“Totally Buggin’” a collab. by Britt-ish Designs and Mira Designs

Good Night, Moon by AnnaBV Designs:

2010 Topped Up Calendar Vol 1 by Sya’s Blueprints

Berry Zing by Sya’s Blueprints

Simply Sweet Designs Final Grab Bag

Mod Girl by Tracie Stroud

Tattered & Torn by Tracie Stroud

Easter Morning by Megan Turnidge

Freestyle album by Joy Revisited Photo Artistry

Check out these other great items in our shops…

Hello Everyone, and Happy Thursday!  Tgmousechick Kim here to present to you a brand new monthly hybrid feature- I’ll Pencil You In

Calendars are a great way to dabble in hybrid, and they make wonderful gifts!  However, unless you do the Holiday Grand Plan (and maybe not even then), by the time you start thinking about gifts for the holidays, you could end up scrambling to get your calendar done in time.  The Hybrid Team here at ScrapMatters is here to make your holidays easier: to provide you with the tools and ideas to plan your 2010 calendars now!  Work on them slowly throughout the year, and have a great gift (or several) at year’s end!

Today’s hybrid lesson is a “Get Organized” primer.  The SM Hybrid Team Leader, Heather (hedderlee), has designed a fabulous planning sheet to get your project off the ground, and the Creative Team has gotten together to give you some great ideas for your calendar pages.

When designing a calendar, one of the first things you want to think about is the format.  Do you want to have it bound, either professionally or with the long-forgotten Bind-It-All in your home?  Do you want a traditional calendar that runs from January to December, or perhaps you want to appeal to the teacher on your gift-giving list and set up a calendar that spans the school year from July to June?

I have two calendar projects that I will develop using the “I’ll Pencil You In” feature.  One is the standard January to December calendar that I will keep on my desk in my lab.  The other is a gift for a friend that I work with.  She’s expecting her first child in August, so I’m going to give her a calendar that will span the first year (a 13 month calendar from August to August), so she can record some of those major milestones.  The projects should showcase the wealth of options you have before you.

First, let’s start with the typical January to December calendar page.  I designed this one as a 4.75″ square to create a CD Jewel Case Calendar:

This page was made using the recent ShamROCKS kit by AnnaBV Designs.  The calendar came from “Save The Date” by Simply Sweet Designs (she’s retiring, so run to the store and grab this while it’s still available!)

You have a couple of calendar options out there.  In addition to the planning sheet, Heather has also created a nifty brush set to customize your own calendar.  You can download that set from here.  And in the months to come, you will also see new calendar releases from our SM designers.

For this month, just start slowly.  Take some time to think about your project, and fill out your planning sheet.  To help you pull your ideas together, the Creative Team have been working on the planning sheets as well!  Here are the sheets that I’ve completed- one that will include a 2010 version of the March page shown above, and the other for Danielle’s baby calendar:

The Creative Team has been hard at work as well.  Here’s one from Hybrid Team Leader, Heather (hedderlee):

I can’t wait to see the plans you come up with!  For this month, the “I’ll Pencil You In” challenge is simply posting your completed (or mostly completed) planner page in the gallery and in the challenge thread to be found in the forums.  Here is the blank form to copy:

Starting in April, your completed calendar pages will count for challenge points.  If you are using photographs, you will have a certain measure of flexibility- you can use this year’s photos for next – ie. January 2009 photos for the January 2010 calendar page – or random photos.  The plan is to have as many of the photos chosen now as much as possible.  Obviously, everyone’s photo stash will be limited to March 2009 at this point.  Choose them at each month’s end!  Plus, you can make notes for the pictures you would like to take!

As always, here are the guidelines for the challenges at Scrap Matters:

- entries must be posted in the appropriate challenge gallery, and in the corresponding thread in the forum
- entries must be posted before the end of the month (March 31st) to be counted toward that month’s point total
- you’ll get 1 point for completing the planning page and posting it.  Plus, I’ll select one entry at random for a bonus challenge point.

Have a great Thursday!  If you’re a college basketball fan- enjoy the Madness!

Hi Everyone!  Stefanie here to bring you this week’s Grand Theft Layout.  We are lifting Monsu this week and I just love her gallery.  Her layouts are simply but stunning!  You can find her gallery here.

I loved Monsu’s layout Caught in the Rain

and here is my take on it using Jeni Hopewell’s Family Ties Kit and Erica Zane’s EZ masks

Look at what the wonderful ScrapMatters CT came up with:

Here is the layout Kim lifted:

and Kim’s layout using Britt-ish Designs new messy masks and motor mania

and Christine lifted:

and here is Christine’s Layout using Erica’s *Falling Dusk* and Joy Revisted Template.

This challenge will run until the end of March. You will receive 1 point for completing the challenge and my favorite layout will receive an additional point. Also, don’t forget that if you use a new kit during it’s first week of release you can earn another point (just let me know when you post in the forum)

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

Just a little heads up that our gallery is going to be down for site maintnenance. I’m not sure exactly when or for how long, hopefully it won’t be down for very long.  If by chance the entire site goes down, please know that our IT people are already working on it.  Thanks, Andrea

Just received an update.  The gallery will be down for about an hour starting at 4:30 Pacific Daylight Time (that’s in about 40 minutes).

Top ‘o the mornin’ to ye, lassies!  And a Happy Saint Patty’s Day too!  It’s Cyndi (who is so totally non-irish) here to give you the new Tuesday Template Challenge.

I hosted a Speed Scrap last week and thought the layout would make a nice template.  So here it is. 

Download here

Fancy it up any way you like.   You have all month to complete this challenge. Please upload your LO to the Tuesday Template Challenge gallery, as well as linking it in the forum thread to get your point. You can also earn an additional point by using any product released in the past 7 days in the SM shop. Just make sure you mention which new product you used when uploading your page. At the end of the challenge, I’ll be choosing one random winner who will earn an extra point as well!

You don’t have to use ScrapMatters products to participate in this challenge, but we love it when you do! Remember, no double dipping. Each LO must be created for one challenge only. Can’t wait to see your pages!

Not let me me show you what our fabulous CT whipped up…

This one’s from Jeni

One from Kim

This one is from Christy

And this one is from the other Kim

Our CT really is so very talented   Now you get busy.  Can’t wait to see your creations!

Hey everyone!  Jeni here bringing you another “What Matters Monday.”  One of the many wonderful things about my husband’s grandfather was that he always had a story to tell.  He was a POW in WWII, a husband and father, and a writer.  He has since passed on but he left his children and grandchildren with volumes of his stories and recollections.  He spent a lot of his life writing things down so that his grandchildren could have a record of his life.  He was an avid photographer as well and many of his pictures are included in his books along with his memories.  These books are absolute treasures to our family now.  I know you’re thinking, “What does this have to do with me?”  Well, I’m hoping my children will someday want to know about my life before them.  What was mom like as a baby, a toddler, a teenager? (Well, maybe we’ll just skip those teenage years!  hehe.)  YOUR story matters too.

The “My Story Matters” challenges here at SM are the perfect way to tell YOUR story and your journey from the very beginning.  Every other Sunday there is a new prompt to help you create a chronicle of your story.  There have been four challenges so far:  Your Birth Story, Your Name, Your Hometown, and Baby Stories.  I’ve been holding on to some of my baby pictures for quite a while now and just haven’t known where to start in scrapping them.  These challenges have been the perfect answer!  (Plus you can get points by completing these challenges good for coupons to the SM store!)

Here are some pages I’ve been able to complete so far:

These challenges are so fun and bring back so many memories.  I cherish all these pictures and memories and I hope that this book will someday be a treasure to my children and grandchildren.  Now go get busy on YOUR story – your kids will thank you someday!

ScrapMatters is so EXCITED to have another wonderful designer joining our shop!  Please help us welcome Jennifer Barrette!

Jennifer Barrette Designs is now at ScrapMatters, and is opening with a 30% off sale, AND if you spend $10 in her new store you can get her newest kit “Serendipity” FREE!!

Just add the kit to your cart with $10 or more and use coupon – FWP_JBD

Here are a few of her new goodies coming to the ScrapMatters store

Serendipity Kit

Teen Angst Kit

Masquerade Vol 1

One Word Says It All

Hello, Monique (monsu) here bringing you the Saturday Special Challenge!

For today’s challenge I’d like you to try a very simple, but effective technique to tell a story on a page, using a storyboard design. It means you tell a story by showing a series of at least three photos.

A traditional photo storyboard has three vertical photos side-by-side on a white background, but you can choose to show more photos, or in different shapes. To create this effect, you can of course use some of our designer’s templates, a few of which I’ll show you later, but this is not a hard look to create yourself!  Just create three identical shapes in a row, and clip your photos to them. You could tell a story in time, a story from different angles, or a story showing a sequence!

I’ll show you some examples I did:

Your challenge this week is, to create a layout including a story board of at least three photos! You can use more photos if you like, as long as they are telling a story!

If you’d rather work with a template, here are some excellent examples from the ScrapMatters store: (images are linked!!)

You can browse the template section of the shop here for more examples.

I made a page showing the classic storyboard design, using the NEW Ginger Breeze kit by Tracie Stroud and Edge to Edge Wordart 2 by Britt-ish Designs

Now, here are some pages our fabulous CT members made to inspire you:

Cyndi (cyndi146) made this page, using Backyard Buddies by Erica Zane and Keepsakes Template Set 6 by Digi Keepsakes  and the  Enchanted Bonus Alpha by Britt-ish Designs:

Sharon (Sharon Dale) used elements from Justin and a paper from Rusted Paper Set by Dirty Feet Designs. The tag and clip are from Save the Date by Simply Sweet Designs:

Kim (kimbytx) created this fun page, using My Little Monkey by Mickey B Designs and  Diane-spiration template by Sya’s BLueprints:

And last by not least, Kelly (kkklat) made this cute page using the Jungle Collab by Simply Sweet Designs and Haynay Designs, and Batty for you by GG Digital designs:

I hope you feel inspired to now create you own storyboard layout!

If you do, make sure you post it in the Saturday Special Gallery. Then link your page to this thread in the forum.
You have until the end of March to post your layout, and it has to be unique to this challenge.
You’ll receive one point for your completed page, you can earn an extra point by using a newly released design from the shop (mention this with your post!!), or if I pick your layout for my favourite by the end of the month.
You don’t have to use ScrapMatters products, but of course we love it if you do!

I hope you’ll have fun with this challenge! Have a lovely weekend!

Happy Friday the 13th fellow scrappers!!  It’s Cyndi, here to give you today’s Matter of Snap post.  Today’s post is not a tutorial, but a tip.  I’m going to let you in on a secret of a really great photographer.  It’s the secret to getting “THE SHOT”.  You know, “THE ONE”. 

Do you want to know how to get “THE SHOT”?  Take tons of pictures.  Yep, it’s really that easy… well, mostly.  There are still quite a few tips and tricks to camera work but even the pros use this trick to get the really good ones.  Take tons of pictures and you’re bound to come out with at least a few really good ones.

For the past couple years, I’ve had the awesome opportunity to work with two professional photographers, taking pictures for the sports teams at my son’s high school.  We get out to games and takes tons of pictures.  We fill our memory cards and then some.  But I was really surprised the first time I posted my pics on the website.  I noticed each of the other photographers had only posted a handful of their pictures.  I knew they had taken lots more cuz I was there when they took them.  But they concentrated on the really good ones, post processed a little and posted those.  And they looked really good!

I know as scrapbookers, we tend to feel like we have to scrap each and every picture.  It’s hard to let even one go.  But if we go into a photo opportunity with the mindset that many of these pictures will not be worth scrapping and just look for the really good ones out of the bunch, our LO’s will look all the better for it.  And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

So in this world of digital cameras and mega memory cards, don’t be afraid to keep snapping.  “THE SHOT” might be the very next one