As promised, we’re back today to show you the holiday Advent Calendar we were making in class on Saturday. It is still a work in progress – my goal is to finish this before the Retreat, so I’ll be sure to post a picture as soon as I accomplish that goal! As you can surely imagine, we are very busy this week preparing for our fall Scrapbook Retreat at the Wilds.

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See the glittery borders? Those are made with 1/8″ Scor-Tape and Doodlebug Swimming Pool Glitter – I love the effect. The idea is to put a picture of my neice in the square in the middle, and I was planning to use the title “Counting down to Christmas”. We’ll see how much I deviate from the plan… it’s always so much fun to play and see what you’ll come up with. Often times things will end up completely different from how you intended.

Terri, one of the class participants, was inspired by the new Crate paper that came out on Friday and she used one of the papers for the middle of her Calendar… check it out!

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Terri used two pieces of the same paper and cut out some of the ornaments from one sheet to paper piece over the existing ornaments, popping them up with dimensional foam tape. We both decided that we would leave our calendars the natural wood colour, even though the instructions called for Red Paint.

We have a ton of new papers in stock that arrived on Friday – the new Nook and Pantry from Basic Grey, North Pole from Crate Paper, Christmas Carnival from KaiserCraft and more.

We also have ALL of the new A Muse Shimmer Couture Paper – our A Muse 8.5×11 Paper Collection is now complete! We are working on an idea for a cute little A Muse section of the store – hopefully we’ll have this all set up by this time next week!

We are taking STAMP PRE-ORDERS for A Muse and Hero Arts - we will be placing our order next week so if there’s something you’re dying to get your hands on from either company please email us with the name and product code. Stamp Pre-Orders are subject to a Tax Free discount (Paperie Members receive 20% off Stamp Pre-Orders). You have until Wednesday, November 18th to place your order. Check their catalogs online:

www.amuseartstamps.com

www.heroarts.com

Welcome back to a new week on The Paperie Blog. For this week’s Mojo Monday Challenge we have a little holiday motivation for you…

Create a handmade gift for the holidays!

This can be anything, from something small and simple like a portfolio of cards, to something more elaborate like a Scrapbooked Calendar. Tomorrow we’ll be back to show you the cool Advent Calendar we made in class on Saturday afternoon – perfect as an early Christmas gift for the little kiddos in your life.

We are happy to announce our featured scrapbooker for the month of November…

JENI (YETMAN) GLOVER

Jeni’s distinct style is apparent throughout her album, she creates beautiful double page layouts that truly capture the photographs and events she is scrapbooking. Check out this beautiful layout Jeni made to remember her daughter’s first day of school…

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Don’t you just love those borders of die-cut alphabets? Jeni says the one thing she uses on almost every page is her fluid Chalk inks from Colorbox. Here Jeni has used these inks to distress the edges of the papers and every single letter in those alphabet borders – we love the finished look it gives.

Hello everyone, as many of you know we had a booth in Devotion: The Wedding Show this past Sunday at Mile One Convention Center. Once again we created a display of paper elements, including an Invitation and a Favour Box Centerpiece made with our AccuCut Die-Cutting System. Check out our gallery of images below for inspiration – many of these ideas can be incorporated into other events such as birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, a holiday party, etc.

Check back on Friday for our November Spotlight – we’ll be featuring a new Scrapbooker this month that will be a familiar face to many of you!

As promised, we’re back today to show you a card that Chris created based on a card by Jennie Moczan, as shown in a link in yesterday’s Blog Post…

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Don’t you just love the way Chris combined the popcorn stamp with the tiny gift to make a cute Christmas card? Chris used the A Muse Juliette Sky Paper to create the card above, combined with some A Muse Cranberry notecards that she cut up. Enclosed inside is a Movie Theatre gift card - the perfect Christmas gift for those teenagers that are hard to shop for!

In case you haven’t popped by the store in the last month, we now have ALL of the A Muse 8.5×11 Patterned Papers in stock – and the brand new Shimmer Couture Paper is on the way to us now! The thing that we all love about this paper is that it’s white or ivory on the opposite side which is IDEAL for cardmaking.

Here’s another card that Chris made inspired by one of Jennie’s cards…

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This card was made quickly and easily with the Scor-pal – cut a piece of paper to 3.5×10 and scor your lines at 5″ and  9″ – add some tape and you have a quick and easy pocket card! Chris used a border punch on the one inch lip that folds down – a great place to put your sentiment. She also lined the inside of the pocket with red Gingham patterned paper to add some visual interest – the repetition of the gingham on the scalloped square was a cute way to mount the image. Enclosed inside this pocket is a Tim Horton’s Coffee gift card.

PSSST! I fixed the link to Jennifer McGuire’s layout in yesterday’s blog post – check it out!

This week’s Mojo Monday challenge is to CASE a card or project by somebody else. What does “CASE” mean you ask? It means “Copy and Share Everything” or “Copy and Steal Everything” – it’s one of those popular scrapbooking/stamping terms that you’ll see a lot.  

Here’s a cool layout by Jennifer McGuire that I might CASE if I get a chance this week…

jennifermcguireink.com

Basically you just look at somebody elses card or layout and copy it! You can copy as much or as little of the project as you want - from something as small as the title or the colour scheme, right up to the entire concept! This is one of those crafts where imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery and most Designers love to have their projects Cased – it means they’re inspiring you which means they’re doing their job!  

There is one golden rule when it comes to CASEing: CREDIT the Artist. All original ideas are subject to copyright so it is prohibited to copy a project and pass it off as your own online, or use the ideas for publication or contest submissions. You can say “thanks” if your mom or friend is flipping through your album and says “I LOVE this layout” – no harm done - but if you’re going to display it publically, it is just common courteousy to credit the original artist. Even if you credit the publication or the blog where you saw the layout that inspired your project, that’s better than nothing! 

Stay tuned tomorrow – we’ll have a Pocket Card that Chris made inspired by the card below that  Jennie Moczan made…

http://simplycaffeinated.typepad.com/photos/a_muse_creations/coffeecupcake1118.html

Jennie is a talented member of the A Muse Creative team and she has OODLES of cards on her blog – be sure to check out more of her great ideas, you might just find yourself inspired to CASE something yourself

Okay… I have managed to keep silent about this for the last 30 days and I can’t take it anymore! You may be wondering where I disappeared to last week (if you noticed my absence)…

Well… I was in Seattle at A Muse Artstamps. And I have proof!

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YES. That’s me! And can you guess who that is next to me? YES. It’s JULIE EBERSOLE. Now I know that I’ve said it many times before, but in case you didn’t know it… Julie Ebersole is my stamping hero. She’s a creative genius – a mastermind even. To actually meet and LEARN from the master was a huge privilege and an experience I’m not likely to forget anytime soon.

You may be asking yourself how I lucked into this extraordinary opportunity. Well, A Muse posted an Instructor Call in August and I simply answered the call! I made 4 cards and a project and submitted my application to Julie Ebersole herself, and the rest is history! You are looking at one of the NEWEST certified A Muse Instructors to join the A Muse Creative Team – a big congratulations to Donna Hitz in Alaska, the other ”newbie” to join me on the team.   

Check out my FIRST official A Muse Class in this new role…

A Muse Christmas Card Class – Tuesday, November 10th (6:30pm)
Join Meghan - The Paperie’s very own official A Muse Instructor, for our last Christmas Card Class leading up to the big Holiday. This class will feature three beautiful card designs that will be quick and easy to mass produce for those of you in a time crunch and one “snazzy card” inspired by a class Julie Ebersole taught in Seattle. We will stay true to the A Muse Artstamps motto: Think Simple. Think A Muse, focusing on their clean, classic style! This class is great for stampers of all levels, even those who are just starting out!
Members: $20.00
Non-Members: $40.00

Welcome back for our October Spotlight Grand Finale, featuring the talented Kennell family! Today we have a project to show you by each crafty member of this talented family…

First up we have a layout by Taylor…

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Taylor echoed the colour scheme of her picture with her layout, using black Bazzill Bling Cardstock and pops of yellow. She used Print Shop Pro to add some of her journaling to the photo itself. Norine admits that her daughter is leaps and bounds ahead of her when it comes to Hybrid Scrapbooking (using Digital elements combined with paper elements).

Next up we have another layout by Norine….

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Norine used some of last year’s Making Memories Halloween paper and coordinating elements to make this SPoOoKy layout of her and Taylor at the pumpkin patch in 2006. Love that big 8×10 picture cropped down to fit the page – it’s a great way to showcase a photo that you really love and makes a bold statement.

And finally we have another layout by Tyler…

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Scrapbooking your favourite video games, cartoons, or hobbies is a great way to represent yourself in your scrapbook album. We often get caught up scrapbooking other people (our friends, kids, families, etc.) and don’t focus enough on ourselves. When it’s all said and done, what is your Scrapbook Album going to say about YOU? In ten years, are you going to remember what your favourite show was in 2009? Your favourite place to eat? Where you bought that sweater you’re wearing in every picture and why you love it so much? Document everything, you’ll be glad you did!

Today we have a few October Spotlight projects to share with you, featuring Norine Kennell and her daughter Taylor.

First up we have a layout by Taylor commemorating her family’s visit to the Insectarium in Deer Lake a few years ago. The AccuCut Jill’s Chunky Alphabet was used for the title here.

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Clever Taylor took the original photo (seen below) and used Print Shop Pro to remove the various other people in the photograph. Just look at the original photo…

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Next we have another layout of the family trip to Discovery Cove, made by Norine. How many people can say they have swam with the dolphins? Norine, Tyler and Taylor can!

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Norine’s colour scheme and use of the AccuCut Typewriter for the title is just perfect for this layout. We love how Norine’s double page layouts often flow seamlessly together to make a page with real impact. Love the blue foil on the strips of Scor-tape and the brown metal brads add a masculine touch.

Check back tomorrow for our last October Spotlight featuring Norine and her kids – we’ll have projects from all three of them to finish off the month!

For this week’s AccuCut showcase we have two cards to show you featuring two of our Convertible Cards die-cut templates.

For our first card, Chris used the Square Card with the Convertible Insert Square (reverse scallop) and the Convertible Insert Tree dies to create her holiday photo card with A Muse patterned papers. She stamped the Hero Arts Script background inside of the card and used another Hero Arts stamp for the sentiment.

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For our next card Janna used Basic Grey papers with the A7 Pocket Card and the Convertible Insert Photo slots which are ideal to include a gift card or a photo.

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 The matching insert was cut out of coordinating Basic Grey Paper and Janna used a 1/8″ hole punch to add ribbon to the top. A Hero Arts sentiment was used on the front and three houses were cut out from a scrap of paper and adhered beneath the photo with dimensional foam adhesive.

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Please note that the Blog will be on hiatus until next Thursday, as I will be “away from the office”.

Be sure to pop by the store to say hi to Meshell and Chris, and to check out all the beautiful new papers and embellishments from Basic Grey.  We still have room in many of our upcoming classes in October and November, see the Class Schedules for more information…

www.thepaperie.wordpress.com/category/classes 

This wooden Advent Calendar is just one of the cool projects we’ll be making in one of our upcoming classes in November…

Before

Here’s a sample that was made by a KaiserCrafts designer. We’ll be using different papers and embellishments but you get the basic idea!

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Don’t forget about our Refer a Friend Program, going on until November 30th.

Because we’ll miss this Friday’s Blog post, when I return next week we’ll have TWO days in a row of wonderful inspiration from Norine, Taylor, and Tyler – our featured customers for the October Spotlight. See you then!

We’re back today with a tip and another card to share with you inspired by yesterday’s challenge…

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TIP: For this card I only inked up the top part of the Flourish frame stamp, omitting the rest to make a cute corner accent.  I used the Ladybug Memento Dew Drop ink for this – the smaller ink pads, and the dew drop shapes in particular, are ideal for inking specific parts of a stamp – using this technique you might just look at your stamps in a whole new way!

NEW PRODUCT ALERT

Three of the New Basic Grey Collections have hit the shelves here at The Paperie this morning. We have a selection of product from Eerie, Eskimo Kisses, and Indian Summer in stock now and at the rate it’s going it won’t last long! Stop by to check it out before it’s all gone!

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This week’s Mojo Monday challenge is simple, inspired by the Muses over at A Muse Artstamps. These girls are the masters of “thinking outside the box” and come up with dozens of creative ways to use A Muse stamps – ways that never would have occured to many of us! So, your challenge is…

Use at least one stamp in a different way! This could involve omitting part of the image or sentiment, combining two sentiments to make a totally unique verse, etc. Here’s a card I made featuring the Flourish Frame stamp from A Muse – I’ve seen this used sideways as brackets on either side of the image, but I thought it might be cute to use on the top and bottom of my image…

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This stamp is actually half of a frame, so you can use it by itself as an accent or stamp each side as close together or far apart as you like.  Tomorrow I’ll show you another cute way to use this stamp as a corner accent – stay tuned!

For our Friday Feature this week we have another great layout made by Norine Kennell.

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See that background paper Norine used for the picture of her and Taylor? That paper was just plain Bazzill cardstock – Norine used a Hero Arts border stamp with brown ink to give the paper a subtle pattern, then punched out stars and inked up the paper. What a beautiful effect! Norine credits another Retreat participant from the Fall Scrapbook Retreat for the title – a nod to the Bonnie Tyler hit ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart”. That’s the great thing about scrapbooking with others – lots of ideas to share and new things to learn!

Next Friday I will be out of town, but we’ll have more projects made by Norine and her two children the following Thursday & Friday, so be sure to stop back and check it out!

Hello again everyone – the last Blog post was overflowing with information so I thought I would make another one, rather than wait until tomorrow to post – two in one day (don’t get used to it )

This Sunday at 1:00pm we are having our SPoOkY Halloween Tricks & Treats Class. In this class we will create two interactive cards (or “Trick cards”, as I call them) and an Acetate Treat box (filled with treats!). Here’s a sneak peek at two of the cards we will be making on Sunday.

Sunday, October 18th – Halloween Tricks & Treats (1:00pm)
This is the perfect weekend class for those of you who love Halloween as much as we do! We will create two interactive Halloween “trick” cards and a Treat box (filled with treats!). We will be featuring A Muse Artstamps in all three projects, and will use the AccuCut Machine to create the treat box with acetate.  Even if you don’t typically send out Halloween cards, this is a fun class you won’t want to miss out on!
Members: $13.00
Non-Members: $26.00

Today we have two different invitations to show you featuring one of our latest AccuCut Dies, the A7 Jacket Card #3.

This invitation folds up from the bottom to create a little pocket to insert your various pieces of information. For the invitation below, we just made a single insert because the RSVP information is on the actual invite.

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For the next invitation one of our customers used the exact same die-cut but she scored a second line to create a smaller invitation with the pocket on the inside for the RSVP card.

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Yes indeed – that is the exact same die-cut, used two different ways for the two invitations. The smaller invite would make an adorable baby annoucement well, just stick the photo inside the little pocket.

We had a full house here at The Paperie on this rainy, rainy afternoon. ABLE (Adults with brain injury Living Every Day), a group from the Newfoundland and Labrador Brain Injury Association, booked the Paperie workshop this afternoon to make Christmas Cards. Each participant made three cards and lots of fun was had by all. A special thanks to Vicki Crocker who stopped by to lend a hand during the class – you’re one in a million, Vicki!

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Hope you’re all cosy in your craft rooms today, creating cards, layouts and other crafty goodness. We’ll be back on Friday for our weekly feature on Norine & Family, who have been wowing us all with their talents during our October Spotlight!

This week’s Mojo Monday challenge is for all of you folks who have a group of friends who like to scrapbook or make cards together…

Round up the group and get scrappin’!

For those of you who don’t have crafty friends who share the same interests as you, stop by The Paperie on Monday’s or Thursday’s to meet lots of friendly, like-minded ladies who love to scrapbook as much as you do! OR – check this out: This week we are offering a day of FREE WORKSHOP time to all of you non-Members out there. Stop by The Paperie at any point this Friday, October 16th for FREE use of the workshop. Normally there is a $5.00 per hour rate for drop-in visits so this is a great opportunity to come and see just how much you can accomplish in a creative environment with lots of die-cuts and tools at your disposal. We have room for up to 16 people, so just give us a call ahead of time to make sure there is space. Bring any projects and supplies you’d like to use and if you have any questions we’ll be happy to answer them!

Last Saturday evening a group of ladies got together here at The Paperie for a private booking. They rented out the space for just $10.00 per person and had a fun night of socializing and scrapbooking, check out the beautiful projects they made below!

What a talented group! Credit for each layout/card is listed below – thanks for helping me out with the “who’s who” ladies!

1. Lisa Niblock
2. Joanne Weir
3. Beth Nightingale
4. Staci Dauphine
5. Jennifer Piercey
6. Tanyaq Sangster
7. Staci Dauphine
8. Lisa Niblock
9. Beth Nightingale

REFER A FRIEND! Throughout the months of October and November we have a refer a friend program! Know someone who would love to get started creating beautiful projects, pages and cards? Ask a friend* to join you for a class at the Paperie during the months of October and November and both you and your friend will receive a thank you of 40% OFF one regular priced, in-stock item on the night of the class. And as a bonus, Members friends will receive the Members discount! Discount can be redeemed by customers who have taken classes before as long as the friend is new to the Paperie and is attending their first class. *Friend must not be in our customer database and present valid I.D. at time of registration. Offer does not apply to our Crops on Nov. 20th and 22nd. Limit of one discount per customer per class.

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To create these place cards I folded a strip of 3×6 Orange Dream Doublemates cardstock in half before placing it on the die-cut machine, leaving a space at the top where the crease was so that it wouldn’t cut through the stem. I inked up my pumpkins with Paprika VersaColor ink, then cut out a separate group of stalks with Brown Bazzill cardstock and glued them to the tops of the pumpkins. I actually wrote my family’s names on the place cards before I inked or glued the stalks on just in case I made a mistake – luckily there were no casualties with this batch!

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In this picture you can see how I folded the paper before cutting the pumpkin and where I actually laid it on the die-cut template to save my crease. My guinea pig pumpkin was laid a little higher so that the crease was actually on the stalk, but it didn’t stand up quite as nicely as with this version.

Our next project was actually made a couple of years ago by Janet Barlett and features some of our Sizzix die-cuts. Incidentally, we no longer use the Sizzix machine but we discovered that all of our Sizzix dies can be used with the AccuCut machine so long as we lay the original Sizzix cutting mat underneath the die-cut template, then lay the AccuCut acrylic cutting mat over the top.

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This wreath was made with a simple styrofoam ring, some cardstock, and Sizzix die-cuts. TIP - The veins in the leaves were created with the VersaMark Pen and some copper embossing powder - you can write words and doodle all kinds of accents with your VersaMark pen before embossing. Even when used as a watermark, the VersaMark Pen gives a nice shadowed effect on coloured cardstock when you trace the outlines of letters, images, etc.  

Enjoy your Thanksgiving Holiday and don’t forget – we are closed on Monday, October 12th for the holiday!

Welcome back to the second week in our October Spotlight – on this particular day we have  projects to share by Norine Kennell and both of her children, Taylor and Tyler.

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Just look at this beautiful layout Norine created to capture one of the more humourous memories from their visit to Discovery Cove. The colours and accents are perfect – love the Dew Drops used as accents on the lace cardstock and the AccuCut Typewriter font makes a beautiful title. The journaling reads: “What a great time we had with the birds. This little one found a comfy spot on Taylor’s head and stayed there about 15 minutes until… it pooped! We didn’t catch her look in a photo, but it will be etched in my memory forever”.  Don’t worry Taylor, apparently that is supposed to be a good omen!

Next up we have a Christmas card made by the talented Taylor Kennell, using Gel-a-tins Holiday Cheer ornaments. At just 14 years of age, this girl has been joining her mother at Paperie classes and crops for the last three years and I have literally watched her grow (she’s taller than me now, and I’m 5′7″!).

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And last but definitely not least, look at the sweet layout of the family pooch by Tyler Kennell. After dabbling in Scrapbooking at home with the family, Tyler took a scrapbooking class at his high school and a few classes at The Paperie and was hooked.  

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Yes, that’s right folks – scrapbooking is NOT just for the female population. We’ve had a number of guys come to the store to make scrapbooks of their friends, family, and travels - one precious soul joined up as a Paperie Member to take advantage of the workshop while he was making a scrapbook for his girlfriend – on the last page of his completed album was a marriage proposal! She said YES, of course!

Our Mojo Monday challenge will be going ahead as scheduled on Monday, even though the store will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. Stay tuned to the Paperie Blog on Monday!