Write. Click. Scrapbook.

CHA Armchair Attendee Week: Write. Click. Scrapbook. Team Members' "Must Haves"

Welcome to the last day of CHA Armchair Attendee Week! I hope you've enjoyed our week this week - I had a lot of fun checking out all of the sneak peeks, pics and video from the CHA show floor, and sorting through all of that to find the key trends I shared earlier this week.

For today's post, I (Vivian) asked Write. Click. Scrapbook. team members to tell me what their top "must have" is from this set of CHA releases. The only parameter I set was that they had to choose a product from a manufacturer whose design team they are not on. Some team members had an easy time doing this and were able to instantly name a favorite. Others took some time to think it over. Some of us had a really hard time and listed more than one product since our top "must have" was, in fact, a tie amongst several "must haves." Some are still thinking about it. Some lines were pretty popular amongst the team, as you will see below.

Without further ado, here, in alphabetical order by team members' last names, are our "must have" products:

Francine Clouden: Studio Calico Abroad Thickers and Alpha Stickers

Paula Gilarde: Crate Paper Storyteller Collection (especially the chipboard)

Donna Januzzi: Simple Stories Documented Mix & Match 6" X 8" Album

Vivian Masket: Dear Lizzy Neapolitan Date Stamp and Echo Park This & That Charming Collection

Lisa Ottosson: Pink Paislee Prairie Hill Collection (12 x 12 papers)

Christa Paustenbaugh: Crate Paper Storyteller Collection and Dear Lizzy Neapolitan Collection

  
Diane Payne: American Crafts Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Collection, in particular, the Remarks Pigment Stickers (the set at the far right)

Katrina Simeck: Lily Bee Double Dutch Collection

Celeste Smith: Studio Calico Abroad Collection (the papers, in particular)

Amy Sorensen: Bella Blvd Sopisticates Collection High Five Alphas

Emily Spahn: Heidi Swapp Instaframes and Bella Blvd Designer Tape

Keshet Starr: October Afternoon 9 to 5 Collection and Studio Calico Take Note Collection

Erin Sweeney: Studio Calico Classic Calico Vol 2 (especially the chevron mask and the washi tape) and Take Note Collections and the Crate Paper Storyteller Collection

 

Feel free to share your "must haves" in the comments below - we want to know what's caught your eye, particularly if we've missed seeing it!

I hope you've enjoyed CHA Armchair Attendee Week here at Write. Click. Scrapbook. this week! I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't wait until some of this new product hits stores!

Welcome, February!

Our new gallery is live! The theme this month is Music. Please enjoy the layouts. And we would love to hear from you if you love them!

 

Sadly, we say goodbye to Clouds. Her clean and simple, yet artistic style will be missed. Thank you for all the technique tips, Clouds! We wish you the best.

Happily, we have two new members of the family! The adoption papers are in and it is official! Please put your hands together and welcome, Diane Payne and Emily Spahn.

We are so very excited to have them in our write. click. scrapbook. family and are thrilled for you to get to know them more. Their pages are happy, colorful, thoughtful, and incredibly well-designed. We feel very lucky to have them!! Please leave them a quick hello and then race off to check out their bio pages and to see their work in our gallery!

Thank you for stopping by! February may only have 29 days but it will be jam-packed with love and inspiration so please stop by each and every day!!

2011 Highlights!

As the year draws to a close, we are grateful for a year filled with new additions, a new look, and new features. We hope that you have loved everything we have created for you! As a finale for the year, we brought back a few fan favorites!

What a terrific year it has been. We can only imagine what next year will bring... Thank you, dear readers, for being here every step of the way!

give.away.day. featuring THE WCS TEAM

Just one more time? Please, oh please? Let's have one last round of birthday celebrations! And one last use of our awesome birthday mosaic!

Did you know over the past two years we have had 24 monthly galleries and 885 blog posts (this makes 886!)? We have had 28.823 comments and 1,244,707 page views.

This year, we have added 10 new teammates and Twitter and Tumblr. We've done more giveaways than there are weeks in the year. We have added new babies to the fold, and kissed big babies as they left for college. And somehow, in the middle of it all we still found time to cook, clean, parent, launder, shovel, mow, plant, sew, work, and sometimes, but not often, sleep.

It's been quite a year!

 

Before we tell you about today's giveaway, we wanted to let you know about our new summer scheduling. As you know, each week one of our team members hosts the blog for a Monday through Saturday stretch. We love this format and will return to it September 5th. But until then, we are going on summer vacation.

No, sillies, we aren't closing shop for three months, rather we are adapting our format to allow our teammates to spend more time with their families. Therefore, during the months of June, July, and August, the blogging hostess will change every single day! Now you won't have to wait for weeks for your favorite to appear! But you will have to stay on your toes and check in daily to be sure to see who is making a grand entrance that day.

Just think how fun it will be to pop in each day to see who will be hosting! A little extra summer fun! We hope you enjoy this summer schedule and can't wait to get started! Our general format (Thursday giveaways, and Sunday photos) will continue. There will be a change in how long the giveaways remain open, so be sure to read the fine print on Thursday!

And now on to our last final day of birthday celebrations.

The single greatest thing about being a part of Write. Click. Scrapbook. is our most amazing team. These ladies are, as you know, smart, funny, and extremely talented. While some of them have helped shape the scrapbooking community for years, others are now taking it by storm and ready to leave their own unforgettable mark. If I may take a few minutes, I wanted to share with you what I see in each of our designers.

How about reverse alphabetical?

Wendy - has more knowledge about the industry in her pinkie than most do in their whole being. Kind, perceptive, and quietly ambitious. Her pages are colorful and humorous and remind us to try new things.

Vivian - is soft, gentle, and has a great laugh. Her pages are filled with stories that make me long to be a better mother, and they have a sensibility and groundedness to them.

Stacy - is the reason that simple exists as a defined form! Exuberant, vivacious and incredibly energetic. Her pages radiate the same love of life that she does.

Paula - is bright, attentive, and watchful. Her pages are filled with photoframes, careful insights into her children, and are equally amazing in both digital and traditional formats.

Moon - is high-lair-ee-ous. Wicked in her wit and able to find the humor in anything. Her pages are balanced, graphic, and validate my feelings that parenting is hard sometimes.

Monika - is kind-hearted, jubilant, and one of the most cheerful people on earth. Her pages are filled with love, her delightful handwriting, and she has a way with finding or creating the perfect embellishments.

Melissa - is uber-crafty, and is simultaneously practical and whimsical. I love how her bright happy pages often have one main larger embellishment which perfectly adds to the page's story.

Marie - is smart, steady, and loyal. Her photos draw you into her pages but it is her scrapbooking of fierce friendships that makes me wish I were one of her besties.

Lisa O - is funny, clever, and patient. Her pages remind me to scrapbook my childhood and that teeny little embellishments can have a big impact.

Keshet - is darling, devoted, and youthful (in a good way!). Her pages remind me to be proud of my heritage, and that life (and pages) exist beyond my children.

Kelly - is well-read, well-spoken, and well-written. I love that her pages are not the only way she scrapbooks and that her home is filled with her talent!

Katrina - is earthy, calming, and centered. Her pages exude this same calm and her stories are genuine, heartfelt, and have just the perfect sprinkle of giggles.

Karen - is introspective, thoughtful, and intuitive. Her pages reflect her intellect and she has a remarkable ability with patterns, color, and combining bold and tiny elements.

Jody - is the perfect balance between strength and vulnerability, with a side of acerbic wit. Her pages are perfectly composed in every way and she makes me want to scrapbook more, and more deeply.

Francine - is urban, hip, and amazingly competent. Her pages have delightful little details that balance her big word titles, and her positive outlook shines through on her pages.

Erin - is sarcastic, uninhibited, and endearing. Her pages have an accessibility and girl-next-door quality that makes them very delightful.

Emily - is quirky, dry-witted, and ever-so-friendly. Her charming personality effuses from her colorful eclectic artistic pages.

Donna - is considerate, compassionate and filled with depth. Her pages reflect her pure heart and give us a glimpse into the sweet nature that fills her mother heart.

Cheryl - is irreverent, raucous, and one of the funniest people I know. Her pages ooze personality and her mad home decor skills made me green with envy.

Celeste- is unselfish, organized, accomplishing and could singlehandedly scrapbook for an entire small nation, in one weekend crop. Any one of her pages could be used as an example of perfectly executed design principles.

Beth - is refined, beautiful, and the picture of class. Her talent for printables and packaging will one day make her even more famous than her clean, color well designed pages!

Autumn - is kind, unassuming, and incredible. Her pages have the feel and design of high quality ads, and that she captures her boys' antics so honestly is refreshing and makes me smile.

Ann - is teensy in body but with a giant heart. I love how her mathematical side comes through in the organization on her pages, but still leaves plenty of room for her creativity to shine.

Angie - is perfectly goofy, centered, and can't help but make you smile. Her pages show just how big her heart is, though I most appreciate them for their grammatical correctness. (Or shallI say their goodest grammars?)

Amy - is dedicated, surprising, and clever. Her strength, for me, is her remarkable ability to put her thoughts into perfect words and phrases which makes her pages shine.

Aly - is focused, prolific, and giving. I love how she is not afraid to try new techniques and adapt them to her signature style to create pages that are both recognizable and current.

Marcy, Lisa, Christa, Claudia, and Alexandra, please know how happy we are to have you aboard and how we look forward to getting to know you and your strengths. Thank you for joining our team!

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And now, for our giveaways.

We wanted to end this week of celebration with a few personal giveaways. From our team to you.

 

That's it! Thirteen lucky numbers. Seems about as lucky as lucky could be. We are happy to share our talents with you and can't say thank you enough to all of you for joining us each day. If you would like to be considered for these giveaways, please leave us a comment identifying a designer (by her letter) in the birthday mosaic. You may leave as many comments as you can match people to letters (but just one comment per teammate identified). Comments will remain open until next Friday evening. All 13 lucky numbers will be chosen at random from the correct responses, and the names will be posted on Saturday, June 10th. Please remember to check back to see if yours is one of the lucky thirteen!

Thank you for being with us this week! We hope to see you every day in our comments and in the Flickr gallery! We appreciate you!

Welcome, May!

Before we begin the fun of a brand new gallery, we must first bid farewell to some of our Write. Click. Scrapbook. family. Rebecca, Sara, Kim and Aussie Jody are leaving us this month. We are heartbroken to lose them, but recognize that family comes first, and work trumps play. We have appreciated their style, their teaching, their contributions, and most of all, their friendship. As we bid them adieu, we hope that they will peek in from time to time as we will on them. Good luck friends, you will be missed.

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This month, our theme is Everydaily. Yes, we made up a word. It's our very own special way of recognizing everything we do everyday. You know the daily stuff: dishes, diapers, visiting www.writeclickscrapbook.com. The stuff that happens so much it's not just everyday, and not just daily, but instead, it's Everydaily!!

 

 

Have you ever sat down at the end of the day, tired, exhausted really, thinking, why am I so tired? It's not like I have done much... And then you start to make a list in your head and then realize you have been on the go all. day. long. Phew! No wonder you are tired.

We all have been scrapbooking long enough to have learned to appreciate the little things. Truly we do appreciate them. We have begun to look at our days and our hours and our minutes differently. As we try to be more in touch with the beauty of the everyday, what we photograph might have changed. Or how we journal might have become a bit more real. This month we want to celebrate our days. Our team has put together some fantastic layouts to inspire you to create your own bit of everydaily heaven.

Melissa chronicles all that her boys do in their twelve hours of wakefulness. Celeste created a list of an average day--be warned, you might be tired from reading it, let alone living it. (note: she wakes at 5:45. Superwoman!!)

Hourly journaling takes a fun twist when Karen puts her signature style to it adding bitty photos to help tell the stories. And while Vivian takes a more traditional list approach, don't for a second think it makes for a boring layout!! Aly not only notes each activity throughout a typical day, but she also managed to take her camera along!! And putting arranging her page in calendar form is genius! Keshet includes a selfie that adds the "what were you wearing that day" element to her long list of to-dids.

As Marie put her daily elements together, she didn't limit herself to taking all her photos from one day. Instead she dipped into her 365 photos and found ones that represented daily life. What great permission to (re)use or (re)purpose photos you already have. Autumn used seven photos on her layout, one for each day of the week, and her journaling represents a list of a week's worth of everydaily activities. No rule that an everydaily layout can't be weekly, or monthly...

Lisa uses an old note and some saved photo booth photos to remember what daily life held for her back when her daughter was just one and a half. Moon created lists of what each of her children do on one particular day of the week, and then paired them with a closeup photo of each child. Why make it complicated? Francine picked a random day (coincidentally the same day as Moon...) and tried to capture the day in photos, letting them do most of the talking for what her son does in a typical day. Donna also lets her photos help tell the story of how she and her boys spend their time on a given day (sadly not Tuesday this time, though. Teehee!) and makes great use of a grid to help keep her page organized and clean.

Taking a different spin on the Everydaily, Elizabeth created a page reminding her of the things she wants to keep foremost in her everyday living. And Emily used a family photo paired with a twice daily ritual in their home to document one of their family priorities.

Kelly bravely took a photo of her junk drawers (all 4! teehee!) reminding us that is is okay to document the not so pretty stuff, too. Monika joined in, taking snapshots of some little messes she found around the house one morning (I wonder if it was a Tuesday?) and then reinterpreting the idea of a mess as an opportunity to describe their daily living. Her optimism and humor must have been contagious as Ann took an humorous approach with her page, trying to explain exactly what it is she does all day at work.

Taking time to document the little things about her half-marathon, Katrina does double duty, as her page is homage to and celebration of many daily runs. You go girl!! Fellow runner Amy took the story of how one ordinary everyday Saturday morphed into something greater. Because sometimes the ordinary can become more. Great perspective, Amy!

Arranging her photos horizontally, and coming up with yet another amazing title treatment, Jody tells the story of her daughter's Everydailies with white space to spare. Marnie met Jody's white space and raised her one while she documented the most mundane of daily things, pen hair.

Join us in celebrating (and by that we mean actually scrapbooking!!) the Everydaily parts of your life. Be they boring, routine, tedious, or foundational, don't forget to scrapbook the little things. Imagine if you could see layouts of the velvet wallpaper of your childhood homes. Or if you knew all the miles your mom put in driving you back and forth to activities. Have you calculated how many hours you spend feeding, changing, and holding your newborn? This is the month. Please let us inspire you to document the details of your Everydaily.

Enjoy the gallery!!

Welcome, January!

Once again, it is hard to believe that another year has gone by. In an effort to slow down Father Time, we wanted to scrapbook some some timeless beauties. No, not Barbie. (Though that was a good guess as she never really does age, does she??) Rather, this month we try to slow down time by scrapbooking a favorite timeless and beautiful black and white photo.

Who can resist the charm, the simplicity, and the agelessness of the black and white. Such photos allow us the freedom to create your own emotion. Black and white photos transcend seasonal celebration, truly fading backgrounds into the background. Facial expressions take on an unique quality without the beguilng forces of color. And nowadays, black and white is just the touch of a button away.

Join us in celebrating some of our favorite black and white photos this month. And don't forget to find a moment to scrapbook one of your favorite black and whites as well! We hope you enjoy our January gallery, Black and White. Happy New Year!

Simple Pages + Cards

A Note from Jody W.

If you’re anything like me, scrapping takes a back seat in the month of December. I was fortunate enough to be given the lovely Dear Lizzy Christmas line to play with, though, and coordinated products really do make it easier to get inspired at a busy time. The papers, rub-ons and ribbons were the perfect accompaniment to the photos I had chosen.

8.5 x 11 | materials patterned papers, letter stickers, buttons (American Crafts-Dear Lizzy Christmas) + circle punch (EK Success) + twine (Martha Stewart) + pop dots (Therm O Web) + font (Georgia) + jewels (unknown)

It’s an annual tradition to pose with the Santa hat in front of the tree. When we are done posing, the hat goes to its rightful spot on the beautiful carousel horse my father-in-law carved for us in our foyer.

8.5 x 11 | materials cardstock, patterned paper, rub-on, ribbon, and glitter letter stickers (American Crafts-Dear Lizzy Christmas)

I added jewels to the rub-on to mimic the jewels in the floral ribbon. I used a photo of my girls from last Christmas, I love how our Christmas tree sparkles in the background. Add a coordinating paper for the bottom, add the date and  *voila* a simple holiday page.

8.5 x 11 | materials cardstock, patterned paper, letter stickers, rob-ons (American Crafts-Dear Lizzy Christmas) + corner punch (EK Success) + pop dots (Therm O Web) + font (Arial)

And now another simple holiday page…I don’t know about your kids, but mine enjoy goofing around while having their pictures taken; this time my husband got in the act.

A Note from Vivian

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper, rub-on, dimensional stickers, and tag (American Crafts) + baker's twine (The Twinery) + border punch (Fiskars)

My solution for what to do with all of the holiday card photo outtakes? Collage them together for a quick and easy layout! I love using the free downloadable PhotoSheet program, as it allows me to collage photos together very quickly. For this layout, I created two 6-photo collages on 4” X 6” photo paper (collaged and printed in under five minutes!) and lined them up across my layout. I added patterned paper and embellishments to create a quick and easy layout capturing the silliness that developed during our holiday card photo shoot.

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper (Cosmo Cricket) + thread (Coats and Clark)

Letters to Santa capture so much: your kids’ spelling and handwriting at the time, their interests, and, if they add a picture, their artwork. Even though letters to Santa are not photos, they are definitely worth recording on a scrapbook page! This simple design highlights the letter my son wrote to Santa in 2007. (Interestingly enough, three years later he is still completely obsessed with Star Wars and Legos, and even more so with Star Wars Legos.) I scanned the reindeer Eli had drawn on the front of the letter as well as the text he’d written inside. I cut and pasted the scanned images into a Word document so that I could cut the letter out as an 8” square. I printed the document on white cardstock and trimmed it down to 8” X 8”. I adhered the letter to the center of a 12” X 12” sheet of dark green cardstock. A row of punched stars stitched with red thread embellish the top left of the layout and a tag embellished with another punched star, a brad, and a Santa handcut from patterned paper embellish the bottom right and provide a place for journaling.

cards | materials patterned papers, three-dimensional stickers, rub-ons, and buttons (American Crafts) + (baker’s twine) The Twinery

What to do when you’re in a pinch and need a quick holiday card? Use one of these five easy (under five
minutes!) design ideas!

1. Arrange 10 buttons in a triangle shape and measure the length of each side of the triangle. Cut a cardstock triangle to size and adhere buttons to the triangle. Attach the triangle to a card base with foam adhesive. Add a star embellishment above the triangle and a rub on greeting below.
2. Tear the edge of a piece of patterned paper and adhere it over a card base in a contrasting color. Add a horizontal strip of cardstock embellished with a rub-on greeting and a three-dimensional sticker.
3. Adhere a 2” piece of patterned paper to the bottom of a card base and adhere a strip of ribbon just above. Add a three-dimensional sticker in the white space above.
4. Cover a card base with patterned paper in a small-scale print. Add a rub-on greeting to a small tag, tie it with baker’s twine or ribbon and adhere to the card base at a diagonal. Add a three- dimensional sticker overlapping the top of the tag.
5. Cover a card base with text-print patterned paper. Adhere a patterned paper image (or a piece of cardstock with a rub-on greeting) across the card. Finish the card with a three-dimensional sticker placed to connect the text paper with the image.

A Note from Katrina

Having a stash of simple holiday note cards is so helpful at this time of year! I love using coordinated collections to easily pull together cute cards.

4 x 6 cards | materials card bases (American Crafts) + patterned paper, rub-ons (Kaisercraft)

A Note from Jody D-P

For a quick and simple handmade gift, gather smaller pieces of paper to create a collection of cards!

Package them in a clear bag with a matching topper for a special finishing touch!

A special thank you to American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, Kaisercraft and SEI for their generous sponsorship of our second annual WCS For the Holidays celebration!

Tags!

A Note from Kelly

gift tin | materials patterned paper, stamps, ink, punches, felt snowflake (Stampin' Up!) + twine + bells + ric rac

A friend of mine ordered these metal tins for me (you get a great discount if you order in bulk; find similar www.papermart.com ). They measure about 5 1/2 inches by 3 1/4 inches, and are just the perfect size for mini cards or gift tags. I decided to use stamps and make a gift tag kit to give as neighbor gifts.
I added a divider to the bottom of the tin to make it a bit easier to separate big tags from smaller ones. The divider measures 6 3/4 inches by 3 3/8 inches, with a "mountain fold" (an origami term: score three lines about1/2 inch apart and fold the center one up to make a mountain) just off center to make two
compartments in the tin.

Who needs to buy tags at the store?

A Note from Katrina

 4x6 cards | materials cardstock (Bazzill) + patterned paper, stickers, tape (dear Lizzy for American Crafts) + heart punch (Fiskars)

I had the privilege of meeting Katrina Kenison this summer, and absolutely ADORE her book—The Gift of an Ordinary Day. I decided that it would be the perfect gift for a few moms in my life. I dressed up the books with these simple book cards—no wrapping needed!

A special thank you to American Crafts for their generous sponsorship of our second annual WCS For the Holidays celebration!

Thoughtful Gifts for Teachers, Neighbors, and Colleagues

Today we're featuring clever, elegant, and do-able ideas for the gifts you can make in batches and share with teachers, neighbors, colleagues, or anyone else you'd love to share some holiday cheer with!

A Note from Katrina

jar covers | materials journaling spots, stickers, cardboard elements, ribbon (Jillibean Soup) + mason jars, vanilla beans, bourbon

I love to bake, and love high quality vanilla extract. I found an easy recipe for diy extract online, and decided to make a few extra jars for gifts. So easy to embellish the jars with these goodies from Jillibean Soup!

A Note from Kim

Last year for neighbor gifts, I baked a whole bunch of shortbread and gingerbread.

To decorate them, I used a couple of scrap supplies, namely my square punch and a piece of chipboard, to create templates. I placed them on the cookies as I topped the cookies with either decorative sparkling sugar (before baking) or powdered sugar (after baking).

I was very pleased with how well they came out. They looked so festive.

A Note from Beth

materials ribbon, chipboard (My Mind's Eye)

It’s always good to have small gifts/favors on hand this time of year. Here, I wrapped ribbon around a recycled water bottle and filled it with holiday m&m’s. Quick, easy and delicious!

A Note from Celeste

materials patterned paper, embellishments (Cosmo Cricket) + coin holders

I had a few hundred of these #3 coin holders leftover from another project and I wanted to put them to use. I was pleased when I figured out that a gift card would fit inside the envelope. I decorated the fronts of the envelopes using supplies from Cosmo Cricket's Mitten Weather line and now I can just slip them into a holiday card for a customized handmade touch.

A special thank you to Jillibean Soup, My Mind's Eye, and Cosmo Cricket for their generous sponsorship of our second annual WCS For the Holidays celebration!

Welcome, December!

It's a new month. Which means a new gallery!

Welcome, December, and welcome Holiday Food & Drink.

Are you a sugar or gingerbread cookie family? If you were to bake cookies, would you bake a specific kind, or dozens of everything?

Do you like fresh fruit and relish in winter?

Do you even know what figgy pudding is?

Did your grandmother teach you to bake?

What is your preferred drink this season?

Have you a recipe that sings to your soul? Have you a clever way to store recipes? or to share them?

What stories does your holiday table tell?

Does your holiday menu have favorites? regulars? adventurous firsts?

Do you doll up your desserts?

Do you dine with others? or keep it in the family?

Did you grow up with food traditions? Have you tried to start your own? Have you borrowed one from a friend? or shared one?

Do you give food gifts? or give unbaked items (so you cannot eat them all before giving them away)?

Have you tackled a gingerbread house? or village?

So much of our traditions surround food and treats. We were thrilled to take the opportunity to document our favorites. We hope you enjoy our new gallery and don't forget to take a food picture this holiday season so that you will have one to scrapbook when the calendar clears!