Ashalee Wall and Lina (aka LDrag Designs) have come to play at SM this month!

Check out the goodies they have brought with them….

Be sure to check out their shops… you’ll love their creativity and their quality!

Ashalee Wall Designs @ ScrapMatters

LDrag Designs @ ScrapMatters

{posting this for emileem}

Hi Ladies! I love the Saturday Special challenges here at SM. I always learn a new technique, a new way to do something or an idea to improve composition. Some Saturday Specials I end up using on nearly every LO and many could be repeated each year. One of those techniques I use on nearly every LO is the Visual Triangle Mary (Plum Dumpling Designs) taught us in April 2009. Here is the text from Mary’s post–>

There are many design principles that we can use to create beautifully balanced layouts. One of those principles is the visual triangle. Stay with me! Don’t worry if you failed geometry or can’t remember the difference between a scalene and an isosceles triangle. Surprisingly enough, this concept is very simple. Your challenge is to use three of the same (fill in the blank) to help guide the viewer’s eye around the page. You can be creative and have fun deciding which “three” you are going to use. Here are some examples:

• three of the same element (or variations of the same element)
• three pops of the same color
• three areas of text – font or alpha
• three pieces of the same patterned paper

There are many more ways you can incorporate the visual triangle into your layouts. Go where your inner mathematician takes you.

And here is some inspiration from the SM CT–>
from Jami (alansrock) using Sunday Afternoon kit Designs by Sarah Bennett & Trixie Scraps Designs:

from Lina (ldrag2004):

from Jen (jendavey):

And here is my LO using Bee Happy by Connie Prince. I loved her word art strips and used them to create my visual triangle:

Your assignment is to create a LO using a visual triangle as Mary described. Then post your LO in the Saturday Special gallery and the coordinating forum thread.

The deadline for this challenge is June 30th, 2010.

You will earn 1 point for your LO and a bonus point if you use a new release (within 7 days of release – be sure to mention this in the forum and in your credits).

No double dipping, your LO must be unique to this challenge.

At the end I will pick a random winner to receive an extra bonus point to go toward their July total.

I hope you have been practicing your curtsy!  SM has just wrapped up our 3^rd annual Queen of Scrap Contest – it has been absolutely AMAZING to watch!

This year the contest was bigger than ever.  More contestants, more participation gifts, more pages and more prizes!  We had 157 scrappers enter our contest. Collectively they created 6765 pages and projects during the month of May! That is a LOT of scrapping!

There were brag books, hybrid projects, pages about kids and parents, pets and friends.  There were even pages about the contest itself!  There were many pages that made us laugh and just as many that made us cry.  Either way, they touched all of our hearts.

The QOS gallery was FULL of inspiration and artistic talent.  Everyone who entered should be so proud of themselves!  I am certain that most of them scrapped more LO’s this month than they ever dreamed possible.  We had 14 people scrap over 100 pages EACH during the contest!  56 people scrapped more than 50 pages each!  That is pretty amazing!

We had one incredible layout artist scrap 200 pages – on her own – in one month!!!  As our “Top Poster” (the person who created the MOST LO’s during the contest) , she will win a $50 gift card to the ScrapMatters shop!  She will also win prizes from our contest sponsors.  A one year Gold Membership from DigiShopTalk and a copy of List your Life – A Log Your Memory Journal List from Log Your Memory!

Congratulations citygurl08!  You are our Top Poster!

Now before I get to the second part of the contest and announcing the Queen of Scrap & the Princesses of Scrap – we let the QOS contestants have a little fun voting for their new friends.  Each of these winners will receive a $10 coupon to one of our designers shops!

Miss Congeniality – for the QOS participant who was the most friendly and social during QOS – (sponsored by Happy Scrap Girl)…. mommy22girls

Miss Photogenic – for the QOS participant with the best overall photography on her layouts (sponsored by Jenn Barrette)… sporte91

Miss Trendy –  for the QOS participant who uses a lot of the recent trends on her QOS layouts (sponsored by WM[squared])… Ddamsel

Miss Clusterqueen – for the QOS participant with the best overall “clustered” pages (sponsored by Denise Beatty Originals)… kathleena

Miss Wordy – for the QOS participant with the best overall journaling on her pages (sponsored by Geeky Diva)… merchi

Miss Rising Star – for a QOS participant who is “new” to ScrapMatters with the best overall pages (Sponsored by The Design Girl)… Inkspots

I know you have all been waiting for this part.  I’m sure that many of you scrolled right to the end of this post just to see who won!    We’ll here is the part you have been waiting for.  One of these lucky ladies is going to be crowned ScrapMatters Queen of Scrap! Two lucky ladies will also be named the “Princess of Scrap”. The princesses will receive a one month guest spot on our CT. The Queen is to win a three month guest spot on our CT. To qualify for this part of the competition, the participants had to be in the top 30% of  posters with the most layouts created for May.  To be in the top 30% and be considered for the QOS, each person had completed at least 60 LO’s!  Each of these princesses should take a bow – I’m sure many scrappers struggle to make that many pages in a year! You can truly tell that they are very passionate about this craft and the subjects of their layouts.

Well, it would have been way too hard for one person to pick a winner, so we put the fantastic ScrapMatters team members to work! We poured over their galleries and each of us voted on who we thought should be the winners. It was so hard to decide!

Are you ready?

ScrapMatters Princess of Scrap – TWO people will be chosen to win a ONE month guest spot on the ScrapMatters.com CT!  In addition to their guest spot they will also win these AWESOME prizes!

A one year subscription to Creating Keepsakes Magazine
One copy of List your Life – A Log Your Memory Journal List from Log Your Memory!
One month of the “Fix” from DigiScrapAddicts!

Please help me congratulate Brenda (Brenda Smith Designs) & Tanya (tanyarank)!  Ladies your galleries are amazing!

And now for ScrapMatters Queen of Scrap – true digiscrap royalty! One person will be chosen to win a THREE month guest spot on the ScrapMatters.com CT! In addition to the guest spot, the Queen will also win these AWESOME prizes!

A “Bamboo Craft” pen tablet from Wacom!!! It’s a $130.00 value!
A 1 year subscription to Creating Keepsakes Magazine!
One month of the “Fix” from DigiScrapAddicts!
A Real Life Weekly Challenges Book from Log Your Memory!
A one year Gold Membership from DigiShopTalk

Wow – that is an amazing prize pack!

OK now this is the part that you have been waiting for…..

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Cheryl (gonewiththewind)!!!!  Congratulations Cheryl!  the team at ScrapMatters.com is so very excited to have you join us!!! We would love to have you take on a guest CT spot on our team – allowing you access to our shop to scrap your heart out!

Here are just a few of her stunning pages.

I will be contacting all of the winners later today with their prize information!

Please be sure to stop by all the QOS galleries to see their amazing work this past month.

I also want to take a minute to thank the people that made this contest possible this year.  Thanks to all of our corporate sponsors for their generous donations!  Thanks to our AMAZING design team – they worked so hard to create the participation gifts for the contest and MANY of them went above and beyond to offer addition prizes for the challenges and extra prizes & to help with coordinating the contest.  Thanks to our CT for putting together the template pack participation prize, distributing the prizes and hosting the challenges.  Thanks to the newsletter team & the ad team for working so hard to coordinate all of the extra ads this month & putting together another amazing newsletter.  (GOSH, you’d think I’d won the award, lol)!  Thanks to the SMG for all of the sweet, heartfelt, amazing comments you left in the gallery!  I don’t know how you do it, but we appreciate you more than you know!  Thank you to the admin team who helped coordinate this contest, line up prizes, save my sanity and all of the other wonderful things that you do.  And last but not least… Thank you to everyone that participated either by scrapping or cheering for this contest.  It was so much fun this year!

Heather K. (interstitchal) here with June’s Get Hybrid! With June here, the weather is starting to warm up (or I hope/dream of it) and that makes me want to eat outside. So this month, we’ll be focusing on making some fun decorations for picnics or outdoor parties! This could also be easily adapted for indoor festivities in case the weather is not cooperating.

I made some fun table decorations for a wild party using the kit Wild Things by Man in the Moon Designs. Those animals are irresistible!

I created a placemat and printed onto an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. It’s a little smaller than the placemats you might buy, but the size is easy and definitely works! If you are planning on using the placemats more than once or you have messy party guests, think about laminating the placemats. I used one sheet of cold laminate (it’s like clear sticker paper) on the back and one sheet on the front of each placemat to make it nice and sturdy. Hint for laminating – lay your paper slowly from one end to the other and smooth as you go to avoid bubbles. You could also use a hot laminator if you have access to a machine.

For the placecards, I created each with a different animal with a base size of 4×4 inches folding to 2 inches tall and 4 inches wide. To give it a little pop, I had the top of the animal reach over the fold of the placecard. You could use an X-acto type knife to cut the part that will stick out above the fold and use one piece of paper. Or if you want to use scissors, I cut the card in half and around the top of the animal’s head with scissors

Then I pasted the front onto a folded 4×4 square to finish my placecard.

For the napkin ring, I created a rectangular design 6 inches wide and 1.5 inches tall. Then I cut out the rectangle. You can glue the ends of the ring together to secure it. I used another way to fasten the napkin ring into a circle by cutting two slits halfway into the ring about 1 inch from the center.

Then I tucked the ring together using the slits to create the circle. You can secure this with adhesive or leave it as is. With the slits you can make them in advance and then slip them together when you are ready for the party or store them flat after the party and reuse them.

Then add a fun dimensional piece to the front of the napkin ring. You can see what the final ring looks like in the first photo. Another great idea would be to use Cristina’s tutorial from the April 2010 ScrapMatters’ newsletter to create some dimensional handmade flowers.

Some tips I have for making multiple hybrid decorations for an event:

- Work on one project at a time. With party planning, it’s easy to run out of time. It’s better to have one decoration with enough for every person attending than one set of decorations (and then you can’t use it). That way, if you only have time to make napkin rings for everyone – you’ll have a fun addition for all and you can run out and purchase anything you didn’t have time for.

- If you are making multiple projects, keep each individual project simple. It’s easy to get carried away at the beginning. It’s not too bad creating one complicated project. But multiply that by the number of people in a large party, and you can burn out!

- The most important part is to have fun! If it’s too stressful, step back!

- You don’t have to have a big event to decorate. If you need a pick-me-up or you want to do a project with your children, plan a surprise party for a small reason or no reason at all. Small decorations can really brighten up a day! Try it and see!

The challenge for this month is to create any project that you could use for a picnic or outdoor party. It could be an adaptation of any of the items I made (napkins rings, placemats, placecards) or anything you can dream of! You could also do a centerpiece, invitations, a party favor(boxes,bags), drink labels…

There are some great hybrid helps in the shop to get your inspiration rolling too, here’s just a small sample!

Krisi also released these cute party banners last week -

And here is a party set Krisi created using Fresh Squeezed and Just Smile Alpha by Jennifer Barrette (hint, hint- there might be a fun new release on Fri June 4th also!)

And here is a party setup by Melissa (profiler_mar) using Krisi’s Kreations- Let’s Party Hybrid Templates, Jenn Barrette-Summer Girls, and Font-DJB NeeNee by Darcy Baldwin. Isn’t it darling?

Join us for the month of June in creating a project that you could use for a picnic or outdoor party.  Post your creation in the hybrid challenges section of the Matter of Scrap forum here!

Hey everyone!  Tanya here bringing you the first Grand Theft Layout of June! We are gonna lift from the seriously AWESOME gallery of Dawn aka: Aussiegirl! There is A LOT to choose from in her gallery, so make sure you choose a layout you love!

Check out Dawn’s gallery HERE!

I am choosing to lift Epcot Landscape:

And here is what I came up with:

I used the Hard Hat 101 Bundle from Erica Zane along with the Beat Up and Screwed Up Alpha by Stolen Moments.

Check out what our fabulous Creative Team came up with:

Wendy (WM [squared]) chose Rental House Outside:

And came up with this awesome LO:

Wendy used My Buddy by Sarah Bennett

Heidi (scrappurple) chose to life Morning Mountains:

Then came up with this beauty:

Heidi used Forever Love by Wimpychompers, Slim Metal Alpha by Gwennie Pooh Designs and Stitch Me Up: Combo by Chelle’s Creations.

Becca (Becca1976) decided to lift Floodplain House:

And came up with this GINORMOUS snail!!:

Becca used Erica Zanes Backyard Buddies and Fun ‘lil alpha – mud splat is from Britt-ish Designs Animal Kingdom.

Jami (alansrock) lifted Just Keep Swimming:

Her is Jami’s super sweet (and sad!) LO:

Jami used C is for Cat by WM[squared] Designs and Animal House by Britt-ish Designs

Amber (jeffsamber) lifted Deer:

She came up with this super cute LO:

Amber used Sahlin Studio/Britt-ish Designs Taste of Germany & Norway and Around the World Collabs.

Cindi (Cindi146) lifted Small Small World:

And made this Fun LO:

So come on over to the FORUM and check it out!!

WoW…June already? That just sounds crazy!! Well ladies I am here to bring you the first Tuesday Template for June….

Download Here

*sorry about the incorrect link before. It is corrected now.

Here’s my layout using Tropical Paradise Bundle by WM[squared] Designs:

And here is what the amazing SMCT created using this template:

Becca’s using Wild Princess by Haynay Designs:

Kim’s using Waterpark by Sahlin Studio and Jacque Larsen

The “Fine Print” aka the Matter of Scrap Challenge rules:
You have all of June to complete the layout! Upload it to the gallery, and leave BOTH the image and a link as a reply in the Tuesday Template 6.1.10 thread in the forum.

You will receive one point for completing the challenge. You can earn an additional point for using a new product from the ScrapMatters store (PLEASE indicate you have used something new when you leave us the link in the forum), and one lucky winner will receive one more point – I will be doing a random draw!

Remember, no double dipping…your layout must be unique to this challenge.

Can’t wait to see what you create!!