Well, I don’t know about you, but it feels almost like “the day after” (i.e., your birthday, Christmas, your wedding etc.).  I’ve enjoyed the challenges this last week so much, I don’t want the fun to end!  So it won’t!

Today’s Photography Phriday will be another little challenge.  Your mission is to photograph something “new” in honor of our new look.  It could be a new home, a new baby, new school clothes… you name it!  Then make a layout with the picture(s) using our new site colors.  Post it at the ScrapMatters gallery by Thursday 8/21/08 at 10 pm Central Time (GMT-5) and leave a link to your layout in the comments here.

That is it! Pretty simple.  One layout will get a $5 gift certificate to the store.  Have a great weekend!!

Hi gang, Heather (hedderlee) here for tHeory tHursday. As if Scrap Matters’ grand re-opening isn’t celebration enough, today is my birthday! So I have a little gift for you:

{created with Scrap Matters designer Erica Zane’s Touch of Cherry }

{created with Scrap Matters designers kits – Matahati Design’s Shabby Cottage, Happy Scrap Girl’s Wild, and Suzie Belle Designs’ Stella}

{here’s my part – the Rolodex shapes!}

Edited: Download is no longer available. Thanks for playing along!
Your challenge is to create your own Rolodex cards. As you can see from the freebies, the possibilities are endless. My daughter is using the “sight words” idea for her reading/phonics study. Love them all, actually!

This is what the cards look like in action:

Aren’t these fun?

Now, you have a chance to win the Birthday Rolodex! Just leave a comment on this post about what hybrid projects you would like to see featured here at ScrapMatters. One comment will be randomly selected; I will personally mail the completed Rolodex to this lucky person’s home, wherever she may live in the world!

Have a great day, and I can’t wait to see what you do with the Rolodex shapes!

Hello there, Lina here with Words for Wednesday!!

Today our challenge is going to be really easy for you!!! August is almost half finished and most of us have gone on our summer vacations! The same applies to me! I have just returned from my vacations and the only thing one will find in my camera will be photos from where I spent my summer holiday!!!

So, since it is so recent and contemporary I think I would like you to scrap an LO about summer holidays!!! It could be a short trip or a longer one but it has to be a summery one!!! There are two requirements though!

First, you must include the word Summer in your title and secondly you must tell us a few things about this trip/holiday like where was it, did you enjoy it, was there anything special about that holiday, generally a little journalling on how you feel about that holiday/trip!!!! That’s it!!! Easy, isn’t it?

Well, don’t think that this challenge will be without a prize!!! There is a particpation prize for everyone that submits an LO and  posts in this thread in the forums! It is a mini kit I have made  and here is the preview

It includes 5 patterned papers,

1 doodle

1 butterfly,

1 flower

1 tag

2 simple frames

2 embellished frames

and an upper alpha

So make sure to grab it by participating in the challenge!!! Don’t forget to post a link in the forum so that I know you participated and I can leave you some love!!! You have until Tuesday 19th August to submit your layout!!!!

Can’t wait to see what you will come up with!!!

Love

Hi everyone!! It’s Sya here, to announce the winners for the last week Tuesday Template challenge winners.

Favourite: Yzerbear19

Random: Chia

Congrats!! Do watch out for PMs soon!! And thanks everyone for playing. Hope you will have fun in this week’s challenge..

Hi!!  It’s Katie again with the new Tuesday Challenge.

This challenge will run from Aug 12-Aug 18 (entires must be in by midnight on the 18th).

Here is the awesome template (hats off to Sya for creating this fabulous masterpiece)

Now what should you do with this template??

As you can see there are three openings for photos.
You need to put a photo in each opening and they need to be successive photos.  Try to tell a story with them.
Here are some examples from the ScrapMatters Creative Team.

mine: (using Erica’s Dragonfly Delight kit)

Erica’s (using

Kate’s:

Shutch’s:

Linz:

Henriette’s:  (using, if I’m not mistaken, Britt’s Mermaid Lagoon)

Heather’s (using Friday Flea Market)

Britt’s (using a lot of miscellaneous ones that you can go read about in her credits…)

Now that you’ve been inspired, it’s time for the rules…

Entries must be in by midnight on Monday, August 18.

You do not need to use ScrapMatters products.

Two winners will be awarded $5 gift certificates to the store.  One will be my favorite; the other will be chosen randomly.

Can’t wait to see what you make.

Hi Everyone!

Denise here to bring you What Matters Monday.

The last time we had a What Matters Monday post (here), Happy Scrap Girl talked about being part of an online community and how wonderful it to receive support and inspiration from our fellow scrappers here at ScrapMatters (don’t we look fabulous?).

I couldn’t agree more!

I am a stay at home mom and live a busy life (as we all do, whatever our jobs!).

Scrapbooking has always been a love, but with six kids, there just wasn’t enough time in my life or space in my house.

You know what I mean, right? You want to scrapbook, but you don’t have a dedicated place in your house to do so, and by the time you drag everything out, you’re only going to have to put it all away, or risk having the baby chew on it, or the three-year-old color on it, or the five-year-old cut it up…I could go on.

But digital scrapbooking opened up a whole new world for me.

I could pursue my love of scrapbooking and work on it for the five spare minutes I had and not have to worry about someone messing up all my work (except of course for the times when I didn’t remember to hit save …but that’s another post!)

I know there are some of you out there who are paper scrapbookers thinking about making the switch, and I say, don’t wait!

And I know that there are some of your who are so overwhlemed by how many photos you have, it almost seems hopeless to even begin…I feel your pain. I look 4,000 photos just the last eight weeks…holy cow!

But, don’t worry.

If you begin where you are, and scrap as you go, you will at least be current, and as you go, you will find that you are able to work on many of the old photos just screaming to get off your digital camera, or the cd where you stashed them for later!

Bottom line, start today. Begin where you are. Scrap what you have, and then as inspiration strikes, go back and scrap what you have stored.

Before you know it, you will become a better, more efficient scrapbooker, and have actual albums that you and your family will enjoy for years to come.

I get so long-winded when I feel passionate about something. And this is my passion! Maybe it’s your too!

Hugs.

Denise

Hi Kate here with our Sunday spotlight.  This week the spotlight is one of ours site members alyalyaly!

What is your real name?

My real name is Alyson, but everyone calls me Aly. “alyalyaly” is an inside joke.

What is your main job/career?

Well, I’m CEO of Morrison Enterprises – actually, I’m a full-time Mom, so I do a bit of everything… educator, chef, chauffer, interior designer, arbitrator, referee, travel agent, accountant. )

Are you married/kids/pets?

In October I’ll be celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary. I was born in the States, but my husband is Canadian, so I always kid that I married an alien. We have 2 sons – Joshua, 8 1/2 and Dylan, 3. My dear cat, Katie, passed away early June after more than 19 years together, but we still have 2 dogs – Nikki, a 12 year old pure-bred Siberian Husky, and Rufus, a 5(?) year old shelter-rescue that is a bassett hound mix.

Where do you call home?

We currently live in a town about 30 miles NE of Atlanta, GA. Of course, if I had my way, we’d be living in Australia or New Zealand (my dream destinations!)

Note from Kate – New Zealand is a FABULOUS place to live!! Hehe.

What are your three favorite foods?

Mexican food, California roll sushi, cucumber slices with a bit of salt.

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

If you’d asked me this last month, I would have said, Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. But that was before my evil sister-in-law introduced me to Breyers Fried Ice Cream. Now I can’t even go down the ice cream isle in the grocery store!

Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks?

salty – Tostitos Lime Tortilla Chips!

What is your favorite beverage?

water – honest!

What is your least favorite food?

brussel sprouts or canned asparagus …. *shudder*

PC or Mac?

PC, but I first learned computing on a Mac in 1986

How long have you been digi-scrapping/How did you get into it?

I’ve been digiscrapping since May 2006. The story of how I got into it is a bit involved. I was introduced to digital scrapbooking in January 2006 by my best friend, Lynn (peepsmama), although I didn’t start scrapping for several more months. I never have been, and never will be, a paper scrapper. February 5, 2006 I celebrated my 40th birthday. Eleven days later, my mother – who had flown in for my surprise party from Las Cruces, NM, where she lived and worked as a certified nurse midwife – died of complications from CML (chronic meyeloid leukemia.)

Digiscrapping saved my life.

A couple of months after my mom died, I was in a deep depression. As the oldest of 3 kids, and the only girl, my Mom and I were VERY close. Kindred souls. She even delivered her first grandson – my oldest, Joshua. I missed her terribly and felt like I was drowning in my grief. I asked Lynn to tell me, again, about digiscrapping and help me find some freebies to download. The rest, as they say, is history. In the first 60 days I scrapped 50 layouts and haven’t stopped.

What are your hobbies besides digi-scrapping?

reading and digital photography

What is the most challenging part of scrapbooking for you?

The toughest part, or me, is using just one kit! Like my musical and literary tastes, I like to mix-it up.

What would you like to learn to do (or do better) not related to scrapbooking ?

I’d like to learn to let go of my anger, be less controlling, have more spontaneous fun, and knit.

What are your favorite movies/TV shows?

How much space do I have?? Top 5 TV: Lost, Heros, Doctor Who, CSI, The Closer … Top 5 Movies: Bull Durham, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Contact, Chronicles of Narnia: TLTW&TW, The Good-bye Girl

Describe your “scrapping” environment. Music? TV in the background? Drinks? Snacks? Back room, in the middle of your house?

My laptop is in the family room, so I can keep an eye on the kids, so usually PBS or Nick Jr. is on in the background. At night, when they’re all asleep, I often scrap in the dark, in complete silence, since I never get any quiet in the daytime.

How would you describe your scrap style?

Ever-evolving. I don’t think I really have a “style”, but I do enjoy trying new things.

Here are some of Aly’s favourite layouts:

And my two favourites from her gallery:

Credits - Love this one for the journaling!

I love this!! Credits

And here is her gallery at our brand new look site – come on over and leave her some love, she deserves it!

Thanks for letting us Spotlight you Aly!

Happy Saturday Everyone! Dacia here with your Saturday Special! Hopefully you’ve all been over to the NEW site looked around, re-registered yourself in the forum and gallery and are playing along with all the fun festitivities celebrating our re-opening! There is so much going on this next week (including a great sale), we hope you’ll all find some time to join in on the games, contests, challenges etc and win some great prizes. [Be sure not to miss the last blog entry- with the blog train- everyone has free brag book pages for you to collect.]  I know everyone has worked so hard to get the site up (Andrea- you are incredible!) and packed it with all sorts of awesome godies (and grab bags!!). So be sure to go over and leave Andrea some love in the forum and tell her how much you love the new look.

Anywho. Let’s get to this week’s challenge… I don’t know about you guys, but there have been times when I can get so down. Probably just cause I’m a girl and that happens. Those moods are rotten! I can’t stand being in a mood like that, but neither can anyone else around me. I must say the easiest way to get out of a mood like that is to think of all the great things in life- or to think of my blessings. Once you really sit down and “count” them, it really is near impossible to be sad seeing how much you have to be grateful for. From your friends and family to a roof over your head and your health- everything can be seen as a blessing- and something to be happy about.

This week I want you all to scrap a list your blessings- it can be one, or it can be many. I just want us all to dig in and find what we are grateful for and what blesses our lives. If you really think about- your list will be huge and you can hopefully create a page to look at the next time you are down that will brighten your day.

Here is mine:

And here are the LOs of our awesome CT. A BIG thank you to all of them for finding time to make a few pages for me with all the other crazy things going on- thank you guys SO much!

mikelinz:

shutch:

neeceebee:

jhopewell:

There will be two winners, each of which will get a $5 GC to the store! Happy Scrapping! Be sure to post your LO in the forum to be entered to win.

Hi everyone–Shari here.  Welcome to the new ScrapMatters and the SM Round-the-World Blog Tour. As part of the New SM festivities the great gals on both the design team and the CT have created a fabulous brag book for you to collect. It is created from items in our Mega Collab kit, “Friday Flea Market.” Just follow the links to collect your entire album-there might even be some other goodies for you at certain stops! These are fabulous 5×7 pages, each saved as a png file, just waiting for you to place your photos and personalize them.

To start off here we have a double 12×12 quick page freebie to give you first.

These quick pages are yours to keep. They too were made from our fabulous new Mega Collab “Friday Flea Market”.  They coordinate with a huge 32 quick page set we have free for you with a $25.00 purchase in the new store. This is a huge savings and these pages are the stunning work of our design and creative team. While you’re downloading these here,  you can go to Andrea’s blog to collect the first page of the beautiful 5×7 brag book.

We hope you make all the stops on the Train Blog because you never know who just might be leaving you a suprise freebie, or two. Don’t let a “dead” stop slow you down. If one of the blogs hasn’t been updated please be patient with us and just move on to the next one.  We all hope you enjoy your free brag book!!!

All aboard the ScrapMatters blog train…it all starts here!

Hi scrappers and blog readers! Brittney here!! How’s your magical Friday going? 08.08.08 is a magic date and therefore your Friday should be magical.

Here at SM, our magical day is great! We are excited for the launch of our all new site later today (between 5 and 6pm Mountain Time) and all the fun, sales, challenges, and speed scraps that will ensue!!

In case you missed the forum post here is the schedule of events as it stands right now . . .

SCHEDULE for GRAND REOPENING CELEBRATION:

Friday, Aug 8th:

• Speed Scrap with Erica 10pm Eastern, 8pm Mountain, 7pm Pacific
• ScrapOlympics with Britt
• Blog Train (for freebies) will begin
• I Spy Treasure Hunt Game with Tater will begin and run all week long

Saturday, Aug 9th:

• Chat with the Scraps Matter Gang 1pm Central, 12 noon Mountain, 11 am Pacific
• ScrapOlympics with Britt continues
• Saturday Special Challenge with Dacia
• Extreme Layout Makeover Challenge with Denise

Sunday, Aug 10th:

• Speed Scrap with Kateypie 4pm Mountain, 3pm Pacific, 11 am Monday in NZ
• Recipe Challenge with Denise
• Scrap it in a Day Challenge with Dacia

Monday, Aug 11th:

• Choose Your Own Adventure Challenge #1 with Stacy H.
• Speed Scrap with Katie at 11am Mountain, 10 am Pacific, 1pm Eastern

Tuesday, Aug 12th:

• Choose Your Own Adventure Challenge #2 with Stacy H.
• Speed Scrap with Andrea at 7pm Mountain, 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern

Wednesday, Aug. 13th:

• Words for Wednesday Challenge with Lina

Thursday, Aug. 14th:

• Speed Scrap with Bree at 7pm Mountain, 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern
• Hybrid Quickpage Project Giveaway and Challenge with Heather Lee

Can you believe how much fun stuff is coming your way?! Watch for the Blog Train and Speed Scrap tonight! Those are our two main kick off events!! It’s going to be SO FUN

Erica’s prize for the Speed Scrap tonight is GORGEOUS!! Check out her blog to see what it is! You are so going to want it! I know I DO!

See you at the launch!!