Write. Click. Scrapbook.

give.away.day. featuring JENNI BOWLIN/JBS MERCANTILE

What a terrific week we are having! Mini's for love. Mini's for faves. Mini's for vacations. Mini's for you. Mini's for me. Mini's for everyone you see. But there is nothing mini about our

today. No, sirree. All week we have been delighted to be inspired to create mini albums and more with the delicious delightful delectable products of

But what fun would it be to not let you have some JBS Mercantile product to play with for yourself? Not nearly as much as if you had some!! How about an whole kit worth of JBS product?

If you would like to be considered for our giveaway of this remarkable kit

which includes:
6 double sided JBS papers --- 1 JBS Die Cut paper --- 2 Bazzill Cardstock --- 2 sheets Exclusive Mercantile JBS Paper --- 1 set JBS Journaling Cards --- 1 JBS Flag Banner Sticker Sheet --- 1 JBS Red Kindergarten Alpha Rub-on Sheet --- 4 pink and blue scallop notecards --- 1 “Cutlips”Ice cream Top --- 1 small Lucky Black JBS Bingo Card --- 1 Exclusive Recycled notebook --- 1 Exclusive Mercantile Stickers Tab Sheet --- 1 Exclusive Mercantile Large Bingo Card Month  --- Pillow Box: 1 yd. May Arts Ribbon, tiny black/cream --- 1 brass silhouette boy charm --- 1 cream molded flower bar --- 1 vintage pink threaded bobbin spool --- 12 banner chip pieces --- 5 red pearl charms

please leave us a comment telling us something vintage that intrigues you. Do you wonder if you would have wanted butter enough to churn it? How about antique furniture? Or is it the signs and the trinkets? the clothing? the lifestyle? Or does it all seem old and musty to you? Then, don't forget to make a page about your love/distaste for all things vintage.

After you leave your comment here, don't forget to click over to the JBS blog for an additional giveaway there!! And maybe you should stop by Monika's blog, too. Rumor has it there is more to have there, too!!

Comments will remain open until 8:00 pm PST. One lucky number will be selected at random and posted tomorrow. Please remember it is your responsibility to claim your lucky number before midnight Saturday. You will be contacted within one week to verify your email. All giveaways are shipped directly from the sponsoring company at their discretion.

my top ten lists

Hi there scrappy friends! It's me, Monika, that crazy lady that loves making mini albums. And knowing how much I love making mini albums, you know that it means a lot when I say that I might just like today's bonus project AS MUCH, or more, than today's mini. Can you believe it?

 

MY TOP TEN LISTS

Stop for a moment and think about all the Top Ten's you have in your life. Pick a few. Now make a mini. And date it, for sure. Because what's a Top Ten today might change in a few months. For me, I have a few that {I think} will never change. But, never say never. My, oh, my, how I've learned that one.

Using this Label mini book {which has 8 double-sided papers and two binder rings included} and some photographs, I was able to corral quite a few Top Ten lists in one place. And, if I wanted to add more lists, I can just order another Label mini book, saving the chipboard covers for another use, and have 8 more pages of lists to add. The Front Porch mini papers were used for the cover.

I randomly inked the chipboard heart with some Cough Syrup dye ink, added cardstock label stickers, a rhinestone studded bow and two sets of letter stickers, which you've seen me use all week. The flower embellishment was made by punching 3 scallop shapes. Use one as the base and adhere the other two back-to-back. Scrunch the double layer, then layer on top of the single {flat} layer and pierce with a brad. 

I'm using that super cute acrylic butterfly stamp as an embellishment on each page as well as these cardstock label stickers and alpha stickers in red, but they do come in several other colors.

 

BUTTON BRACELET

What exactly can you do with some seam binding, a handful of buttons, a few pearl accents and a length of elastic? Make a bangle of course!

After trimming a piece of elastic about an inch longer than I actually needed, I cut a length of blue seam binding ribbon and proceeded to thread my sewing machine. As you can see in the photo below, I stretched the elastic and began sewing a straight stitch, holding the elastic taught as I continued sewing. After releasing the elastic, it makes the seam binding all scrunchy. You could probably skip this step if you happen to use thinner elastic than what I had in my craft supply. I happen to like it though and would probably do this step again, even if I used a thinner elastic. It helps to hid the spaces between the buttons.

I sewed the buttons onto my seam binding embellished elastic strip with embroidery floss and added the pearl accents and rhinestone studded bow along the way, mixing larger and smaller elements. After realizing that some of my elastic strip was still showing a bit I used the same technique as I did for the cover of my "the two of us" mini and sprinkled them in the gaps. When I was finished, I fitted it to my wrist and sewed it together with my embroidery floss. Here you can see the cute, colorful front and the not-so-cute inside. I'm wearing it anyway.

This bracelet really makes me smile and my girls are already asking for a mini version for themselves!

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Interested in finding out more about Jenni Bowlin Studio products? You can find them here:
blog: http://www.jennibowlinstudioinspiration.blogspot.com/
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jenni-Bowlin-Studio/114121281953129
twitter:  http://twitter.com/jbsmercantile
message board: http://jbsmercantileforum.ning.com/
gallery: http://www.jbsmercantile.com/create.asp

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Tomorrow is give.away.day. here at Write. Click. Scrapbook. and can you guess what awesome scrapbooking company might be sponsoring? That's right, Jenni Bowlin Studio is going to be featured so be sure to come back and leave a comment for your chance to win.

On Friday, we'll have Aly, Celeste and Erin sharing their mini albums and they are sooooo ca-yute!

Have Fun and Craft On!

the two of us

 

 

Another day, and that means another mini album in this MINI ALBUM WEEK featuring the funky, fun, vintage products from Jenni Bowlin Studio.

 

THE TWO OF US

Today, both my mini album and my bonus project are going to highlight my marriage. My husband is my best friend and I like to let him know that every so often.

I've used a very simple journaling card pack and turned it into a mini album. Using this 4x4 paper pack to cover the chipboard side of my white heart, I used this acrylic stamp set, one of these buttons and a rhinestone studded pearl to add some texture to the front. Using the blue seam binding ribbon, I did a running stitch in some yellow embroidery floss and then scrunched and gathered it, tying a knot to secure it to the button. The Mini Alpha set in brown (it comes in other colors, too) offsets the word two from this cardstock alpha set.

Using the same acrylic stamp and my dye ink in Cough Syrup, I used the white side of the heart as a dedication page. I didn't add much, as this entire mini is all about the journaling. There are no photos at all, only the images from the journaling card pack. By the way, the cards and heart come unpunched, I just did that so that I could add the red binder ring. 

There's absolutely no waste in using any of the Jenni Bowlin Studio 4x4 paper packs. I cut each sheet I used for this project in half, folded a piece of seam binding ribbon in half and sandwiched it between the paper and the journaling card, and I was finished.

Hmmm, the handwriting below looks a little different than mine doesn't it? That's because I asked my husband to write a little something for my mini album project. I really thought he would go the goofy route and write something that would make me laugh, knowing that it was going to be shared online. But, no, he surprised me. Yes, he gets bonus points for making me get all mushy inside AND for satisfying his goofy wife's mini album whim. He's a keeper.

When I make mini's for family, I always add {the wright stuff} and the date. Using the Bracket stamp is a nice way to do that.

 

THE KEY TO MY HEART

Bonus Time! A chipboard heart, some red seam binding ribbon and a rhinestone-studded pearl accent all from Jenni Bowlin Studio turn this canvas into a piece of (he)art! Awwww. Was that too goofy? Please forgive me, I do get silly sometimes.

Leaving the edges of this art canvas raw, I dabbed the Lemon Drops dye ink pad until it reached my desired color intensity. I also stamped a butterfly image, which is mostly hidden behind the chipboard heart and the receipt stamp image in Seed Packet. Randomly dabbing my ink pads around the art canvas and smoothing out the ink pad edges with my fingers helped me to create depth. A Sharpie was used to write my sentiment.

My dictionary page, featuring the word key, was just too bright, so I grabbed the gray crayon that was left on my craft desk by my youngest daughter, who rarely cleans up her messes, highlighting the edges of the heart with the Lemon Drops dye ink.

We invite you to drop by the jbs inspiration blog for a visit and to see all the awesome mini albums their designers craft for the Write. Click. Scrapbook./Jenni Bowlin Studio MINI ALBUM WEEK extravaganza!

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JBS Mercantile is your one-stop on-line marketplace dedicated to monthly Papercrafting and Project Kits offered on a member and non-member basis. The site also offers an assortment of complementary embellishments, specialty kits, the full line of Jenni Bowlin Studio products and vintage one-of-a-kind items. Our award winning design team provides monthly inspiration that can be found on the website gallery and message boards, our jbsmercantile blog, twitter and facebook.

Join in the fun today at www.jbsmercantile.com.

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Have Fun and Craft On!

in my garden

Hi scrappy friends, Monika Wright here with what I promise will be a week full of mini goodness!

Mini albums, mini books, mini journals...whatever you might call them, they're cute, they're fun and they don't take a lot of time to create. From start to finish, the part that takes me the longest is waiting for my photos to print, but since I print at home I work on my mini pages while my printer hums away in the background.

Each day this week, you'll be greeted with a fresh, new mini album AND a bonus project. That's right, a bonus project. I'll show you some sweet gift items to make with all the little bits and pieces that are left on your craft desk after your project is completed. Instead of putting them way, maybe to be forgotten, let's create something that will make you smile.

 

IN MY GARDEN

I've been wanting to document the seasons IN MY GARDEN for quite a while and am finally able to mark that project off my list. To embellish the front of this hinged metal tin, I used my paper piercer to punch two holes in the plastic lid and fed the yellow seam binding ribbon from the three color pack through hole and tied a knot. The flower was created by wrapping baker's twine around my scallop-punched shape and adding a button threaded with more baker's twine and embellished with a rhinestone-studded pearl.

I used the same scallop shape on the back of the flower, without baker's twine, to hide the pop dots I used to adhere it to the front of the tin. Each of the mini's is bound with more seam binding but in four different positions along the left side, as you'll see in another photo, so that the mini books will fit nicely into the tin.

I was able to fit four mini albums, one for each season, inside. I am using this stamp as a place to hand write my title, these border stickers, this set of letter stickers and a butterfly stamp using the Cough Syrup and Lemon Drop dye inks. Each mini has 6 kraft paper pages for me to add my photos to as each season arrives.

The left hand page is laid out exactly the same on all the pages. Using the color Seed Packet, I randomly inked this Guest Check stamp to give an even more vintage feel to the kraft paper background. Versa Mark was used to stamp the butterfly image and then Cough Syrup on this Bracket stamp.

The colors and selection of papers in the Front Porch Mini Papers pack are bright, cheerful and a joy to play with. The cheerful mixture of 24 4x4 papers were the only patterned papers I used to make ALL the mini albums this week and I have several sheets remaining! Let me share this page with you so that you can see how each 2-page spread is designed.

 

WE LOVE U

Are you ready for today's bonus project? It's a Mother's Day gift, packaged in another of the hinged metal tins, and embellished with the butterfly stamp {I stamped it first in Lemon Drops and then lightly in Cough Syrup} that's been fussy cut, punched on each side and adhered with the blue seam binding. I used the Bracket stamp as a simple gift tag.

Using a silver chain I already had on hand, all I had to do was string the rhinestone-studded pearl onto the chain to complete my necklace. I also had the earring posts in my craft stash and all I had to do was open the wire and thread a plain pearl onto each of the posts. Using the Red Label Stickers, I spelled out my message with the Tiny Circle Alpha Cardstock sticker. Cute packaging, super cute gift.

I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to create each of this week's mini albums and bonus projects using product from Jenni Bowlin Studio.

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Jenni Bowlin, along with her husband, Jared, founded Jenni Bowlin Studios in 2007. Jenni had been scrapbooking for over ten years and had always been drawn to antique treasures with stories to tell. She creates products that reflect her love of old things with a modern twist. The result is a product line she calls "Fresh Vintage," an unique and fun style, perfect for paper crafters everywhere. Her lines include patterned paper, vintage style labels, old timey buttons, and other re-inventions of flea market finds that manifest themselves in embellishments that hearken back to days gone by. She also offers a monthly papercrafting kit through Jenni Bowlin Mercantile.

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Playing along with me during MINI ALBUM WEEK will be Aly Dosdall, Celeste Smith (who is also on the Design Team at Jenni Bowlin Studio) and Erin Sweeney from the Write. Click. Scrapbook. Inspiration Collective, as well as several of the talented designers on the Design Team at Jenni Bowlin Studio. Each day, the JBS team will be joining me in my MINI ALBUM WEEK on their blog, too. Awesome, don't you think?

I invite you to visit with our Jenni Bowlin friends over on the JBS blog as their designers wow you with their own mini album creations each day. Don't forget to leave a comment telling them Write. Click. Scrapbook. sent you!

Have Fun and Craft On,

Rejoice!

Right now

First things first: that is how Emma sees me through the lens of a camera. Yep, photo courtesy of my five-year-old while waiting in the doctor's office. And with that, hello and welcome to Saturday and what I'm doing right now. Well, not right now this very second, that would be watching the news and drinking a Dr Pepper. But rather what I'm doing, what I'm loving, and what's on my wish-I-had list.

Pinterest. Have you tried it? Love it. It's a great way to keep track of your scrapbook inspiration as well as other crafts, home decor, fashion and more.

Now that I have a boy, I need to start acquiring scrapbook supplies that aren't pink, purple and sparkly. Enter Crate Paper's Toy Box line. My favorite? The chipboard embellishments. I need them.

 

I'm still loving border punches. Have you seen American Crafts new Knock Outs border punches? These two are on my need-to-buy list:

the Pinking punch

 
and the Ric Rac punch

 

For inspiration, I'm stalking reading Keisha Campbell's blog, A Bit East-coast. I love her photo placement, mixture of patterned paper and use of embellishments. I think I'm drawn to her style because it is so opposite of mine.

 

 
 

I'm scraplifting myself. Which I realize seems a bit of a contradiction to my post yesterday about stepping out of your comfort zone. But I was recently looking through my girls' albums and saw some pages I really loved. So I pulled them out and am using them for inspiration.

I made this page back in 2007

 

And tonight, I made this

 
 
Obviously it's not exactly the same. But it gave me a starting point and made completing this page easy and quick. I actually ended up with more journaling than I'd left room for, which meant no room for a title. Easy solution - a sticker. This page is now titled Live Out Loud. Granted, this not at all what I'd planned on titling it, but out of necessity I'm going with it. (Actually, I just noticed I didn't tile my older layout either, although I'm guessing that was because I couldn't think of a one. I'm terrible at them.)

That layout wraps up my week. Thanks for stopping by. I'd love to know what's on your Right Now list, leave a comment and I'll be sure to check it out.  

Happy scrapping!

Challenge thyself

                                                                                                                                                        If you're anything like me, you tend to stick to what you're comfortable with when designing your layouts. (I'm sensing a theme here, first journaling, now this.) It's certainly easy that way, but it's also easy to get in to a rut. It could be page size, photos, how simple or complex your pages are, technique, or what type of embellishments you use. We do what we know, what we're good at, what we like.

But sometimes, it's good to step out of our comfort zone and try a new style or technique. I challenged four WCSers to do just this, and here's what they came up with.

Keshet is not a stamper, but for this challenge she decided to break out the stamps and see what happened.

While I have a nice-sized stamp collection, I don't actually use my stamps very often! I tend to use premade embellishments more than ones I create myself, and I'm never sure how the stamping will actually turn out on my layout. I found with this layout that I can actually use stamps much more freely if I cut them out and place them on the layout--that way, if I don't get a perfect image the first time, I won't sweat it! To create the stamped clouds on this layout, I used Studio Calico stamps that coordinate with Fiskars cloud punches to stamp and then punch out my clouds. I love the homespun charm they add to my layout, and with no stress, either! I look forward to trying stamping again soon now that I'm learning how to make it work for me.

12x12 | Materials  patterned paper (KI Memories, My Mind's Eye, Cosmo Cricket)+ stickers (Sassafrass, American Crafts) + stars (Jenni Bowlin Studio) + buttons (My Mind's Eye) + stamps (Studio Calico) + ink (Ranger) + pen (Marvy)

Celeste challenged herself to try misting on a layout, something she'd been hesitant to do.

I have been resistant to misting ever since I had to do it for an article in Simple in 2008. I am not a fan or anything messy or imprecise, so you'll rarely find me using paint or ink. I've been known to say "I'm not a mister." I took the easy way out here too! I put my paper in a box and squirted just a couple times to get a little on the background paper. The box helped me with the mess and after I sprayed I rolled a paper towel roll across the cardstock to sop up the excess (less mess). This kept the paper from warping another one of my fears! I think the ink gave some texture and interest to my page - a bit of fun perhaps. I plan on trying it again - maybe next time with a mask.

 

For Donna, it's rub-ons. Yet she just couldn't resist these Studio Calico rub-ons.

I took Amy's Bits and Pieces challenge a couple of weeks back and I did so mainly for the rub-on part of the challenge. I don't really know why, but I just hardly ever use them. Because of that I hardly ever buy them anymore either - I have to be really tempted by the design. I tried to resist these days of the week rub-ons from Studio Calico but they got me in the end! Since a lot of what I tend to scrapbook is our everyday lives I figured I'd have a good chance of using them. For this page I just collected lots of my favorite shots from this spring so far. I hope I never forget these simple everyday moments. It's a huge part of why I scrapbook.

 

Amy tends to stick with flat embellishments on her pages, so for this layout, she challenged herself to use thick embellishments Bonus - she made them herself!

The "outside my box" thing I did was the flowers. I love this look but it makes me deeply anxious to have something that thick on a layout—so I've never done it before. What I discovered is that making the flowers was really fun. It let me dig into my stash of fabrics for patterns I couldn't have found in paper. Will I make something this thick again? Not often (because I'm still not certain how well it will fit into an album!) but yes, absolutely sometimes! (PS, I made the flower by cutting wavy strips of three different fabrics. Each strip is narrower than the next one. I sewed a gathering row of stitches---just the longest stitch your machine will do---gathered them, and then formed them into circles. I also broke out my glue gun to put it all together. This is also outside of my comfort zone, quite literally, as I always manage to burn myself when I use the glue gun. No exception with the flowers!)

12x12| Materials patterned paper (Echo Park) + alphabet stickers (Webster's Pages, American Crafts) + fabric scraps + buttons + fonts (LD Free Sprit, Missed Your Exit)

If you're feeling up to the challenge, try a supply or technique you've been avoiding on a layout. You might find a new go-to technique!

and the giveaways go to . . .

One of the greatest gifts that scrapbooking provides is insight. Understanding that the ordinary is truly the extraordinary. Isn't scrapbooking wonderful?

Thank you, Ella, for helping provide us with inspiration. We are thrilled to see two of our founders together in a book and appreciate your willingness to share it with our readers.

And while we can't say that the next five will live happily ever after, we do, with confidence, predict that they will experience great happiness upon reading this...

Hooray! We love grand giveaways. Five lucky happy ladies. For those who were not drawn, please feel free to buy it anyway.☺ You will be glad you did. And to our lucky five, please email us before midnight tomorrow so that we might get you your free copy code!

Erin is back with more advice and some wonderful layouts. Don't go far!!

give.away.day. featuring ELLA PUBLISHING CO.

The sun is shining! The birds are chirping! The splendor of spring is upon us! We are so excited on this magical April Thursday to offer a giveaway that is guaranteed to make you look 15 years younger, run twice as far in half the time, and pad your checking account with riches comparable to someone seven times your tax bracket—all the while making the life of Kate, that princess-to-be across the ocean, seem like an absolute bore. Cue the choir of angels: it's....

Oh, wait. April Fool's Day was last week. OK, OK, so today's give.away.day. doesn't quite deliver on all those promises, but what if we offered something even better...a little inspiration to make your Actual Real Life (you know, the one where you aren't getting any younger or faster or richer or princess-like) feel a tiny bit less mundane and more magical? That we can do!

 

Our very own Elizabeth Dillow and original Write.Click.Scrapbook. founder Tina Cockburn have teamed up to present their own unique spin on finding the true magic of life in the mundane, routine details of ordinary life! Just released by Ella Publishing Co., this new instant download eBook provides simple, stylish design and lots of inspiration to document your everyday moments—enough that you might be reminded that your Actual Real Life is more valuable than all the crown jewels in the world. Even the days that begin with stepping on Cheerios in the kitchen.

Five readers will receive instant download codes for Scrapbooking the Everyday today! Please tell us one (or both!) of the following: how do you celebrate a seemingly mundane detail of ordinary life? And, just for fun, will you be watching The Royal Wedding on April 29? Comments will remain open until 8 pm PT, so don't delay! Remember, it is your responsibility to check back to see if you're one of the fortunate five; you'll need to claim your eBook by emailing us at writeclickscrapbook (at) gmail (dot) com by midnight, Saturday. In the meantime, take advantage of a special limited-time offer sale: in honor of Wendy Smedley's 43rd birthday, when you buy one eBook you can receive the second for 43% off!

Now if you'll excuse us, the royal carriage awaits.

; )

Digging Deep

So it's 10:08 pm Tuesday night and I'm sitting in the basement with my trusty late night sidekick, three-year-old Mackenzie. Unfortunately, Mackenzie fell asleep in the car today which always results in a very late bedtime for her. My husband has a mathematical equation for it:  every 10 minutes she sleeps = 1 hour up past bedtime. So we're looking at about 11 pm before she heads to bed tonight. I'm thinking this little quirk of hers needs to be recorded on a scrapbook page. But as that will be a light-hearted layout, it won't quite fit today's post.

Today we're digging deep with our journaling. Tackling those stories, memories, thoughts and feelings that we don't always put down on pages. I know for me, I tend to stick with light-hearted or event-based layouts. While I do have some that fall outside these bounds, like my children's birth story or a page I recently did about holding Ryan for the first time, they're definitely not the norm. It's hard for me put down really personal and private feelings on a layout for everyone to see. I just don't normally share that part of myself.

So I gave myself a challenge:  Do a layout about something personal, something that's been on my mind lately. And while this topic is one I most likely would've attempted at some point, I probably would've put a comical spin on it. Instead, I created this.

 8.5 x 11| Materials cardstock (Bazzill) + patterned paper (KI Memories, Making Memories, Basic Grey)+ letter stickers (American Crafts) + circle accent (American Crafts) + border punch (EK Success) + font (Calibri)

I challenged a couple of the WCS girls to also tackle a page heavy on the journaling, deep on the meaning.

Marie doesn't often journal on her pages, so this was definitely out-of-the-box for her.

There are two main reasons why I never seem to write a lot on my pages. First, although it seems incredibly silly, a lot of times it is hard for me to FIT the journaling on the page. I always do better when I write the journaling first, and then design the page, instead of visa versa. That way my journaling is not an afterthought, but the focus. Secondly, I scrap when I can. While working on this page, I helped my daughter make a kite, played trains with my three year old, made lunch, played a game with the family, and nursed the baby. It only took about four hours to finish-ha. But, I am so glad I took the time :)

 
 

Monika decided to place her journaling in an envelope, letting those who are looking at the page decide whether or not to read the journaling.

The journaling for this layout has been in my head, and in my heart, for several months. It's a story that is not particularly pleasant, but I wanted my son to know how I felt about the experience. Looking at the layout, no one would ever imagine the powerful story that is contained within that glassine envelope...three journaling cards front and back full of a Mama's angst, hopes, dreams and words of wisdom. So, the journaling was not all that hard to do, I knew I wanted to document this phase in Zach's life, but actually making the layout and reliving the events were. On the up side, I purposefully chose a happy photo and an inspiring die cut. If someone wants to read the story, they can, but they are not subjected to these private words unless they want to be.

 

Sometimes it can be hard to get those deep-from-the-heart words down on paper, especially for all to see. It's like taking your diary and publishing it. And really, who wants to do that?  But, telling the serious stuff is just as important to your story, and your family's story, as the fun stuff.

 

PS, this whole not journaling the serious stuff thing could just be me and everyone else already has these pages in their albums. In fact, you might be a total rock star with them. In that case, check back tomorrow for the always fabulous give.away.day. ;)