little pizzazz to my background.

First, I started with plain black cardstock as the background and adhered the first pieces of patterned papers.

Then, using a circle stencil I own, I traced some circles all around the border, small to large, all kinds of sizes.  You can easily trace any kind of shape you want on your background.

Here are some of my circles traced with a pencil.

With a piece of styrofoam underneath my page, I started piercing holes all along the edges of my circles.  It was fairly long to do, but so worth it.  Make sure to use even spaces between each hole.

 

I then used about 4 strands of embroidery floss and started stitching some of the circles (that I had marked with an X) in red.

 

After that, I did the same with my other circles alternating between 2 shades of green.

I love adding stitches to my layouts as it can add color, textures and dimension, all at the same time.

Here is the finished product, with the red circles adorned with some gems to make them stand out even more and give the page a fun Christmas feel.

And on that note, I wish you all the happiest Holiday season!

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Be sure to take a look at Nicole's beautiful work in our Design Team Gallery!

We invite you to join us and experience the possibilities that our coordinated monthly kits offer. To purchase a kit, please visit our website, here.

November Sketch Contest Reminder

Would you like a chance to win this super gorgeous prize package?

It's all boxed up and ready to ship to our randomly selected November sketch contest winner!

So... have you submitted your entry yet?

Don't miss out... there are just a few days left!

Find all of the details on our sketch blog, here.

Tips and Tricks by Christin Grønnslett

My Creative Scrapbook design team member Christin Grønnslett is up today with several tips and tricks featuring our December Main Kit!

Here's Christin:

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Hello, Christin here with a very very short little tutorial for you.  Have you ever had a paper who was just almost perfect, but not really knowing how to cover its imperfections ? Here is a little tip from me.

This paper had some white text over 1/4 of the page and I decided to cover that text with chalkboard paint. It's much darker than the original background, but as long as it isn't white it will not be visible later.

The white material you see is white tissue paper (4-5 layers) that have been cut to cover up the painted areas.

I wanted the ornaments to hang down from under the picture so I stapled them to the tissue paper and background.    I used the green twine and taped it on the back of the ornaments.

Here you will see the finished page where everything have been covered up. You may wonder how I fasten the layers of tissue paper on the sides, I took a small piece of tape on each of the layers so it would stick to each other and the background.

Here are the rest of my December projects.

For the next layout I wanted to be a little untraditional and painted the background blue.  You may wonder what's up with a blue hat for Christmas ?? Well, in Norway we had a advent calendar tv show for kids with blue gnomes living in the mountains called Jul i Blåfjell and they had blue hats like this.

On this background I stamped and embossed the black snow flakes and the rest of the snow flakes are made using a stencils and black distress ink.

And my last project is a large christmas bag for some presents that I guess will come in handy.

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Be sure to take a look at Christin's beautiful work in our Design Team Gallery!

We invite you to join us and experience the possibilities that our coordinated monthly kits offer. To purchase a kit, please visit our website, here.

How to Create A Unique Background on Cardstock with Stamps, Embossing Powder, and Watercolors by Missy Whidden

Hello everyone! Today My Creative Scrapbook design team member Missy Whidden kicks off our December tutorials featuring our December Main Kit!

Here's Missy:

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Hi, everyone!  If you're like me, sometimes you like to create your own unique background on cardstock instead of using patterned paper.  Incorporating cardstock into your layouts will also help stretch your kit further.  Today, I'm showing how I created an embossed stamped image to create a background pattern.  I then added some color to it by using watercolors.

I used a different stamp and colors for this tutorial.  Here's how I did it...it's fun and pretty simple!

Now here is the page I created using my kit featuring this technique.  I used a tree trunk stamp and then used a few different tones of brown and some green to give it some life.

You can see it up close here.

I've been wanting to try out this fun technique for a while, and I'm glad I did!  It's really neat and it's pretty hard to mess up.  Plus, adding the watercolor is fun, too!  There were no browns in the papers for this layout, so I was able to use my paints as a way to incorporate it where I wanted it.

I hope this inspires you to give wet embossing a try!

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Be sure to take a look at Missy's beautiful work in our Design Team Gallery!

We invite you to join us and experience the possibilities that our coordinated monthly kits offer. To purchase a kit, please visit our website, here.

It's REVEAL TIME!

Yippee! We're so excited to reveal our December kits... we think they're quite beautiful, and we believe you'll agree :)

 December Main Kit

 December Creative Kit

December Limited Edition Kit

December Album Kit

December Spotlight on your Life Kit

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Hurry on over to our website and reserve your kits before they're all gone.

As always, the design team has created lots of beautiful samples to inspire you, so be sure to take a look through our design team gallery.

and, don't forget to check out the new Mixed Media and Off the Page Project Kits that will be revealed next week!

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In case you missed the announcement, our Holiday Give a Gift - Get a Gift sale is in progress. You can read all about it here. Don't miss this opportunity!